Unpublished letter sent to the Toronto Star

Re: Business groups pushing for higher wage subsidies, March 26, 2020

Both the Federal and the Provincial governments should not be subsidizing the private sector during the COVID-19 crisis or at any other time. This is the group that constantly asserts the independence of the private sector from government when times are good and the entrepreneurial spirit that takes on all crises in making their businesses a success. This is one of those crises that is part of the free enterprise system. They can’t have it both ways – taking all the profits when times are good and then running to the government (taxpayers) when times are bad. Government is for the people – not for the private sector.

This is the group that has laid off millions without wages during a health crisis that is beyond their control. This is the group that under normal circumstances advocates for ‘voluntary’ compliance and recoils at government regulation. This results in tsunami of problems which they disavow from industry dumping toxic waste into our watersheds to plastic pollution to poisoning bees with noenicitinoids and on and on all in the name of profit. This is the group that during the good times is always trumpeting for the government to stay out of their way and asserting that the private sector knows best and does things better than the public sector whom they constantly demean. This is the group that whines constantly about being over-taxed despite corporate and business taxes being at an all time low and corporate profits being at an all time high. This is the group that has made ‘contract’ work the new standard; meaning low paid, part-time minimum wage ‘precarious’ employment has now become the standard among workers around the world. This is the group that has not increased the minimum wage or real incomes a cent in thirty years. This is the group that has made trillions in profits during this same time that they have salted away in banks and offshore tax havens as their cushion for bad times like this. This is the group that has been sympathetic but has spent token amounts of their precious profits to help workers by at least paying their wages during this crisis instead of taxpayers subsidizing them once again. And yet this is the group that lines up without shame to ask for more money from government as though they were deserving and in need.

When profits get shared equally with the people who create them and the private sector starts pitching in directly in the COVID-19 crisis with their profits only then should governments consider subsidizing t the private sector. Until then say no to business.