Recently, Putin critic Alexei Navanly died while serving a politically motivated prison sentence in Russia. I wrote positively in the past about Navanly while I was in my "anti-authoritarianism" phase which lacked any historical or material context and before I began deprogramming myself from a lifetime of Western imperialist propaganda. At the time, I fell for the Russophobic hysteria pushed by the liberal establishment media. I considered Valdmir Putin an enemy, which I still do, however, I naively supported any enemy of his. That was a mistake.

Putin is a dictator but we should not blindly support or worship someone else simply for opposing the Russian president. When you ignore the liberal fluff pieces of the man and actually dig in to Navanly's past, we find that he was actually a far-right nationalist who likened Muslims to cockroaches. You can read more about this in this article here.

I would like to share a neat comic that portrays the history and current state of a group of people that resist an automated future who are called Luddites. It also explains how Luddites aren't against technological progress but are for progress that puts people at the centre of it. I can proudly say that I am a Luddite and I wear that badge with pride.

I share this because I feel it is important that we don't just push the narrative about innovation that the tech industry and the ruling class want us to because it is so clearly obvious that progress in their mind doesn't put people at the centre of it and instead makes profits the focus. And a society that puts profits at the centre of everything is a sick one, as we are already experiencing today with the decline in public institutions and equitable economic opportunity, and a rise in cost of living, personal debt, mental illness, homelessness, drug addiction, and poverty, as every part of our lives becomes commodified. It is thus the responsibility of each and every one of us to make sure progress is directed by us and not by profiteers.

Click here to check out the comic!

As someone who absolutely loves their clothes, this story pains me. It was just announced that Lululemon has secured an exemption for immigration rules after they essentially threatened to move their headquarters outside of the country. This special treatment for the company practically amounts to corporate welfare, and ordinary Canadians like you and I, as well as immigrants, will pay for it. I explain below in my email to Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne:

Dear Mr Champagne:

I am emailing you today in response to the story of your office granting Lululemon an exemption for the rules around employing immigrants.

I cannot believe that your government continues to lie to Canadians and suggest that there is a labour shortage. If this was a free market, you could only make that claim if wages were outpacing inflation. This was the case temporarily during the pandemic, but recently, partly due to your government's policies, worker wages once again are lagging inflation.

You may also point to relatively low unemployment rates, but that metric does not tell the whole story. How many people are working multiple jobs? How many jobs are paying poverty level wages? How many of those jobs are precarious temporary and gig work?

This country does not have a labour shortage. We have a wage shortage. Canadians know this. They see everything from housing, to education, to fuel, to transportation, to groceries skyrocketing in cost, while their wages have been stagnant. More and more people are living paycheque to paycheque and personal debt is rising. By all accounts, economic inequality has been rising since the era of neoliberalism began over 40 years ago and it hasn't gotten any better during the current reign of the Liberal federal government.

Bringing in even more competition into the labour pool will not only keep wages low, but also lower the incentive for employers to offer competitive benefits, provide proper training, and maintain safe and respectable working conditions. It is clear by now that the Liberal government does not care about workers.

As a software developer, I consider myself a highly skilled worker. But even I in my 20 year career have yet to receive a raise that has outpaced inflation without changing positions or employers. I was fortunate to get into the housing market when houses were somewhat affordable but so many Canadians are seeing that dream became more and more out of reach. Owning your own home not only gives one stability and a nest egg, but it literally gives them power. Under capitalism, public policy tends to favour property owners, and the policies of the current federal government have not wavered from this.

Opening the floodgates to immigration without the proper infrastructure in place will not make home ownership more attainable for Canadians and it is setting up immigrants for failure. Econ 101 tells us that increasing demand raises prices. The average price of a home in Canada is over $700k. How is adding more demand for housing going to make housing more affordable? This is absolutely insane.

Our already overloaded hospitals, doctors offices, day cares, and schools will also continue to suffer as provincial governments, especially mine here in Saskatchewan, fail to properly fund these services. There is no way the federal government doesn't know this. Is it because you don't care?

I do get why you're doing this. You want to present to the corporate world how much GDP growth our country can pump out as some kind of signal for foreign investment. The problem with this is that 40 years of neoliberal policies that treat our country like a corporation has not been too kind on the people already here and the institutions we rely on, as I mentioned above.

It wouldn't be so bad if that economic growth was shared with all Canadians but it is not. Instead, more and more people are becoming mentally ill, are addicted to drugs, or are homeless. More and more people are relying on food banks and community pantries. There are already hints of austerity from your government, and with a potential recession looming, people will literally die because of it.

Do you know what else your government's policies are doing? It is creating ripe conditions for the rise of the far right. As economic inequality rises, more and more people are becoming disaffected. These people are easy pickings for a right-wing, populist leader, and the current leader of the Conservative party fits this bill perfectly. You are making his job easier by implementing the types of anti-worker policies your government is creating.

