Mr. Speaker, I share that sense from Unifor leader Jerry Dias of “over my dead body”, but in concrete terms, we know GM has made a decision. We know it flagged and signalled that it would be making that decision more than a year ago because it was changing its product line.
We know the federal government is not supposed to dictate what product line a company manufactures. However, I remember the story of the response from FDR in the Second World War when he told the car manufacturers they needed to make tanks, because they were facing a real threat, and they refused to make them. The president of the United States said that by law, they were not allowed to makes cars anymore, that they were to make tanks.
In some ways, and not all ways, the climate crisis resembles preparation for war. It involves disruptive technology and it involves change. We want to protect workers through that change.
Would the member for Milton share what the government should do now to save those jobs and can we manufacture electric vehicles instead?