hiring diversity

Tim Murray says that bankers and politicians cooperate to promote high population growth and so-called ethnic diversity, but in doing so, they have turned their backs on most of the electorate. They may be kissing babies in public, but they are not safeguarding those babies' futures.

Canada's Royal Bank Corporate "Catalyst" For Diversity and Displacement

We know that the CEO of RBC, Gordon Nixon, has consistently and vocally lobbied for much higher immigration levels----even for a country like ours, which as Jason Kenny boasted, has the highest per capita immigration acceptance rate of developing countries. Let's face it, the Big Banks love population growth, especially when it comes from "non-traditional" sources like South Asia, whose people, as New Canadians, are among the most avid mortgage takers in the country. No wonder the Big Banks like to set up branch offices in that region.

To make the most of their market potential, Big Banks want to see two things. They want to see more immigrants and more home buyers, and they want to make them feel at home in dealing with their bank. That is why they are the champions of "inclusiveness", otherwise known as preferential hiring, or as I would prefer to call it, leap-frogging. They want New Canadians, as customers, to see themselves reflected in the people who serve them in their friendly local bank, a bank that now marks religious holidays celebrated elsewhere in the world with the same fanfare as Christian holidays were marked in what used to be understood as the Canadian tradition. But we now know that there is no such thing as a Canadian tradition anymore. Canada is, to use the winning slogan in a contest held by the National Post--- "Home to the World"---- a living archive for other people's traditions, a venue for celebrating all that is "diverse" in the world, excluding of course, the diversity of the founding Anglo-Celtic and Quebecois cultures, now relegated to mere fragments in the "mosaic".

Kissing the growing demographic

No better testament to this transformation can be found than what issues from the mouths of politicians, ever eager to kiss up to a growing demographic. Case in point:

This from the Senate Hansard of March 13, 2012, Volume 168, Issue 60, in a speech given by Senator Donald H. Oliver:

"Honourable senators, I am concerned about the neglect of our visible minority women. The statistics are even more troubling when looking at the representation of female visible minorities. They account for only 2.6 per cent of all leaders in the GTA. This means that there are only 131 visible minority women in senior positions in the GTA. Meanwhile, they represent more than 25 per cent of the overall population. What is worse, they represent less than 1 per cent of corporate sector leaders and only 6.6 per cent of elected officials.

Honourable senators, Canada's banks are leading the way around the world. Why are our financial institutions and corporations not fully representative of Canada's cultural mosaic? Why are women of Indian, African, and Asian descent not sitting on more boards and occupying more corner offices on Bay Street? I may not have the answer to these questions, but what I do know is that our major Canadian corporations need to be more proactive in finding ways to increase the representation of female visible minorities.

There are hundreds of highly qualified visible minority women who deserve equal opportunities. Organizations need to find ways to recruit within this vast pool of talent and to promote more visible minorities to senior and executive positions.

The Royal Bank of Canada, Canada's largest bank, understands the business case for diversity. In 2010, it received the prestigious Catalyst Award for Diversity because of its exceptional track record for diversity and inclusion practices. Gordon Nixon, RBC CEO, acknowledges that his diverse workforce makes his company better because it can effectively serve its diverse clients and recruit the best talent.

Women represent 67 per cent of RBC's workforce, 54 per cent of its management and 37 per cent of its executives. Visible minority women in management positions account for 28 per cent and 14 per cent of its executive roles. The Royal Bank is on the right track." http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/Sen/Chamber/411/Debates/060db_2012-03-13-e.htm

Senator Oliver is right. The Royal Bank is on the "right" track. The track that leads to the displacement of Canadian-born workers and Canadian culture, a culture based on two founding European peoples and the aboriginals who assisted them. There is a vast pool of talent there too, one that is not being developed and promoted. Just ask the Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. Native youth are not being given the training or the opportunity to enter the work force and rise to positions of leadership in corporate Canada either, while reservations across the land see unemployment rates as high as 75 or 80%. . And native-born Canadians with boring white skin pigmentation and the right credentials to be hired in higher-paying professional and white-collar jobs struggle to pay off massive student debts while they still live at home and compete for low-wage service jobs against a largely unskilled immigrant work force. Not the kind of people Tim Horton's likes to showcase in their TV ads, obviously. One wonders if the low-wage service sector is involved in sponsorships for foreign applicants. Family re-unification is a great thing---especially if it can be used as a screen to recruit a cheap labour force. But, tut-tut, we can't, as the late Jack Layton said in his final TV debate, treat immigrants as "mere economic units"---even though they impose a net fiscal burden of 17-23 billion dollars a year. Isn't lovely how raw corporate greed can be served by the sugary cant of compassion?

The question that should be put to Senator Oliver and those who buy into the philosophy of quota hiring is, "Why should immigrants of any colour or gender be fast-tracked into jobs that Canadians with more seniority in this country have worked and waited for---especially during troubling economic times?" And when they have answered that question, they can deal with another, "Why do we need to import 300,000 immigrants every year during a Great Recession?"

Tim Murray
July 19, 2012

PS If your salary is paid for by Canadian taxpayers, and you are in receipt of an essay written by a Canadian taxpayer--as I am---you are obligated to accept it. Your demand to "Take me off your list" will be honoured the moment you resign from your position. In the meantime, you and your fragile politically correct belief system will just have to suffer the intrusion. Tough, isn't it? Quick---call the Thought Police! (Oh no, can't do that anymore, Section 13 of the Human "Rights" Code has been removed. Oh dear! An equal playing field! CBC, come quickly, help!)