Gear up boys our fight is going to the show!!! Watch Power and Politics with Evan Solomon at 5 today...
Temp foreign Pilots on the agenda.

You can watch online at:

http://www.canada.com/onlinetv/news/pol ... video.html

Watching Now!! Thank you Gilles, Keep up the great work!

Mark williams said the words himself.... it all comes down to costs of the training. Evan definitely didn't push him hard enough over the subject.

Good to see it getting some air time though.

Evan did an okay job, IMHO. He has lots of topics to cover but I think the whole idea is new to him so he didn't push sunwing hard enough to rationalize their position.

I'd like to see their training costs...$40K? I think that's probably 5-10,000 higher than what they actually are. Maybe they're including training captain wages, etc? He said training includes line checks on the airplane, etc. I don't think you can include those figures in initial training...you still need the training captain for everybody else's recurrent anyhow...

Anyhow, glad to see it's getting coverage and hopefully traction. Thanks Gilles!

Having trouble finding a link for this episode.... The link above is about foreign workers but not specifically our airline issue.

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/ ... 375150201/

It's the latest one

Thanks!

I just had a chance to watch the show. Here are a few key points I picked up on:


Sunwing did use the accelerated program and thus are not obliged to defend why they did not hire Canadians. I know that's the policy but shouldn't they have to justify their actions?

I'm shocked that they only received 31 applications - really, only 31 people bothered to apply??

Of those 31, there were 2 with TR's but really no qualified applicants

It is unreasonable for sunwing to train canadian pilots when pilots exist who are trained given that the work is seasonal and sunwing can't retain these pilots during the off season. Why is this unreasonable? All other airlines manage to train their pilots. Some of us are willing to find other work or enjoy the summer off.

Sunwing has hired more person months for canadians in the summer than foreigners during the winter I'd like to see some numbers to back this up

Sunwing has made significant efforts to hire canadians for the positions Ok. Prove it.

Kellie Leitch, Conservative MP- said that the government is committed to fixing the TFW program to make sure that Canadians are at front of line for these jobs. The government is committed to making sure canadians have the skills they need to get these jobs. It's not the government's job to hand out Type Ratings.That is why we have the Canada Jobs Grant in the recent budget to do this. - I don't think we qualify. From what I have read, it's only open to chronic users of the EI system so simply changing jobs won't be enough to get into this program.

They want to ensure that "No foreign individual is taking over a job that a Canadian can fill."

Wet leasing is being reviewed.

mark williams says the program works for them the way they use it. Of course it does. They get what they want at a lower cost.

BE20 Driver wrote:I just had a chance to watch the show. Here are a few key points I picked up on:


Sunwing did use the accelerated program and thus are not obliged to defend why they did not hire Canadians. I know that's the policy but shouldn't they have to justify their actions?

I'm shocked that they only received 31 applications - really, only 31 people bothered to apply??

Of those 31, there were 2 with TR's but really no qualified applicants

It is unreasonable for sunwing to train canadian pilots when pilots exist who are trained given that the work is seasonal and sunwing can't retain these pilots during the off season. Why is this unreasonable? All other airlines manage to train their pilots. Some of us are willing to find other work or enjoy the summer off.

Sunwing has hired more person months for canadians in the summer than foreigners during the winter I'd like to see some numbers to back this up

Sunwing has made significant efforts to hire canadians for the positions Ok. Prove it.

Kellie Leitch, Conservative MP- said that the government is committed to fixing the TFW program to make sure that Canadians are at front of line for these jobs. The government is committed to making sure canadians have the skills they need to get these jobs. It's not the government's job to hand out Type Ratings.That is why we have the Canada Jobs Grant in the recent budget to do this. - I don't think we qualify. From what I have read, it's only open to chronic users of the EI system so simply changing jobs won't be enough to get into this program.

They want to ensure that "No foreign individual is taking over a job that a Canadian can fill."

Wet leasing is being reviewed.

mark williams says the program works for them the way they use it. Of course it does. They get what they want at a lower cost.

Yes I was shocked to hear that statement that they only received two applications from qualified applicants, REALLY?

I know I applied there, had a internal recommend and as I stated I am already 737 typed and experienced. I would just need a differences course. So I find it difficult to believe that they only received 31 applications and only two from typed guys!!! I find that extremely unlikely and would as you said....."Prove it"

Like I said something is rotten here!

BTW Good job Gilles!

Is it me or did Evan seem to be really challenging what Gilles was saying? It seemed to me that Evan came across as very argumentative or judgemental and did not seem to care or believe what was being told to him.

Not a bad representation of the issue...Good job! It's a decent journalist that will challenge any interviewee with a case such as the one Gilles presents. It's not the job of any journalist to accept at face value, any claim. I think that this one (CBC) makes sure that the story has teeth and credibility. It seems to me he has made a good start, now he needs to follow it up and look deeper into this contentious issue. I seriously hope he does...

GRK wrote:Not a bad representation of the issue...Good job! It's a decent journalist that will challenge any interviewee with a case such as the one Gilles presents. It's not the job of any journalist to accept at face value, any claim. I think that this one (CBC) makes sure that the story has teeth and credibility. It seems to me he has made a good start, now he needs to follow it up and look deeper into this contentious issue. I seriously hope he does...

As I said I wasn't sure if it was was me, but it seemed like he was really challenging Gilles. I am very happy to be wrong.

I agree its not good journalism to accept claims on face value but it seemed as though he was doing that a little with the paperwork supplied to him by Sunwing. I hope they continue on with investigating this situation and that do dig a lot further into it.

I also agree a good start and a great job done by Gilles!

Thank you Gilles for stepping up and speaking up for so many of us!

Not hard to figure this out, it's very simple. Sunwing Airlines does not want to provide training(read;spend money) in initial or "differences" courses for any Canadian citizen looking for a job there to fly Sunwing Canadian registered aircraft from(mostly) Canadian Airports with(mostly) Canadian citizens. Miserable p----, I say and this Citizen will not be using their services for any holiday travel. I will take my business elsewhere.