Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity for us to debate such an important issue this evening.
Last night, when I was sitting in my house, I received an alert that there were rumours in Ontario, in the GTA, that there was going to be an announcement in the morning that the Oshawa GM plant was going to be closed, and unallocated vehicles would be their future starting in 2019. I knew in that moment how devastating that was going to be for that community.
I decided to write a friend of mine. His name is Jerry Dias, and he is the president of Unifor. I told him I was hearing these rumours and asked if there was any truth to the rumour that the Oshawa plant was going to be closing. His comments back were very swift and to the point. He said, “Over my dead body.”
I bring that up, because it shows the importance of this plant and what it means to the families there from an economic point of view as well as from a social point of view. I know many of us have said this already, and I will say it again, because it should be repeated consistently. My heart goes out to the families who are so impacted by the decision they heard about today.
I have been there. I grew up in Cape Breton in the 1970s and 1980s. During that time, there were changes in the world economy, and choices were made by different companies. As a result, a decision was taken that the steel plant was no longer going to be part of the Sydney infrastructure, and the coal mine, as a result, was going to be closed down too. At the same time, we had difficulties in the fisheries. We experienced in that short period of time some incredible body blows to the economy of the area. The government stepped in to try to help out with more EI, more programming, possibly a tax-free zone and all of those kinds of things governments try to do to deal with a terrible situation when it happens. The reality is that the impact and the lasting effect on the people who have lived the experience is devastating.
The situation in my part of the world, in Cape Breton, is the reality that the saddest place in the world is the Sydney airport. That is where grandmothers who have never seen their grandchildren come to see their babies for the first time as they come off the plane, because their children have moved away. I do not know of many of my colleagues I went to high school with who are still in Sydney. It is a handful at best. In my family, it is about 50%. Fifty per cent go away to make their living and 50%, the lucky ones, we call them, get to stay home and make whatever living they can. The reality is that when we lose such an important private sector employment opportunity in a smaller community that is so dependent on that source of income, it takes a lot to make sure that it can be, in fact, replaced.
I was struck by the fact today, looking at an economic impact statement about the importance of GM to not only the Oshawa economy but the GTA economy, that of the top 10 employers in Oshawa right now, GM is number one, but it is only one of two private sector employers on the entire list. The second private sector employer is way down at number eight, and in between are universities, hospitals and all the other public sector jobs that are there. However, it really is the private sector jobs that drive the economy and are the lifeblood of a community.
As I pointed out, we lost that in Cape Breton, and as a result, we lost our population, and we have lost generations. In fact, we have never been able to come back. The sad part is that while the government, with its great intentions, whatever the political stripe, tried and was determined to help Cape Bretoners by giving them that cheque to get them through to the next time, the reality is that it did not help us as a people, because we still do not have private sector employers, even 40 years after we suffered the terrible tragedies we did in losing the manufacturing base. I tell this place that story because we cannot put any more emphasis on the importance of having private sector employment or manufacturing in a place like Ontario than by looking at examples of where it was lost.
I spoke to someone who is in the auto parts business today. I asked, “What is your best advice? What do we do now? Where do we go? What should we be talking about tonight in the House of Commons?”
He said that the most important thing we need to do is make sure that, as Canadians, we retain the footprint we have of auto manufacturing. He reminded me that around the world, every country would like to attract an automotive manufacturing industry, because it is high tech and there are well-paying jobs that are great for communities and for economic development. We truly do compete with the rest of the world.
As a result, we have to look at how to present ourselves to the rest of the world as a place to invest. My colleague, the member for Carleton, has done an excellent job laying out the difficulties associated with Canada's unfortunate reputation as not being competitive in the world. Perhaps this came into a lot of the decision-making made by GM in the past number of years.
I also know that when these larger companies are making decisions, they look at some very important issues. They take a look at the tax policy of the country. They take a look at what the energy costs of the country are, and they take a look at what the regulatory system of a country is at the time to determine whether they are going to be able to make money going forward. That, in reality, is what corporations do.
As much as it hurts to see that share prices may rebound as a result of the decision to cut so many jobs in a community that does not deserve to have the jobs cut, that is the system we have. That is something a government should be always aware of and understanding. It is important to show that the country is competitive and understands the bigger picture in competing on a worldwide basis.
In the economic update the Minister of Finance just presented, there were some good things that many of the auto parts manufacturers, and indeed some of the auto manufacturers, indicated were good, such as accelerated capital costs, something that had been asked for for many years, and a regulatory review, which are all great. However, we are being presented those in 2018, nine months after the United States has implemented so many other incredibly, I guess, business friendly moves to improve their competitiveness.
Where was our government in 2016? I will tell the House. It was in Davos. In 2016, it had a crucial meeting with the head of GM, Mary Barra. It was the government's first opportunity, just two months into the new government, and it sent every minister that had a pulse over to Davos to have conversations about the importance of competitiveness. It gave very flowery prose to the media, and it was reported. The story was that Canada is great, therefore companies should invest in it.
For the record, I just want to read into Hansard some of the reports that came back and some of the quotes. What I believe they show was the naivete of the government in dealing with an issue that I submit could have been foreseen and could have been mitigated instead of having the issue we have today.
[The Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development] spoke this morning with Mary Barra, CEO of the General Motors Company, just before she had a closed-door meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.
[The minister] said the government made the case for GM to keep its plant open in Oshawa, trying to play up Canada as a high-tech hub and Ontario as an automotive centre.
This was in January 2016. The government was talking about keeping this plant open.
He said the company didn't give the government any specifics about the future of the Oshawa plant....
“These decisions by companies are not made on the spot. What they're looking for is a government that's willing to work with them, to partner with them,”
How did the government partner with them? We ended up with steel tariffs, aluminum tariffs and countervailing tariffs. We ended up with a carbon tax, which made energy incredibly expensive. We saw an incredible unwillingness to react to the Trump competitive issues that were introduced by the government.
The minister said:
We made it very clear that Canada is open for business, that we're a willing partner in that and as they plan production, as they plan their business plan for the next two to three to five years, that we're part of that business plan....
At the very end, to show the complete naivete of the government in dealing with incredibly important issues to Canadians, he said:
Relationships matter. There's so much global competition that when they have a relationship, when they have a level of comfort, it does go a long way.
So much for sunny ways.
