Ontario company cancels plans to hire Alberta workers for Fort McMurray cleanup

[Prairie Dog]

A Calgary-based staffing firm has had to rescind its job offers to dozens of people after a cleaning company from Ontario decided to hire cleanup crews from outside the province for its upcoming job in Fort McMurray.

According to About Staffing’s CEO Sharlene Massie, her staffing agency and another local firm received a contract from TBM Service Group Inc., a cleaning company situated in Mississauga, Ontario, to staff a bus with workers for a three week contract in the wildfire ravaged city in northern Alberta.

The provincial government tells CTV it did not hire TBM Service Group Inc. It's not clear who hired the company as TBM Service Group Inc. has not responded to multiple interview requests.

The 55 positions paid between $20 and $25 per hour, based on experience, and the job was expected to include overtime hours. Massie said hundreds of prospective applicants responded to the job posting and the company planned to hire Albertans with an emphasis on hiring those impacted by the recent wildfire.

“Our first priority was going to be, and we even put it in our postings, Fort Mac evacuees priority 1 for this assignment,” explained Massie. “Second priority was going to be the people that have experience in restoration and with this type of cleaning because its fire damage cleaning so it’s specialized.”

Interviews were conducted and About Staffing hired members for the cleanup crew. “We had no problem filling the order.”

According to Massie, a representative from the Ontario cleaning company announced the contract was being moved to a staffing agency in Vancouver, B.C. less than 48 hours before the workers About Staffing had hired were to board a bus for Fort McMurray. Massie says the representative did not offer an explanation for the about-face.

About Staffing contacted the temporary workers and notified them of the cancelled contract. Many, including Calgarian Stacey Holden, found the news upsetting.

“I’m quite angry,” said Holden. “I am glad that someone’s helping but Alberta's economy is tanking right now. We could have really used the help and we have people here who are laid off for months and years and they would have helped out and it would have brought money back.”

Holden has loved ones in Fort McMurray and was excited to help out their city in any way possible.

“I’m not being granted that opportunity anymore so it’s kind of sad.”

Tany Yao, MLA for Fort McMurray-Wood Buffalo, struggles to understand why workers are being brought to Fort McMurray from outside the province.

“It’s baffling that in a time of great need, and when many people in Fort McMurray are looking for work, that these jobs would be outsourced,” said Yao during Thursday’s question period in the Legislature.

Minister of Municipal Affairs Danielle Larivee says an emphasis will be placed on ensuring Fort McMurray contractors are considered for rebuild jobs.

“The work of cleaning up and rebuilding Fort McMurray will be managed locally within the regional municipality,” explained Larivee. “We’re gathering information on local contractors who are interested in helping with that rebuild.”

Larivee adds no substantial cleanup or rebuilding contracts have been awarded at this time.

http://calgary.ctvnews.ca/ontario-co...anup-1.2918993

video: http://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/video?cli...ylistPageNum=1

.....and Notley's government is clueless.

[RangeBob]

[humor]

On my browser's current size, the thread title was "Ontario company cancels plans to hire Alberta."
Woh.

[Foxer]

Well that is very odd. I assume that it's some sort of insurance policy contract or something, but even that really doesn't make a lot of sense. And if the crews are hired, why suddenly go to a different agency out of province to source the work? I doubt the people here are going to be willing to work for much less money. And if there was some advantage to the Vancouver firm price wise, why not start there? Seems really strange indeed.

[Forbes/Hutton]

Well that is very odd. I assume that it's some sort of insurance policy contract or something, but even that really doesn't make a lot of sense. And if the crews are hired, why suddenly go to a different agency out of province to source the work? I doubt the people here are going to be willing to work for much less money. And if there was some advantage to the Vancouver firm price wise, why not start there? Seems really strange indeed.

There's probably some sort of "job training" scam going on. 20 years ago, the (non-racist ) Boob Rae decided that job training for indians should get special funding for job training that would get them off the dole. Up started "First Nations Security" (run by all white guys BTW) that would give anyone (so long as they were on welfare or unemployment and they could keep the program 33% indian) a weeks worth of security training (back when ZERO training was required for a security license). The company received $2,000 for every non-native and $5,000 for every native put through the training, with 20-30 people going through the training with a single instructor you can imagine the profits. The catch was that they had to find work for 50% of the "graduates" and for every one that got a job and stayed employed for 3 months, the company got another 5k. So the company would put them on the payroll for 3 months of part time work (even though the company would provide security for free, just to work the new employees and continue the scam, they had almost no contracts to provide guards), the new guard would be given 3k for the 3 months work, 1k would go to the federal government for taxes, UI, CPP co-pays and WSIB, etc, and the company made another 1k off each guard. At the end of the 3 months each was "laid off" without enough time on the books to get back on UI and left to fend for themselves and the company started with another group the next Monday. This went on for about 3 years before the whole train an indian program was deemed ineffective and stopped. The "security" company closed as soon as the last cheque from the government cleared the bank account. Well over 15 million a year wasted at this company alone, the mind boggles at what the province paid to other companies and then how many government employees made a nice living watching the fiasco unfold (and probably got some hefty bride money too), all in a recession.

I suspect BC has some sort of program going that can be milked for money above and beyond what the contract for work would pay, so someone undercut the original bidder and/or handed over a plain manila envelope.

[Foxer]

Makes about as much sense as anything else i can think of.

[Pizzed]

It's not clear who (from the Alberta government) hired the company as TBM Service Group Inc. has not responded to multiple interview requests.

No attempt to contact the current government to explain how this transpired?

Follow the money, follow the money...

[RangeBob]

Quote from a Fort McMurray resident before the oil boom

Here's a quote from a resident of ft Mac before the oil boom......I lived in Fort McMurray from 1963-1965 before big oil moved in. There was 1200 people living in Waterways/Fort McMurray. I can tell you at that time oil was seeping into the Athabasca River and were told not to eat the fish from it, the Clearwater was ok. You could tell where the oil sands were located as the trees were stunted, twisted and deformed, tar pits that would trap animals. My sister and I laugh at the environmentalists when they say the oil companies are destroying the region when in fact the oil companies are cleaning up nature's oil spill and returning it to a pristine forest and lakes. Though I would say that none of these environmentalists were born before the oil companies started to clean it up or even their parents likely never even heard of the tar sands region, as when I lived in Fort Mac the only way you could get to there was by air or train, there was no highway. So instead of attacking the oil industry we should applaud them for cleaning up an oil spill from a million years ago... That's the trouble with these so called green people, they only hear and shout out the propaganda they have been paid for and know nothing of the past history... Can't believe there is such a following of the chicken littles.
-- Source: Virgel Sutherland on Facebook

-- http://groups.townpost.ca/buysell-wa...ve-interesting