Years ago, and this was even before the Internet was unleashed, Time magazine had a cover piece questioning what the working class was going to do with all its spare time now that computers were becoming vogue.

The magazine was incredibly short sighted and naïve.

There would be no “spare time.” Computers have produced not an iota of leisure time that society would suddenly need to address.

Computers, instead, became the biggest job killer in our planet’s history and, as computers became more sophisticated and the Internet quickly gained footing, millions upon millions of talented men and women incrementally began losing their jobs to a multi-faceted but inanimate thing that is now addictively indispensable.

It has been a relentless overthrow.

The newspaper business, as one example, has been decimated, but it is hardly alone.

Robots today man assembly lines in manufacturing plants that once employed thousands to make everything from a widget to a car and, when things don’t work out, contracts are shipped overseas to places like China and Bangladesh where fair wages and safe working conditions matter not a whit.

It’s depressing, yes, but there is more.

The other day, Finance Minister Bill Morneau told Millennials, the generation most-addicted to high technology and social media, that they had best get used to a series of dead-end jobs and continuous retraining, coupled with bouts of unemployment, and a life where job security is a pipe dream.

He called it “job churn,” as in never-ending job losses and job searches, resume rejections, and living day-to-day — all while tear-down homes in Vancouver and Toronto cost a minimum of a million-plus and provincial deficits are bursting at the seams.

The Trudeau Liberals, meanwhile, have no plan, except to perhaps start thinking about the Millennials’ futureless future.

“We need to think about, ‘How do we train and retrain people as they move from job to job to job?” said Morneau.

“Because it’s going to happen. We have to accept that.”

If Millennials had any optimism left in their souls, Morneau effectively drowned it right then and there.

Morneau, of course, is not new to this.

Until he was elected and given his cabinet post, Morneau was head of the largest human-resources company in Canada, Morneau Shepell, which “helps clients reduce costs, increase employee productivity and improve their competitive position.”

In other words, it does what all HR companies do.

It helps sharpen the axe.

Morneau, it would be safe to say, has little personal knowledge of the average Canadian. He was educated in a private school, and attended the London School of Economics, and worked briefly for Lloyd’s of London before returning to Toronto to take up senior positions with the family firm.

Lucky him.

Morneau’s preferred crowd, as reported earlier this week by The Globe & Mail, would appear to be the types who can plunk $1,500 for a private dinner with the minister, a cash-for-access fundraising system that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau once said violated his rules but has failed to stop it from happening.

On Oct. 13, for example, it was reported that Morneau was the “prize guest” at the Halifax mansion of mining titan-turned land developer Fred George in order for select company to bend Morneau’s ear as he prepares to deliver his second budget.

There will be those, of course, who defend Morneau by saying he was meeting with the job creators, all which does not pass the cynic test because job creation has not been a Liberal priority.

As for Moreau’s telling Millennials to “accept” there is no way out of contract work, no benefits, uncertain working hours, high unemployment rates, and the need to work more than one minimum-wage job to pay the rent, well, it is not exactly what these young Canadians had in mind when they voted Liberal.

Remember, Justin Trudeau promised them “sunny ways,” not a finance minister telling them to accept inevitable doom and gloom.

markbonokoski@gmail.com