1. The official picture for the whole of Canada and all the trades and professions taken together, February 2006 :-
(click the BACK BUTTON IN YOUR WEB
BROWSER after you have finished viewing this)
2. Analysis of this official
picture :-
(The actual size of the problem is roughly 4 times what the official unemployment numbers would suggest, based on the Ottawa s Hidden Workforce report of Fall 1998)
3.1. Article I had published in The Ottawa Business Journal on Wednesday February 15th 2006 :-
(reference url as at Mon Feb 27 2006 : http://www.ottawabusinessjournal.com/287704977315866.php
(Total confusion, caused by poor information at source)
3.2 Full mathematical analysis of the
problem :-
(Quite apart from anything else, nobody has been applying certain fundamental principles of counting to establishing a valid count of the numbers out of work and wanting work.. These involve the theory of sets and Venn diagrams, which are known to Grade 12 high school math students in Ontario).
Confusion over the numbers automatically leads to confusion over the numbers of jobs needed to employ everybody. In practice, this has often meant gross under-statement, which in turn has been responsible for causing anger and frustration amongst unemployed high tech professionals. The problem in Ottawa has been aggravated by the reporting in the media of two different surveys (O.C.R.I. and Stats Can) which show large discrepancies; neither survey includes a count of people that is valid relative to the requirements for solving the problem.
A major contributing factor to the problem of under-statement here has involved continued reporting of so-called official unemployment numbers each month as if these represent the true size of the problem, ever since the trouble started..
There was a Public Forum in Ottawa on April 18th 2002 concerning How Can The Federal Government Help Ottawa s High Tech Industry?. It was organized by former federal M.P. and Minister of National Defence David Pratt. The principal guest speaker was then-federal Minister for Industry Allan Rock. The Forum s main purpose seems to have been to encourage Ottawa high tech firms to give their views to the Minister on what was needed to enable them to expand their operations; it seems clear that it was organized in response to Ottawa’s high tech unemployment crisis which had started in late 2000 / early 2001.
DETAILS OF THIS FORUM - CLICK HERE
It was obviously necessary that everybody involved know the numbers of jobs actually needed to make taxpayers out of everybody who wanted to work. I made a short presentation about this right at the end – less than 2 minutes, due to time constraints, backed up by a written version. I have two witnesses to this. There was no reference to it at all in the Final Report on this Forum, sent to the Minister. Officially, therefore, my presentation was ignored entirely. This took place during the term of the Liberal government under Jean Chrétien. It also appears that the Final Report was not sent to any of the company C.E.O. s who attended; for instance Adam Chowaniec – President and C.E.O. of Tundra Semiconductor Corporation – told me at the March 2005 Ottawa Talent Forum that he had never seen it.
I also informed the office of City of Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli of my attendance and presentation at this Forum, immediately afterwards, and my understanding was that they too were interested in seeing the Final Report. This, as already stated , was in April 2002. To the best of my knowledge he saw it only in November 2003, after I had posted a message to the Ottawahitech online discussion group on joining the group in October 2003. Another member of the group – Josh Korn, ex-Corel Corporation - then obtained a copy of it from David Pratt s office and posted it to the group in November 2003, at which point I then sent it to the Mayor. Between then and April 2002, many phone calls to David Pratt s office from myself and (I understand) the Mayor s office never once elicited the date when copies of the Final Report would be available. Then, when we saw it, we found that it was dated December 2002.
So my warning about this problem of under-stating the unemployment numbers, back in April 2002, was ignored. If someone had taken it seriously and initiated action to deal with it, the problems and confusion in Ottawa, noted above, could have been avoided.
MORAL :
If I, Robert T. Chisholm, tell you something,
it s because it s IMPORTANT.