Mr. Speaker, the government owned mint is bullishly proceeding with plans to build a new coin plant in Winnipeg. People in my riding are very upset with this politically motivated decision.
Westaim is a solid diversified company in my riding with a 35 year history of supplying coin blanks to Canada and other countries. Its success is now threatened by unfair competition from the federal government. Westaim can provide all the savings that the mint claims for its new plant and it can provide these savings sooner at no cost to the taxpayer.
Why would the government use $30 million of taxpayer money to put jobs at risk? Why would it so blatantly attack the successful enterprise of a well run corporation? Why would it build an expensive new plant to compete in an already saturated world market?
I call on the government to cancel this ill conceived project and avoid disrupting the lives of hundreds of people. I challenge it to save the $30 million and to enter into a long term agreement as offered by Westaim.