Sorry pianokeys, but you just seem a bit ignorant of how the industry works outside of Canada.
Training bonds are commonplace at all kinds of carriers, both inside and out of Canada, on all types of equipment. If you don't think the shit wages for the 1st four years at AC or the starting wages at WS/Encore aren't a form of bondage, then you're just deluding yourself. Either system is a way of recovering training costs. I've taken more than one WB DEC job and never had a bond because I had the type rating already...no type training cost to the employer.
Your understanding of how compensation is derived is overly simplistic ("Tims pays dick, doctors make lots" etc). Skill and education are one component, but supply and demand are far more important. That's why Tims pays more in (or used to) in Ft. Mac than it does in Toronto, it's why the College of Surgeons and Physicians artificially constrains the supply of new doctors to keep pay high. Flood the market with docs and you better believe their compensation will decline.
Ignorance breeds fear, and I get it, you're afraid of globalization because it's a threat to your own interests. But the world grows smaller every day, better to adapt than to waste energy and emotion trying to maintain a untenable status quo. I laugh at things like ALPA and their naked self-interest. Like postal workers staging a protest at the internet. If it's not Norwegian there will be countless, relentless other contenders coming. Empty union rhetoric trying to bring back the 70's can't compete with economics.
Your best defense? Keep making yourself as marketable as possible so you have the flexibility of selecting the best-paid jobs out there on your own terms. Or, keep huddling behind protectionist government policies, pay those union dues, and pray your seniority number holds out until retirement. Your choice.
Oh, and if there's no pilot shortage, could you please ask the recruiters constantly spamming me with job offers to lay off?
I’m still waiting for my white male privilege membership card. Must have gotten lost in the mail.