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You seem to have an obsession with cheap labour from the "subcontinent." For the most part, these are hardworking new Canadians who are only trying to build their lives and raise their families. In the long run, we'll all benefit from their presence here
New Canadians, like I once was, from any origin are fine in my book, FWIW. The issue is our government bringing waves of international students and temporary foreign workers to fill the service and unskilled labour jobs that were often done by our young adults. Myself, as a PR non-Canadian in the 1980s and 1990s I worked in fast food, retail merchandising, landscaping and manufacturing to save for university - these jobs are now largely filled by TFWs and student visa holders. We must not conflate "new Canadians" of any origin trying to build their lives and raise their families with people here on temporary work or study visas. The Toronto Star explained how we got here better than I can. "Many factors — are at play with one of the largest being the federal government’s 2022 decision to deregulate the low-wage stream of the temporary foreign worker program."
www.thestar.com
immigration.ca
I don't deny that the TFW and student visa programs have been abused in recent years. But Trudeau only loosened up the rules in 2022, and Admiral Beez's problems with accented foreigners in service jobs long predate that.
Sigh, no one, including me cares if you have an accent, as long as you’re easily understood (and only if necessary) at work. You should have heard me when I arrived as a little Cockney lad in the 1970s, and my late mother, once on the tear was nearly incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with the accent of London’s east end, as accurately portrayed in Call the Midwife. Mind, as she worked at McDonalds she would switch to Canadian Standard English when speaking to the customers. Now, let’s get back on topic.
It's really a form of indentured servitude, as many are here, working these jobs, in hopes of being able to apply for PR.
I once spent a week in Scotland and could hardly understand anything the locals said.
If you started working at a grocery store in the 80s/90s you could make a "living" out of it. Nowadays it's mostly impossible to work at stores like these and do things like buy a house, buy a car, and support yourself on your own. These are no longer "career" positions. Part of this is a natural circumstance of capitalism and its solution was finding people who were willing to work for less. Once we ran out of echo boomer kids we pressed hard into TFWs. We had to, because the businesses don't want to pay living wages.
Again, I don't blame him. Most workplaces don't provide enough of a living wage to generate any sort of interest in working there. If you're never going to be able to buy a house or save up any money then what's the point of contributing?
Being able to converse has become less important. I always order from my phone or from the kiosk screen -- not just because I'm unsociable, but more to ensure I will get what I order. When the order is there visually it's much less likely to get confused, misunderstood, or forgotten, for example getting a hot coffee after I've said ice coffee.
Some of that sounds familiar. As a young kid, I didn't understand why my mother thought "car key" was a colour. She would take me to buy a winter coat and ask if I wanted the blue one or the "car key" one. She just got angry if I said something about it. It wasn't until a couple of years later after I had learned to read that I finally realized she was saying "khaki". I brought this up much later at Christmas once when she was in her 80s, and she still got annoyed -- "caw-kee, not caw-kee !"
