Latest Updates. |
Green Jobs Oshawa Statement - Announced Sierra and
Silverado Vehicle Production at GM Oshawa
December 11, 2020
On November 5, 2020 General Motors announced the return of Sierra and Silverado truck production to the Oshawa Assembly Plant starting in 2022. Green Jobs Oshawa welcomes the return of jobs to our community. Green Jobs Oshawa recognizes the significant positive impact on workers and the community of this announcement.
We are proud to be among the many voices that kept Oshawa on the public agenda over the past two years. We are also grateful to everyone else who took part in that conversation – we intend to keep it going. There are some serious issues to consider even as many celebrate.
Despite the short term relief this announcement brings, there is reason to be cautious about GM’s long-term commitment to Oshawa. It was less than a year ago that GM ended vehicle assembly in Oshawa and callously abandoned the workforce and community which had given them over 100 years of quality production and immense profit.
While Ford and FCA have made major future electric vehicle announcements, GM doesn’t promise any electric vehicle production for Canada. Instead of making Oshawa part of GM’s ‘autonomous, electric, and connected’ future, they have decided to use Oshawa for overflow production of fossil fuel dependent trucks. The Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks are currently produced in 3 other North American plants. They are popular right now, but what happens when demand slows? Experience has taught us that GM puts profits ahead of any commitment to the workers and community of Oshawa.
We must acknowledge that there is no long-term future in building the kind of vehicle that has brought our world to the edge of total climate breakdown. There will always be insecurity if future decisions affecting our community are weighed by only how much profit will be made for a company. We must ask ourselves what role can we play to escape the boom or bust cycle of corporate auto dependence and how can we get on a path of sustainable stability?
As a result of these concerns, Green Jobs Oshawa plans to continue to work for longer term solutions. We are going to continue the conversation around maintaining and developing Canadian manufacturing capacities, encouraging our research and development capabilities, addressing the environmental crisis, and fighting growing inequality. Our continuing dependence on profit-driven corporations like GM is not a solution. They are the problem. Our community will be strengthened by truck production coming back. However, we must use this new strength to continue the fight for our future. Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past, let’s keep thinking big and build for a better tomorrow.
ESSENTIAL SERVICES AND ESSENTIAL PRODUCTION
Joint Statement on Domestic Production
of N95 Respirators
- Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions,
- Ontario Council of Hospital Unions,
- Green Jobs Oshawa
On August 21 the federal and Ontario governments announced major subsidies for 3M Canada to expand its Brockville plant, and starting in early 2021, to produce 50 million N95 respirators each year for five years. This is an important step towards addressing the existing shortage of this much needed PPE. It is also an important step, in the face of global supply chain uncertainties, to create the needed capacity to produce them in Canada. However, it is not enough to remedy the current deficiencies in the supply chain and PPE policy requirements.
First, why will it have taken a full year from the time that news of a new virus first emerged at the end of 2019 to the launching of the Brockville production? After the SARS crisis in 2003, a Royal Commission made recommendations – called for by health care workers and their unions – to respond properly to the next epidemic, including by always deferring to the precautionary principle in dealing with health and safety risks to staff and the people they care for; by stockpiling N95 respirators and by reducing the percentage of part-time heath care staff. In fact, during the COVID-19 crisis the precautionary principle was ignored, and the stockpile of masks expired. The percentage of part-time staff grew significantly during the period from 2003-2019 as healthcare budgets staggered to balance real cuts and surging population growth and aging. This contributed significantly to the unpreparedness this time.
Second, what will happen between now and when the new respirators arrive? The federal government originally ordered 154 million N95 respirators but has only received 61 million as of today[1], leaving a massive gap. This gap will become much worse if there is a second wave of the pandemic or if international supplies are cut off.
Third, what matters is not only the number of respirators produced, but access to them. Throughout this crisis the voices of the frontline workers and their unions have been neglected. Ignoring the ‘precautionary principle’ – in the context of uncertainty and great risks, the benefit of the doubt should lie with those whose health and safety is directly affected – employers (backed by the federal and Ontario governments) have often defined ‘needs’ narrowly to respond to supply pressures, thereby dramatically lowering the number of respirators officially required. A consequence has been that the share of total Canadian COVID-19 infections that include health care workers is among the highest in the world.