These policies are not just unfair for Canadians but they are unfair for the immigrants that you are taking advantage of. Expecting Canadians' attitudes towards immigrants to continue to be positive when their own socioeconomic conditions continue to deteriorate is not only naive but it is dangerous. Look at what's happening to our neighbours in the south, or in the UK, or Sweden, or Italy, or Hungary. Forget history, there are places all around the world right now where the far right are rising up while immigrants are being made the scapegoat, among other groups, when instead, it is policies that benefit the already-privileged that are to blame.

Instead of giving into threats of Lululemon moving its headquarters out of the country, how about you threaten them for having the audacity of holding the country that has provided the conditions for them to grow into the behemoth it is hostage? How about you threaten tariffs for their imported products, or an exit tax, or higher taxes on the company and its executives? Giving in has now signalled to other companies that Canada is now a safe haven for corporations who want to use cheap labour to subsidize their already immense profits. Your government has proven itself as working for corporations and the rich, and not for all Canadians, who you are supposed to represent.

I am scared for this country and am certain that what comes after your government is going to be even worse, and its going to be mostly your fault. Your policies are ruining Canada and I guarantee that in the future, we will look back at this era of neoliberalism as a terrible mistake and something that squandered the long term sustainability of this once great nation, all so your friends and donors could extract as many profits as they can off the backs of Canadians and non-Canadians alike.

There was a time when we taxed the wealthy a lot more than we do now. That post-war period also coincided with the greatest economic growth our country has ever seen. And then the wealthy decided they were tired of sharing productivity gains and profits with regular workers like you and I, and brought about neoliberalism, thought of by market-fundamentalists like Milton Friedmen.

That neoliberalism brought in cuts to regulations and taxes and the dismantling of unions and public institutions. We were sold on the idea that this would free up the private market and that these "efficiencies" would trickle down to the rest of us. 40 years later, it is clear that we were duped by economists and politicians alike.

Even before recent inflation driven mostly by global supply chain issues, the war in Ukraine, and now corporate profiteering, almost everything is becoming more expensive (especially housing, education, and food), our public institutions like healthcare and education are crumbling (as intended by market fundamentalists), and most of us are making less and less each year versus inflation and cost of living. All while productivity is still rising.

We have much ground to make up, but reversing increasing economic inequality and preventing a collapse of democracy and the ecoystems we rely on, we must start with one thing: raising taxes on the wealthy. If we don't do this and continue to naively hope that economic growth will eventually trickle down from the wealthy voluntarily, we are going to head over the cliff, likely in my lifetime. Unless you are rich enough to afford a parachute, of course.

Thought I would share something that Paris Marx, a critical tech writer, wrote in his recent Disconnect newsletter (which I highly recommend!). What he writes about provides a great contrast on the qualities of people in tech who we should be looking up to. Let's face it, whether or not you are in tech, and despite the recent turmoil in the industry, tech and its leaders remain highly influential on all of us. The problem is, the people who get the most exposure in the media and our culture are not necessarily the best examples of role models. To me, the best role models are people who fosture a culture of accountability, empathy, coachability, and leading by example. I think it is clear from this story which of the two subjects best expresses these qualities (emphasis mine).

Earlier this week, Icelandic designer Haraldur Þorleifsson, better known as Halli, took to Twitter to ask Elon Musk whether he still had a job. He’d been cut off from his work computer, along with about 200 other employees, but there was no word as to their employment status. Musk quickly took the bait, and started publicly berating Halli, even saying he didn’t do any work because of his disability.

After Musk had his say, Halli shot back with a thread that dug the knife into Musk, and showed a distinct contrast between the designer and his a--hole boss. But there’s a bigger point here that I wanted to draw attention to, which seems even more relevant as we discuss the repercussions of SVB’s collapse on the industry and whether it’s worth protecting.

Halli became a Twitter employee when his company, Ueno, was acquired in 2021. But what he did next showed a big contrast with the industry and gained him a lot of goodwill in Iceland. As described by the Iceland Review,

Halli, a 45 year-old designer, gained nation-wide recognition this year when, after the sale of his tech company Ueno to Twitter, he chose to be paid the sale price as wages. Normally in such large sales, the payment comes in the form of stock or other financial instruments, which categorize the sale as capital gains, meaning it is taxed at a much lower rate. Halli, however, gladly paid the higher tax rate, having spoken publicly on many occasions about the benefits he has received from the Icelandic social system.

Halli was born with muscular dystrophy and came from a working class background. In statements about his decision to pay back into the Icelandic social system, he cited both healthcare and education in Iceland as keys to his success. Notably, he was one of the highest tax payers in the nation after the sale of Ueno.

Compare Halli, who was paid in wages to have a higher tax bill, to someone like Elon Musk and much of the rest of the Silicon Valley crew who fight for lower taxes and tax breaks whenever they get the opportunity to minimize the amount they contribute to the society that facilitated their success so they can fill their own coffers. It’s just another example of how we don’t need to be cherishing these terrible people.