Mr. Chair, as a Windsorite, I think that this is the most important investment in the history of our community. It is important that, when we talk about it, we talk about this investment in facts, not in political games, not in what we're seeing—false information and confusion being sown by the Conservative Party, by Conservative members. This is not the place to play politics—with people's livelihoods, with this investment that is the most important investment in the history of my community.
By way of a little bit of context, eight years ago my community of Windsor had an unemployment rate of 11.2% under the Conservative government. The present leader of the Conservative opposition was the then minister of employment, but he might as well have been the minister of unemployment for manufacturing communities like mine, which had 11.2% unemployment. There was 11.2% unemployment in my community.
This investment, this battery plant, is the single most important investment in the history of my community. It is important that when members of Parliament talk about it, they speak in facts. I want to put forward some of those facts.
I spoke last week with the current president of Unifor Local 444, Dave Cassidy. I also had a chance to speak this weekend with the CEO of the NextStar battery plant. Here are the facts.
There will be 2,500 full-time jobs building batteries, building two million batteries every year at that battery plant, the Stellantis battery plant. Those workers will be local, will be Canadian and will be unionized. There are 900 workers currently building the battery plant. When all is said and done, there will be 2,300 workers building the battery plant. I had a chance to tour it. Those workers are all local. They're all Canadian.
Don't take my word for it. Dave Cassidy, the president of Unifor Local 444, which will represent the 2,500 permanent workers at the battery plant—the person who represents all the Stellantis workers at the Windsor Assembly Plant—says: “We are going to have 2,500...Unifor 444 workers building batteries in that facility”, and they will be building those batteries for generations to come. This is what else he says: “The Koreans are going to come over, and they're going to assist in the building of the proprietary equipment [that will go into that building]—and [that is] nothing new.” What he means by that is this: Anyone who has ever set foot in a manufacturing factory will know that, when you install machinery or equipment from abroad, the companies from abroad send their workers to help install that machinery and equipment because they have the know-how. They built it. They have the know-how, and they have the proprietary information. The equipment is proprietary.
It's the same way in Windsor. When you have local companies, such as CenterLine or Valiant—Windsor companies—installing equipment, whether it's in Alabama, Germany or Japan, they will fly Windsor workers to install the equipment, to test the equipment and to debug the equipment. It is part of the contract. They are contractually obligated to do so to maintain the warranty of that equipment.
Dave Cassidy goes on to say that this is nothing but “political hay” and a "circus" given the misinformation being shared with the committee and Canadians. Dave Cassidy goes on to say that, if Pierre Poilievre had his way, this battery plant wouldn't even be built—wouldn't even be built.
The president of Unifor Canada, Lana Payne, published an article this weekend with the headline, “Canadians deserve better than misinformed battery plant debate”. This is the president of Unifor, the largest private sector union in Canada representing hundreds of thousands of workers, including automotive workers at Stellantis and at Ford.
This is what Lana Payne writes: “Anyone who knows anything about the start-up of major industrial projects knows that it takes a lot of different people, in many different jobs, to pull these things together.”
That didn't stop the information mill from working overtime, referring to the Conservative misinformation mill.
Ms. Payne, president of Unifor, goes on to say, “Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, the ringleader of this media circus, went so far as to call for a national inquiry into the matter.” Lana Payne, the president of Unifor, goes on to say:
For one thing, there is nothing new about Canadian firms leaning on foreign professionals when launching new industrial projects. Anyone who has spent half-a-second studying the auto industry knows there isn't a single, mass-scale battery cell production facility operating in Canada. This is the reason Stellantis opted for a joint venture with LG Energy in the first place: to tap into this technical expertise. This is no different than what happens during a new vehicle product launch. In fact, teams of U.S. workers were temporarily brought over the border to help get the GM Ingersoll plant up and running and building new EV delivery vans. This plant also received substantial government investment. No one batted an eye.
She continues—and this, again, is the president of Unifor, Lana Payne—“It's embarrassing, quite frankly, the tenor of political debate on this issue”, and this is the important part to me and to every resident of Windsor:
And it's doing a disservice to all of us who have been scratching and clawing to rebuild the auto industry into the powerhouse it once was—no thanks to harmful Conservative trade policy or economic ideology.... No one has more at stake in this matter than Canadian autoworkers.
These are the Canadian autoworkers that Unifor represents.
I don't understand, quite frankly. I don't understand why the opposition MPs around this table ignore what the president of Unifor says. I don't understand why the opposition members around this table are ignoring what David Cassidy says. Dave Cassidy is the president of Local Unifor 444 in Windsor, representing thousands of auto workers at Stellantis in Windsor, the Windsor assembly plant, and will be representing 2,500 workers who will be permanently building batteries in the battery plant in Windsor. I don't understand it. I don't understand it.
Our message, of course, when I met with NextStar was to say that—
