I suspect that the care workers hired by Canada's most glamorous MP, Ruby Dhalla, and/or her family were underpaid for the hours of work they put in, which is of ethical and perhaps legal concern. People should get a fair hourly wage. But I have a problem with the class warfare spin on the story. Newspaper readers are supposed to be shocked by revelations that the two women hired to care for Dhalla's mother were expected to shovel snow and clean the bathroom. And they had to live in the basement! Can you imagine!
Well, lots of Canadians clean bathrooms for a living and lots live in basement apartments. This may not be their dream situation, but I don't think we should assume its a horrific freak show of a life either. I once had a part-time job as a residential care worker in a house occupied by two mentally challenged people. I got paid about $20 an hour. I did have to clean the bathroom and kitchen each shift and I will say that I would have needed a lot more than $20 an hour if those two activities made up the bulk of my work. But most of the time I just hung out, drank coffee, watched television and made sure small problems--meat past its expiry date, undone laundry--didn't turn into big ones. Averaging the unpleasant tasks with the pleasant tasks, I don't think $20 an hour was a bad wage. How do you take care of someone if you're not willing to do the the everday things that person is unable or, in the case of someone with behavioural problems, unwilling to do. Exploitation is about not properly compensating someone for their labour. It is not about expecting someone to do labour that middle-class newspaper readers find distasteful.
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