It remains remarkable in this context that there have only been ‘incentives’ but no direct pressure on companies to convert their facilities to address this social emergency. What has been needed in this emergency was not ‘subsidies’ and ‘incentives’ but decisive government action, comprehensive planning, and the use of emergency powers to mandate the conversion of manufacturing plants to prioritize public needs (much as would be done in a war-time emergency). The massive GM Oshawa facility, for example, does not need expansion, is already making surgical masks, and could be making N95 respirators quickly, since GM has already perfected the process and has been manufacturing N95s for the US government in its Warren, Michigan plant.
While we welcome the Brockville initiative, recent experience has made clear the dangers of relying on the goodwill of profit driven companies to effectively address critical social issues like health care. Therefore, we call on the federal and provincial governments immediately, to order General Motors to produce N95 respirators at its Oshawa facility and, as those nations most successful at protecting their populations and health care staff have done, treat the virus as an airborne virus and to protect life accordingly.
[1] https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/aic-scr/provisions-supplies-eng.html
First, why will it have taken a full year from the time that news of a new virus first emerged at the end of 2019 to the launching of the Brockville production? After the SARS crisis in 2003, a Royal Commission made recommendations – called for by health care workers and their unions – to respond properly to the next epidemic, including by always deferring to the precautionary principle in dealing with health and safety risks to staff and the people they care for; by stockpiling N95 respirators and by reducing the percentage of part-time heath care staff. In fact, during the COVID-19 crisis the precautionary principle was ignored, and the stockpile of masks expired. The percentage of part-time staff grew significantly during the period from 2003-2019 as healthcare budgets staggered to balance real cuts and surging population growth and aging. This contributed significantly to the unpreparedness this time.
Second, what will happen between now and when the new respirators arrive? The federal government originally ordered 154 million N95 respirators but has only received 61 million as of today[1], leaving a massive gap. This gap will become much worse if there is a second wave of the pandemic or if international supplies are cut off.
Third, what matters is not only the number of respirators produced, but access to them. Throughout this crisis the voices of the frontline workers and their unions have been neglected. Ignoring the ‘precautionary principle’ – in the context of uncertainty and great risks, the benefit of the doubt should lie with those whose health and safety is directly affected – employers (backed by the federal and Ontario governments) have often defined ‘needs’ narrowly to respond to supply pressures, thereby dramatically lowering the number of respirators officially required. A consequence has been that the share of total Canadian COVID-19 infections that include health care workers is among the highest in the world.
It remains remarkable in this context that there have only been ‘incentives’ but no direct pressure on companies to convert their facilities to address this social emergency. What has been needed in this emergency was not ‘subsidies’ and ‘incentives’ but decisive government action, comprehensive planning, and the use of emergency powers to mandate the conversion of manufacturing plants to prioritize public needs (much as would be done in a war-time emergency). The massive GM Oshawa facility, for example, does not need expansion, is already making surgical masks, and could be making N95 respirators quickly, since GM has already perfected the process and has been manufacturing N95s for the US government in its Warren, Michigan plant.
While we welcome the Brockville initiative, recent experience has made clear the dangers of relying on the goodwill of profit driven companies to effectively address critical social issues like health care. Therefore, we call on the federal and provincial governments immediately, to order General Motors to produce N95 respirators at its Oshawa facility and, as those nations most successful at protecting their populations and health care staff have done, treat the virus as an airborne virus and to protect life accordingly.
[1] https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/aic-scr/provisions-supplies-eng.html
Public Forum & Press Conference - Thursday, May 21, 11 am eastern
Expand PPE Production by GM Oshawa, Including N95 Masks
On April 24, the Canadian government announced a letter of intent to convert a portion of the GM Oshawa complex for the manufacture of much needed medical masks.
Green Jobs Oshawa welcomed this important step forward.
However, it soon became apparent that GM’s plans for Oshawa are far short of what is needed. They are using only 50-60 workers and are making Level 1 surgical masks, NOT N95 masks.
Green Jobs Oshawa welcomed this important step forward.
However, it soon became apparent that GM’s plans for Oshawa are far short of what is needed. They are using only 50-60 workers and are making Level 1 surgical masks, NOT N95 masks.
Manufacture N5 Masks in GM Oshawa Now
General Motors Canada has the ability to manufacture millions of N95 masks in Oshawa:
General Motors of Canada asked for, and received $11 billion of public money in 2009. Now, GM of Canada is in the position of being able to make a significant contribution to the public good in Ontario and Canada by greatly expanding manufacturing of PPE in Oshawa, including N95 masks. If GM Canada will not voluntarily support our communities, we call on our governments to use their emergency powers and order it to be done.
