MacDonald’s Minister of Labour, Mark Parent … CYNICAL HYPOCRITE

Is there any limit to the depths to which the Rodney MacDonald CONservatives will go in attempting to paint themselves as compassionate and caring?

The answer is NO … these people are the lowest of the low … prepared to do anything, no matter how reprehensible, to make themselves look good … when their history shows everything else but.

A good case in point is their exploitation of the accidental death of Jamie Lapierre … whose work-related death was the result of what can best be described as laxity on the part of his former employer for not caring enough to ensure no one would have to pay with their life to do the job required.

With all respect for Jamie Lapierre, and the friends and family who publicly mourn his death and the loss of his friendship every time this sacrilege to his memory is aired, one cannot help but ask WHY.

Why has this MacDonald government spent at least 10,000 of your tax dollars to produce a piece remembering Jamie Lapierre, while the Workers’ Compensation Board, with which this government works hand in glove, through the Department of Labour, has chosen to sweep other injured workers under the rug ?

Can it be that Jamie Lapierre , because he is dead, has been impressed into becoming Rodney MacDonald’s Horst Wesse l… such as Goebbels used so effectively to get the German people behind his leader, Adolph Hitler? It sure looks that way to anyone who has studied WW II history … another example of a shameless propaganda machine that will do anything, no matter how cheap, to gild the MacDonald lily.

To clarify, we are not equating Jamie Lapierre, in any way, with Horst Wessel … an undeserving Nazi thug, who, nevertheless, was utilized by propagandists to focus and manipulate German public opinion using subtle, emotional, appeals to his countrymen’s human spirit. We merely cite this memory to illustrate how Jamie Lapierre has similarly been used to achieve a particular end … as are caring Nova Scotians … who don’t know they are being “fiddled” by the Rodney MacDonald crowd in a cynical, contrived attempt to humanize themselves, using a similar psychology … while they know full well they could never qualify, based on the truth of their actions.

Mark Parent, a Baptist Minister in “real” life, had to have had final approval on the production costs of these spots, as well as approving the content and costs for air time. Somewhere along the way, “Reverend” Parent has lost sight of his religious humanitarianism … and has replaced that value with crass political opportunism on behalf of the Conservative Party of Nova Scotia. Like the old Broadway song says, “Anything Goes ”… especially when it comes to politicians attempting to curry favor with malleable Nova Scotians.

Once again, shades of Orwell’s “1984” rear its head in the worst possible scenario.

How is it that the Government of Nova Scotia is so keen to remember Jamie Lapierre … while totally forgetting Alfred Gordon Taylor?

The answer is simple, Alfred Taylor was handed a death sentence by the WCB who wrongly convicted him of “not qualifying” for the benefits they denied him as an injured worker. Certainly, a death penalty exists in Canada … and, the WCB decides who is guilty.

Alfred Gordon Taylor had a life, too. This steelworker from Windsor, Hants County (Nova Scotia) was jerked around by the WCB who arbitrarily denied this man his rights … but not before they strung him along and made him believe it was just a matter of time before he would begin to receive his benefit cheques as an injured worker.

How about Alfred Taylor’s wife, who came home one day to find her husband out in the garage where he hung himself, as a final act of despondency …, clutching the letter he had gotten from the WCB that day … a letter that denied him any and all compensation.

There are those that will extol the virtues of the WCB … we just aren’t one of those … on the payroll.

Sure, the WCB is compassionate and caring. Eighteen months after Alfred Taylor was in the ground, his widow, Joan, became a witness to their largesse.

It seems that the WCB had been in “error”, and, in a fit of conscience, they sent her their cheque for the grand sum of an amount slightly over eight thousand dollars.

This is the value of a man’s life?

How about Joan Taylor’s tears? What about Alfred Taylor’s son?

IMAGINE … YOUR FATHER IS NOT WORTH ANY MORE THAN EIGHT THOUSAND, LOUSY DOLLARS!

The odds are pretty good that Alf Taylor’s life will never rate a TV “memorial”, played innumerable times each night ( paid for by your tax dollars), showing his family and friends in tears … with the implied compassion and empathy of Minister Mark Parent … and the vile system he is so willing to be part of.

This “resolution” proffered by Michael Baker a couple of years ago, epitomizes the cynicism and hypocrisy of this, and past provincial governments in Nova Scotia.

