I’m sure you, like me, have heard countless politicians promise that they’ll create jobs.
The problem is that their plan to create jobs always seems to rely primarily on financial incentives given to private companies.
Governments—especially provincial and federal governments—have a lot of power to actually and directly create jobs, and they’re refusing to use that power.
Let me explain.
Governments have power to build whatever they want. They can build roads, or schools, or hospitals. They can build a high speed rail network or a complex irrigation canal network. They can build a petrochemical processing plant or a massive solar array.
And every single one of those projects requires labour power to build. In other words: jobs.
Plus, every one of those roads employs people to maintain them. Every one of those schools and hospitals employs people to operate them. That high speed rail network employs people to run it, and the irrigation canal network employs people to manage it. Same goes for the processing plant and the solar array.
Not only that, but if the government owns each of these projects, they can control how many people they hire, and they don’t need to beg and entice private corporations to hire more people.
Plus, because the government doesn’t have the added expense of creating profit, they can pay their workers more.
Now, that’s just direct jobs.
Keep in mind that every one of those workers will get a paycheque, and they’ll spend that money in the local economy,: paying for housing, buying food, getting gas, paying for hockey or dance lessons for their kids, going out to eat or to a movie, and so on. That consumption will encourage the private sector to create even more jobs.
Because the only thing that creates private sector jobs is increased demand.
So, the government has the power to create both direct and indirect jobs.
Oh, one more thing.
When the Alberta government owned AGT, they had control over how many telecommunications jobs there were in Alberta. But they sold if off to the private sector.
When the Saskatchewan government owned PotashCorp, they had control over how many potash mining jobs there were in Saskatchewan. But they sold it off to the private sector.
When the Canadian federal government owned Petro-Canada, they had control over oil refinery and retail jobs in the country. But they sold it off to the private sector.
And now all these jobs, and those of the many other Crown corporations that governments in Canada sold off, are more tenuous. Their dependability is up to the whims of the owning class, rather than the needs of the general public.
When a politician promises you that they’ll create jobs, but they have no plans to build something and own and staff that thing, they’re promising you a gimmick.
Remember, jobs are created by demand, and the government has the power to create demand. And it’s not through promising subsidies and tax breaks to billionaires.