Shortage of 100 Million N95 Masks
Canada has a shortage of over 100 million N95 masks, as well as shortages of other key PPE and medical equipment.[1]
Instead of ensuring that all front line workers wear N95 masks (the best protection against airborne infections), health institutions have instituted rationing, locking up the limited supply of N95 masks, and encouraging health workers to rely on surgical masks instead.[2]
The results to front line workers are devastating.
4,043 Infections and 9 Deaths
As of May 19, there have been 4,043 cases of Covid-19 among health care workers in Ontario – 17% of all cases in the province.[3] That is more than 4 times the infection rate in China. Nine of those workers have died. Other front line workers in retail and transportation also are impacted by PPE shortages.
Government should be requiring that all front line workers who have direct contact with people who may be infected wear N95 masks.
To ensure an adequate supply of N95 masks, government should order that they be manufactured here. They have not yet secured sufficient production either through imports or domestic production, which is why the obvious solution is to greatly expand PPE production at GM’s Oshawa complex. The Ontario government can order this under its existing emergency powers. The Canadian government also has the ability to order production under its own emergency legislation.
Register for the Public Forum here:
Public Forum/Press Conference Thursday, May 21, 11 am eastern
[1] https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/mc-cd/provisions-supplies-eng.html#working
[2] For example, Lakeridge Health in Durham issues only 1 surgical mask per 12 hour shift to health professionals coming in contact with potential Covid-19 patients. N95 masks are reserved for only the most dangerous procedures. Lakeridge has also ordered staff not to use PPE that they obtained themselves.
[3] https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-sees-spike-in-new-cases-of-covid-19-but-number-of-new-deaths-drops-1.4944725
General Motors Canada has the ability to manufacture millions of N95 masks in Oshawa:
- GM is already manufacturing N95 masks in the Warren, Michigan plant, and Warren is the template that was used for setting up mask production in Oshawa.
- The GM Oshawa complex has 10 million square feet, most of which is not being utilized. The existing mask production project is reported to use only 30,000 square feet. There is ample room to expand production.
- GM Canada plans to employ 50 to 60 workers for mask production. When GM eliminated vehicle production in Oshawa in December of 2019, they eliminated the jobs of 5,000 highly skilled assembly and supplier workers. Thousands of those workers are available and would be eager to manufacture N95 masks and other urgently needed PPE for front line Canadian workers.
General Motors of Canada asked for, and received $11 billion of public money in 2009. Now, GM of Canada is in the position of being able to make a significant contribution to the public good in Ontario and Canada by greatly expanding manufacturing of PPE in Oshawa, including N95 masks. If GM Canada will not voluntarily support our communities, we call on our governments to use their emergency powers and order it to be done.
Shortage of 100 Million N95 Masks
Canada has a shortage of over 100 million N95 masks, as well as shortages of other key PPE and medical equipment.[1]
Instead of ensuring that all front line workers wear N95 masks (the best protection against airborne infections), health institutions have instituted rationing, locking up the limited supply of N95 masks, and encouraging health workers to rely on surgical masks instead.[2]
The results to front line workers are devastating.
4,043 Infections and 9 Deaths
As of May 19, there have been 4,043 cases of Covid-19 among health care workers in Ontario – 17% of all cases in the province.[3] That is more than 4 times the infection rate in China. Nine of those workers have died. Other front line workers in retail and transportation also are impacted by PPE shortages.
Government should be requiring that all front line workers who have direct contact with people who may be infected wear N95 masks.
To ensure an adequate supply of N95 masks, government should order that they be manufactured here. They have not yet secured sufficient production either through imports or domestic production, which is why the obvious solution is to greatly expand PPE production at GM’s Oshawa complex. The Ontario government can order this under its existing emergency powers. The Canadian government also has the ability to order production under its own emergency legislation.
Register for the Public Forum here:
Public Forum/Press Conference Thursday, May 21, 11 am eastern
[1] https://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/comm/mc-cd/provisions-supplies-eng.html#working
[2] For example, Lakeridge Health in Durham issues only 1 surgical mask per 12 hour shift to health professionals coming in contact with potential Covid-19 patients. N95 masks are reserved for only the most dangerous procedures. Lakeridge has also ordered staff not to use PPE that they obtained themselves.