As you read, give your thoughts to Alfred Gordon Taylor and all those other injured workers who have been abused and thrown away by the government and its friends who make up the Workman’s Compensation Board … and, please, do your best not to throw up in front of everybody…
RESOLUTION NO. 612

HON. MICHAEL BAKER: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the honourable Minister of Environment and Labour, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following resolution:

Whereas Monday, April 14, 2003, in Toronto, a mural-size quilt crafted by a Nova Scotian artist, Laurie Swim, will be unveiled at the Industrial Accident Prevention Association Conference; and

Whereas the Life Quilt bears the faces and names of 100 young Canadians who died on the job, including four young Nova Scotians: Wayne Hirtle of Northfield, Queens County; Jamie LaPierre of Lower Sackville; Yancy Meyer of Antigonish; and Clarence Ward of Auburn, Kings County; and

Whereas the Day of Mourning, which is held on April 28th each year,commemorates all workers who have died on the job in the past year.


WORDS … JUST HOLLOW WORDS.

Contributed by: Wayne Coady
Spokesperson :
Injured and Abused Workers Coalition

When you have your health you don’t have a worry

When you have your health you don’t have a worry in the world about injured workers!

Hello! We are Calling on the Canadian Parliament and Senate.

Dear Elected Members of Parliament:

When you have your health you don’t have a worry in the world about injured workers!
… until you become one. Then your injury becomes your life, or what's left of it.

As an injured worker, it is then that you become cognizant of how unimportant you become to the politicians you call upon to help you navigate through the gauntlet of garbage thrown up by the Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) that managed to get Royal Assent from Nova Scotia government as a legal entity … ostensibly as an objective “insurer” whose aim was to indemnify injured workers while negating any move on the part of those workers who might intend to sue an employer for negligence.

As is usual these days, the lofty purposes for being the WCB have been prostituted and bastardized into the most reprehensible of organizations who insures that contributing employers are not sued, for sure … while amassing millions of dollars in WCB coffers, as injured workers are defrauded and intimidated out of monies they are rightfully and morally due.

The provincial government is complicit … and has been from the inception of the WCB, by turning a blind eye to the most vile practices ever perpetrated on any human being at the most vulnerable time in their lives.

Where is the support for these former union members who were, as a requirement of employment, told they must pay union membership “dues” to work … and their union would “protect their interests “ when dealing with employers. The sub-text not mentioned by the trade unions is this: If you are injured and unable to work … and CONTINUE to pay dues … your value to the union then becomes ZERO. You don’t count anymore … not that you ever did to begin with.

The important thing is that Joan Jessome and her union NSGEU officials will continue to receive their high salaries and perks, as will those officials in CUPE.

Much like the politicians I mentioned earlier … who really don’t give a rat’s ass for the plight of injured workers who can’t work at their former employment. In fact, many of them can’t work at all … the result is NO income.

You would have to be a politician or union rep … or worse, a lawyer, to realize that if you are unable to work, because of having received injuries so severe on your last job, that you will not have any MONEY coming in and, consequently, will not eat. In the worst scenarios I know of, men and women will lose the roof over their heads, the food in their bellies and the car to get them to the WCB-appointed ( or owned) doctors who have been ordained to deny their claims.

Marriages have been ruined … no problem for the WCB and their cadre of doctors and lawyers. In fact, the WCB is overjoyed when injured workers give up all hope after being interminably jerked around by these heartless bastards … and commit suicide. Problem solved.

Where is the media in all of this, you might well ask. Silent. Unsupportive. Apathetic. The fact is, the WCB, the various unions and the various levels of government talk a good game … if they talk at all.

From the standpoint of the media, an injured worker getting the shaft from a cruel and manipulative bureaucracy isn’t “news”. The day some poor injured worker walks into a WCB office with a shotgun and starts randomly shooting because they are at the end of their rope, the media might take an interest and run with it for two days.

The rest of the time forget it . The mainstream media is not about to have law suits thrown at it for the sake of some injured worker who is the victim of the worst fraud anyone should ever have to deal with. Lawyers from the WCB will threaten and intimidate … they’ll shut up. Doctors will commit perjury and swear there is nothing wrong with a claimant … while denying to themselves they are not in violation of their Hippocratic Oath.

No media outlet will ever be too critical of unions, either. Their unions could apply pressure and/or put them out of business under the right circumstances. Someone would lose a lot of money. Over an injured worker? No way.

So, here I am advocating for the injured worker … as a humanitarian … an injured worker who appreciates what other injured workers go through every day while fighting for their survival. I don’t get paid anything. I’m not looking for anything, other than the feeling that, one day, injured workers will be treated fairly and honestly … with compassion by people whose only concern, so far, is how many dollars they can make from some poor bugger’s misery. CRIMINAL ?

Wayne Coady
Cole Harbour
Nova Scotia
Canada . wcoady@accesswave.ca