Ontario launches $40 million strategy to help keep auto jobs

TheStar.com
Feb. 15, 2019
Rob Ferguson

Ontario is launching a $40 million, three-year strategy to help keep auto industry jobs in the province as General Motors prepares to close its assembly operations in Oshawa by the end of the year.

Premier Doug Ford made the announcement at an auto parts factory in Woodbridge on Thursday timed to the opening of the Canadian International Auto Show, but the autoworkers union Unifor dismissed the effort as a repackaging of existing government programs.

The Oshawa General Motors car assembly plant is set to close by the end of the year. The Ontario government has announced money it says is to help keep auto jobs in the province.

Ford pledged one-year approvals for auto-plant expansions in addition to the money to help develop autonomous vehicles -- particularly for winter operation --helping train autoworkers in new technologies, internships and an online training portal over the next three years.

“There’s a lot of competition out there,” Ford said on the factory floor at Woodbridge Foam Corp., which supplies a number of auto manufacturers.

He said companies will no longer have to wait years for local plant expansion approvals because “we’re going to be on the backs of municipalities” to trim regulations and cut red tape.

“For too long, government has been getting in the way.”

Economic Development Minister Todd Smith, who with Ford met auto executives and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at the recent North American International Auto Show in Detroit, said companies seeking to use the programs will have to contribute funds as well.

“Not a dollar flows without money from the private sector it’s a true partnership,” he told reporters and factory workers at the plant.

“We’re looking to everyone to put some skin in the game.”

Scott McIlmoyle, the president of Unifor Local 112 at Woodbridge Foam, said the $40 million is “a drop in the bucket” compared with the money other jurisdictions are putting up to lure major auto plants.

“This is just repackaged. This announcement here is really nothing new.”

An 18-page government document on the strategy noted Ontario assembly plants account for 13 per cent of vehicle production in North America but the province has attracted just 6 per cent of new investment since 2009.

Still, autos are 18.4 per cent of Ontario’s manufacturing economy and 85 per cent of vehicles and parts made here are exported.

The premier accused Unifor national president Jerry Dias of going too far in attacks on GM over the Oshawa closure, saying he could jeopardize future investment by the automaker in its new engineering and technology centre.

“Going after and attacking GM is just the wrong thing to do,” Ford said.

McIlmoyle defended the strategy to preserve the Oshawa jobs.

“We’re not going to roll over and just take it.”