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Let's panic the airlines and telcos too You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.Tim Horton's is on a "local employee" hiring blitz. Photo by Darren Makowichuk /DARREN MAKOWICHUK/PostmediaEnjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorJust in time for stricter limits on temporary foreign workers, and also just in time for the return to Canada of Dunkin’ Donuts, the iconic Tims, having gone to seed — its website is currently bigging up something called “omelette bites” — has decided it doesn’t need so many temporary foreign workers, after all. That’s despite lobbying Ottawa against lowering the cap on those workers as recently as the end of 2025.It was really just a pandemic labour-shortage thing, Tims claimed this week in a press release. “Today in 2026, with high youth unemployment nationally, lobbying for expanded access is no longer necessary,” it explains. “In fact, our restaurant owners’ use of the program has already declined steadily since 2024.”This newsletter from NP Comment tackles the topics you care about. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againTims has launched an ad campaign promising to hire 10,000 “local employees,” which is kind of a funny thing to call “employees.” (Temporary foreign workers are “local” too, surely. They don’t commute from India.) But I suppose there’s no elegant way to say something like, “we’ve been deliberately hiring foreigners who have no path to citizenship because it’s cheaper and/or easier and now we’re opening applications to Canadian citizens and temporary residents here on different sorts of visas.”For the record, youth unemployment has been way up since the end of 2023 compared to pre-pandemic averages. It doesn’t make a ton of sense that Tims would suddenly, of its own volition, decide in 2026 that it was time to wind down this hiring strategy. At least, not unless you factor in the threat of the American juggernaut, Dunkin’, which exited this market in 2018 and now plans to return under a Canadian franchiser, opening hundreds of new stores.I know nothin’ of Dunkin’. My American sources suggest it’s OK, which is pretty much the best you can say about Tims. I do note that Dunkin’s menu seems to be less full of nonsense than Tims’: Coffee, doughnuts, breakfast sandwiches, that’s pretty much it.Tims’ constant off-piste culinary excursions — veggie burgers, pizza, a steak sandwich, what they amusingly call “loaded bowls” (I picture an unappetizing porcelain bowl), most of which disappear, unlamented, after a short period of time — serve mostly as a constant reminder that Tims actually used to make doughnuts in their stores. Like, they had an actual deep-fryer and actual people dropping batter into it. It’s a true story, kids! Ask your parents!Look, it would be ridiculous to argue that Tims is doing badly. It isn’t. Sales and profits just keep going up for parent company Restaurant Brands International. That’s despite McDonald’s very deliberately and successfully horning in on Tims’ racket with its McCafe brand: doughnuts and pastries, just as good; coffee, much better. Heck, the convenience store across the street from my local Tims has better doughnuts and muffins (though, against all odds, even worse coffee).But to me, that never-ending cavalcade of menu weirdness smacks of a sort of corporate malaise — like just trying to make the coffee, doughnuts, muffins and breakfast sandwiches better would be too boring — born of being the dominant leader in a captive market, or at least a force-of-habit market.(Watching people queue in droves for the pale imitation of what used to be Tims always reminds me of the scene in George Romero’s classic 1978 horror film Dawn of the Dead, where the protagonists observe zombies staggering around a shopping mall. “What are they doing? Why do they come here?” asks one character. “Some kind of instinct. Memory. What they used to do. This was an important place in their lives,” another responds.)Suffice to say, we should all welcome the forthcoming doughnut battle, and not just those of us who pine for a better apple fritter that isn’t full of weird goop.We should welcome it for the example it might set. The mere threat of large-scale competition very much seems to have spooked Tim Hortons into changing its hiring policies. It also pledged last week to renovate hundreds of its stores — some of which are a proper mess — and open dozens more.Now let’s imagine similar disruptions in bigger items of our annual household budgets. What if we let American or European airlines fly domestic routes in Canada? What if we let American or European telecommunications companies sell mobile phone service? What if we let foreign dairy and poultry products into the country without slapping massive tariffs on them?What sorts of panicky improvements might the incumbent market players consider, were they suddenly under the competitive gun? I think we should want to find out.There was no regulatory hurdle, of course, to Dunkin’ re-entering the Canadian market and taking up arms against the TimHo colossus. But coffee-and-doughnut corporate nationalism would make no more sense than airline, cell phone or Thanksgiving turkey corporate nationalism. I wish Dunkin’ well. This country needs some creative disruption. Cry havoc, and let slip the doughnuts of war.National Post cselley@postmedia.com Get the latest from Chris Selley straight to your inbox Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.