Corporate capitalism creates crappy Christmas

> Why I dread the holiday season

Cazzy Lewchuk
Columnist

 

I: well-known that retailers are
quite busy during November and
December. It is by far their busiest
and most profitable time of year,
and many long-term strategies rely
on the winter windfall. Any sort of
service business is incredibly busy
during the holiday season, and it is the
workers who suffer the most from it.
The holidays are universally dreaded
amongst service workers. It’s not just
that they will be working more, the
work that they’re doing is significantly
more stressful and busier. This time of
year means a lot more stock, customers,
hours, and pressure. Service work by
nature is exhausting and stressful, it is
even more tense and detrimental for
these months. It is an extremely difficult

and upsetting time for millions of people.

Retail workers receive almost no
compensation or extra thanks for the
hard work of the season. They may
get a gift card and/or holiday party
from the company... they will almost
certainly not receive any extra pay.
Retail wages are incredibly low, and
most workers of that level do not
receive benefits to begin with. It’s
frustrating when your work becomes
even harder without any incentive. They
also lose out on doing many holiday
things because of work. They will be
working as much as possible, and will

most likely have to work many days
people in other industries have off.

It’s not just the workers who suffer
during the holiday season. The rampant
consumerism gets all the shoppers,
too. How much money is spent on
decorations each year for seasonal
merchandise that will be thrown out at
the end of the month? How much extra
do we spend on food and candy because
of all the special holiday options?
Perhaps most significantly, how much do
we hand over for gifts every year, because
we're expected to? The financial impact
of the holidays affects almost everyone,
and it’s specifically due to how much
the season is capitalized on. Consumers
are targeted to spend as much as
possible by corporations through
strategies organized months in advance
every year. They know the pressure
to spend money is on, and they’re
here to get as much of it as possible.

Christmas and other winter holidays
have a lot of significant meaning.

For many, that meaning is spiritual,
and it is universally regarded as a
joyous celebration. What is meant to
be a positive and wonderful time for
many is turned into a season of dread
and misery for so many people.

Worrying about a budget in
December is not in the spirit of giving.
Paying off Christmas debt months
later is not a way to celebrate the
holidays. The holidays are big business,
and it’s wrong that consumerism has
completely dominated this time of year.

    

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Tim Hortons shouldn't be
‘quintessentially Canadian’

> For such low-quality food, Timmies gets too much free marketing

Greg Waldock
Staff Writer

 

Wr you stop and think about

it, it’s creepy how much Tim
Hortons is associated with Canadian
identity. It’s a billion-dollar company
that is well-known for crappy donuts and
coffee. It’s not even an entirely Canadian
company, being part of a Frankenstein’s
Monster-like fusion of itself, Burger King,
and Popeyes, all owned by a Brazilian
investment firm since 2014. That fact
that a company like this can tap into
Canadian patriotism and exploit it for
marketing is unsettling, especially when
it’s not even their advertising doing it.
Ordinary Canadians and people abroad
still see Timmies as being as Canadian
as maple leaves, nationalized healthcare,
and disgruntled Francophones.

I can see how Timmies got to be
where it is in our national identity. It was
founded by a hockey player, it supports
hockey leagues and Scouts Canada,
it existed only within our borders for
most of its history, and there’s always
a restaurant somewhere nearby, no
matter where you go. It’s no surprise,
then, that Tim Hortons is both popular
and a Canadian stereotype—but it’s
still just another food corporation
with low-quality products and strictly
minimum-wage employees. It isn’t the

kind of thing that needs or deserves
the free marketing we give it, and it
shouldn't get away with the creepily
nationalistic campaigns it runs endlessly.
A lot of Canadians like to make fun
of the US for its uber-patriotism. Reciting
the pledge of allegiance in elementary
school, putting stars and stripes on
everything, being extremely touchy
over depictions of the flag and national
anthem abroad—it’s all unnecessary to
the point of being humourous. However,
Tim Hortons can cover their coffee cups
in maple leaves and make inspiring
commercials about “what it means to
be Canadian,” usually with footage of
people jumping into lakes at sunset, and
almost nobody bats an eye. It’s the exact
kind of jingoism that America practices
so unhealthily, and it’s bad when we
do it, too. If you want an example for
why nationalism is bad even for little
old Canada, just look at when the War
of 1812 centennial celebrations were
going on in 2012. The misinformation
spread in that campaign (no, Canadians
didn’t burn down the White House or
win the war) is going to stick around
for ages. Us being quaint and relatively
nice on the international stage doesn’t
mean we should believe our own hype.
This could all just be the disgruntled
ramblings of someone who worked as a
“baker” at Tim Hortons for a year—in

 

quotations because everything was
frozen and microwaved. I just don’t see
how it could be healthy to hand over such
a large chunk of our national identity

to a corporation, which in the end will
only ever care about the bottom line. A

eee

culture is a huge thing to give control
up to something like that. Ultimately,
though, I think our standards just need
to be higher. There are better things to
celebrate in Canada than Timmies.

Photo by Analyn Cuarto

Photo by Analyn Cuarto