@cumos55 wrote:
eBay was not the only group/organization to forward a specific request to the Prime Minister/Government.
This is evident from news reports....Many had the same idea with respect to contacting the Prime Minister with concerns.. and a request for legislation
Oh yes, quite true, I have no doubt other companies, groups and even U.S.-based corporations would have been contacting the PM and/or his Ministers. I'd have no objection to open, up-front lobbying by such entities under their own signatures. Fine with me, I'd say to them fill your boots. Just as Canadian companies lobby the U.S. government to get what they want. But if you're a US corporation, don't mask your own agenda behind the bona fides of Canadians' signatures.
I don't want to belabour the point, but what I objected to was eBay using its Canadian sellers as proxy, in the usual disingenuous way eBay does things. Many Canadian sellers who signed that letter may not have considered the implications of a foreign corporation using Canadian citizens' voices for its own purposes in pushing for long-term legislation to "control" collective bargaining.
Of course this is precisely what eBay, as a U.S. company would like -- an uninterrupted market, unfettered by the inconvenience of Canadian law. The letter that eBay asked sellers to sign was drafted in terms vague enough to give eBay plenty of room to maneuver in further lobbying efforts if our government allowed itself to be influenced by that letter. However, not all Canadians would be in favour of encouraging their government to pass such legislation, and I would hope our PM, having made an election promise not to intervene with restrictive legislation, would ignore eBay's ruse and hold to his word.
To me, the whole thing was both unethical and improper on the part of eBay. Smell-test failure. If eBay wants something from Canada's government, let their CEO's go after it openly.
As a U.S. corporation, eBay has its own agenda and interests, some (but not all) of which will mesh with the interests of Canadian sellers and Canadians in general. But I'd venture to say that most of eBay's focus is squarely on its U.S. base. Seeing their U.S. sellers' sales to Canada drop off during this postal impasse was doubtless one of those concerns. Details of how the labour dispute was settled, or by what means, or through what new laws, was certainly not. EBay couldn't care less. But many Canadians do.
I know some will say that principles are irrelevant if your own income is being affected, but these sorts of principles have a way of affecting everybody's income further down the road. And if you don't subscribe to that concept, perhaps it's worth considering what happens when the next foreign corporation comes along with designs on our government, using Canadians for their own purposes to petition for new laws?
