There’s a stark difference between leading and the time spent trying to attain power.
Our current prime minister is finding out about that.
At a recent conference for young workers in Ottawa the PM was heckled for not living up to his promises.
Pre-election, Canada only needed a kinder, gentler government to help save the middle-class, spare students the debt associated with schooling and stop the Conservative agenda, amongst other things. Canada needed a heart to make its economy grow.
Now he’s being heckled as pipelines get approved and Canada’s operating deficit sky-rockets out of sight. Being a leader isn’t easy.
It was only 48 hours earlier that headlines were made when Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s told provincial Liberals in Niagara that Canadians need to get used to slow growth and uncertainty in the workforce.
According to Morneau, Canadians need to brace themselves for even slower growth than the current anemic pace. As many of his contemporaries like to do, he employed the use of the phrase “job churn” as a good excuse for why young folks are having a tough time getting work and keeping work.
When most of us think of churn we think of pioneers making butter, but under the new lexicon job churn is a catchy handle for the current employment environment where the workforce ebbs and flows. Neither employer nor employee seem to get to the point of commitment and workplaces are forced to constantly recruit. It’s job churn and the finance minister suggests we accept it as a fact of life in the new economy.
Millennials aren’t the only ones having a tough time getting work. Displaced workers, some with 30 years of experience or more, are finding it hard to obtain gainful employment. They used to be referred to as over-qualified, but we wonder if it has more to do with wage expectations and longevity in the workplace.
In the same conversation in Niagara, the finance minister let the crowd know times are changing and provided an example. Receptionists and truckers have no future in tomorrow’s workforce according to Morneau.
Automated attendants and driverless trucks will replace the human element. It was quite a pronouncement.
Elsewhere, the word pivot is being used to describe the political act of partially answering a question, only to move on with bafflegab on another subject.
It’s become a part of the analysis state-side as Clinton and Trump pivot from embarrassing questions. No doubt our leaders here shall pivot as well, if they aren’t engaged in that deceptive practice already.
While the lexicon evolves and words get new meanings, Canadians are finding it increasingly difficult to understand what their future and that of their grandchildren holds.
