Cobourg Blog

Has anyone noticed a trend in the last few years about what jobs are available? In general, there are fewer manufacturing jobs and more service jobs. Every few years I read an article that talks about that in general terms and it’s happening right before our eyes. Workers who are in manufacturing are being replaced by automation and by off-shore workers who are paid less. Unions can slow down the process but not stop the trend. The best thing unions can do is to stay away from the factories - witness the Japanese factories in Ontario. The next thing they can do is offer concessions - witness the recent concessions at Ford. But eventually, there will be fewer manufacturing jobs.
To cope with the coming change, we need to direct our energies at service jobs. These include financial, call centres, construction, retail, travel, health, and more. Some very specialized manufacturing that benefits by being very close to the end market will survive but automotive manufacturing in Canada will basically get to be quite a small industry.
Since Ontario depends more on manufacturing than western provinces, Ontario is truly in danger of becoming a “have-not” province. So instead of subsidizing industries with little future, Governments should be developing new ones. Focus should be on retraining and support for new small businesses. Why throw good taxpayer money at a lost cause? Buzz Hargrove is already trying to convince politicians to support the CAW - um, sorry, support auto manufacturing. But I bet Buzz is pleased that he’s not too far from retiring from this losing game.
John Draper

First of all, you have to wonder about Brenda Martin’s common sense - why did she not leave when her boss was charged. Did she have faith in the Mexican Justice system? Maybe hindsight is why we know better but it seems she wanted to stay in Mexico for some reason we don’t understand.

And now, it seems clear why the verdict had to be guilty. No judge in Canada , US or Western Europe would find her guilty based purely on what the Mexicans admitted was purely circumstantial evidence - or do I have too much faith in our system? But if evidence is only that “she must have known” - it’s ludicrous that she would be found guilty. So why then? It can only be because the Mexican judge wanted to support his peers who had imprisoned her for 2 years. How else to justify this? If innocent, then they would have to explain why they imprisoned an innocent person for 2 years? This way Mexico “saves face”! The judge makes/keeps friends and he keeps his job. I’m not usually this cynical but I am when it comes to third world countries and their rampant corruption. Looks like Mexico just proved it really is a third world banana republic. Why would I want to holiday there? Big risk!!

Hopefully, she can now be transferred to Canada to serve her sentence and for once, Canada’s lenient prison laws are a benefit and she can be released immediately. But the Mexicans will want their money (fine) first - where else will the bribe money come from? Maybe the Canadian Government can “lend” it to her and get it back from the taxpayers. But wait, that’s a “gift”. I’m sure the Mexicans do equally devious things - so why shouldn’t we in this case?

John Draper

In about 1995 I started lugging around a laptop as part of my job for the obvious benefit of taking most of your office with you. When I got home or checked into a hotel, I would plug into the phone jack and download emails at about 20kbps. There were no social sites like Facebook and no home video sites like YouTube but we were a lot more connected than only a few years earlier. Even in 2000, this was the situation. Today, I went to the Human Bean and used their free wireless network to do the same thing except at much higher speeds. There are 3 places I know of where you can do this in Cobourg. But I am behind the “mobility times” - many people have Blackberries and do the same thing anywhere - not just in a cafe or hotel.

This is an incredibly fast change - I can’t think of all the social implications but they will come. This is as certain as the fact that Tibet is now in the Internet world and Chinese actions cannot be hidden from the world like they could when the Dalai Lama was forced to leave. Technology sometimes changes the way we live as well as the way we work. Examples: Telegraph, phone, TV, Internet, High speed Internet, Social networks…. What will be next? Biological technology has also made big social changes - antibiotics, effective birth control and more.

Hiding from technology does not help. Saying “I don’t need or want to participate” is not like insisting that radio is just as good as TV - it’s more like saying that being a hermit is better than living in a town. The world will change - you can either participate and benefit or live in a world that no longer exists.

But human nature is such that change is resisted - by some more than others. Some change should be resisted (e.g. pulling down historical buildings) but other changes both technological and social are inevitable. We should try to cope with them rather than try to stop them. This is a wide ranging comment - I don’t want to colour it (yet) by picking on a particular “change” but I’m sure others will!

John Draper