By Barj Dhahan
There is much talk in the media these days about labour shortages and that thousands of jobs in British Columbia and the rest of Canada will have to be filled over the next 10 years by non-Canadians — meaning new immigrants and/or temporary foreign workers. Most of these jobs will require workers with trades skills, technical experience and knowledge.
While this may be the case, the tone of the public discourse is perhaps unintentionally diminishing the value of the kind of work that many Canadians, new immigrants and temporary foreign workers do. When their jobs are called “menial,” “low skilled,” “unskilled” or “grunt jobs.” I believe we are unfairly degrading this kind of work. Our society cannot function without people working in these jobs. The people that do them deserve to be valued for their contributions to our communities.
My father came to Canada in 1960 with no “marketable” skills. He worked as a labourer in a sawmill and a plywood mill. He painted railings on the weekends in a small metal fabricating shop. Eventually he started building single-family homes in Richmond and Vancouver. He became successful and ended up pioneering one of the first Canada-India partnerships, establishing a major education and health care centre in India, and forging a relationship with the University of British Columbia in training nurses. This has benefited both Canada and India, and may not have been possible if it weren’t for the skills my father learned in his earlier roles.
Similarly, my father-in-law, Jacob Loewen arrived in Canada in 1948 with his family after fleeing from communism and their home town, Tiege, Ukraine in 1944. With a grade eight education and a short apprenticeship in carpentry in Germany, his first job was on a farm in Abbotsford. Later in 1951 he worked on construction sites in Kitimat and Burns Lake. In 1956 he started his own construction company. He built over 125 single-family homes in Vancouver and multiple commercial buildings over a 25 year period.
He even found time to take English literature classes in the evening at John Oliver secondary school and the Dale Carnegie Course to improve his English skills. My mother-in-law, Hilda Loewen (Stobbe), whose family also came to Canada after the Second World War, says: “In Canada we were no longer afraid. We could now work hard and create a better life for ourselves and others.”
I started working when I was 11 years old. I took on all kinds of jobs around Port Alberni, where my family had immigrated. My first job was picking potatoes in September with my mother and my youngest sister. I later delivered newspapers, worked in a hardware store, picked strawberries, corn and vegetables on farms. In the summer after Grade 10, I was working 16 hour days — on a farm seven days a week and nights at the Alberni Plywood mill.
When we moved to Vancouver, I began working after school and on weekends at the Terminal Saw Mill and later one summer at the Eburne Saw Mill. I also helped my father in home construction while at school and university. At each of those jobs, I learned something new and I brought that knowledge and skill with me to the next job. Without them, I may never have been able to grow my business, let alone participate in various community building and international projects.
In Canada we don’t only need people working in high tech, “high skilled” jobs. We need people to work in all aspects of a functioning society. Whether it is picking the food that ends up on our kitchen tables, serving coffee, constructing houses, or growing a tech start-up, each person contributes to the development of our communities and our economy.
Words like “menial” and “unskilled” undervalue the important and necessary contributions of our nation’s workers. Without these positions, our country would not thrive. We must value all work as an essential element to the growth of our society and economy. Maimonides, a preeminent medieval Spanish philosopher, once said “The greatest gift that we can give one another is the gift of work.” Let us accept this gift with grace and humility, and celebrate the dignity of all honest work.
Barj Dahan is a well known Indo-Canadian businessman and a resident of Vancouver.
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