[3] https://www.cp24.com/news/ontario-sees-spike-in-new-cases-of-covid-19-but-number-of-new-deaths-drops-1.4944725
GM Canada Response is Disappointing
Monday, April 20, 2020: Green Jobs of Canada released the following statement today:
GM of Canada has responded to our community’s needs with a disappointing and inadequate statement.
GM is one of the largest manufacturing companies in Ontario. But as of now, they have not undertaken any manufacturing of needed medical equipment or PPE for Canadians.
Green Jobs Oshawa is demanding that GM to make use of the mostly empty, 10 million square foot Oshawa complex, where they no longer assemble vehicles, and the thousands of highly skilled laid-off assembly and supplier workers who are available. Those workers could be manufacturing some of the PPE that is urgently needed by front-line medical, retail, long-term care, transit and service workers in our community right now.
General Motors of Canada spokesperson David Paterson sent us a letter in which he said:
- GM is proud of their work manufacturing ventilators in Kokomo, Indiana for the US government, and GM of Canada engineers provided support for that work.
- GM has provided space at the Oshawa complex as a gathering point for donated PPE from automotive suppliers and dealers, to go to health care workers.
- GM engineers have helped in a project led by Ontario Power Generation and Ontario Tech University to develop 3D printed face shields.
GM brags about manufacturing in US plants for US needs (with support from GM of Canada), but meanwhile they will do NO MANUFACTURING in Oshawa, for Canadian needs.
Considering the $11 billion dollars of public money that GM of Canada was happy to take a few years ago – this is shockingly disappointing.
It is unclear what minimal contribution GM is making to the face shield project – neither OPG nor Ontario Tech University even mention GM in their press releases. As far as we know, GM has one 3D printer in the Oshawa assembly complex that could be used for this project.
This proves again, that we cannot rely on ‘good will’ from corporations to meet the still urgent need for medical equipment and PPE.
It is up to our governments to plan and coordinate the manufacturing of what we need, and order the corporations to get it done.
The first step should be ordering GM to start manufacturing in Oshawa.
Virtual Press Conference:
Government Must Order GM to
Make Needed PPE in Oshawa
Government Must Order GM to
Make Needed PPE in Oshawa
APRIL 9, 2020: Green Jobs Oshawa held a virtual press conference with manufacturing and healthcare worker representatives on the need for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or Premier Doug Ford to immediately order the production of essential medical equipment and supplies at the Oshawa GM complex and related parts supplier facilities. This should be the first step towards establishing a publicly owned manufacturing centre that could supply strategically necessary goods in times of crisis.
Speakers at the press conference were:
The Press Conference can be viewed on YouTube.
Speakers at the press conference were:
- Michael Hurley, President of the hospital division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)
- Patty Coates, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour
- James Hutt, The Leap
- Rebecca Keetch, Green Jobs Oshawa
The Press Conference can be viewed on YouTube.
Linda McQuaig's New Book Supports Nationalization of GM
"The Sport and Prey of Capitalists"
"The rationale that the wartime emergency made government ownership acceptable could be resurrected today — with the substitution of the climate emergency. The possibility of producing electric utility vehicles at a nationalized GM Canada plant, or at another location for that matter, would open up truly exciting possibilities if we can get beyond our knee-jerk rejection of government entering the marketplace."
September 14, 2019 An excerpt from Linda McQuaig's new book.
In November 2018, Detroit-based General Motors dealt a staggering blow to 2,700 Canadian workers when it announced plans leading to the closure of a key automotive assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario. In its heyday decades earlier, GM Oshawa had been the largest auto complex in North America and had employed twenty-three thousand workers. But those numbers had been steadily reduced over the years, and now it was to be shut down — along with several GM plants in the United States — as part of the ongoing move by the automaker to relocate ever more of its production to low-wage Mexico.
Unifor, the union representing Canadian auto workers, protested vehemently and focused on trying to negotiate a less draconian deal with GM in order to save at least some of the jobs. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government in Ottawa and the Ford government in Toronto signalled their willingness to accept the closure of the plant without a fight.
One veteran of the auto industry calling for a more robust response from government has been Sam Gindin, who served from 1974 to 2000 as research director of the Canadian Auto Workers (Unifor’s predecessor). Now an adjunct professor at York University, Gindin argues that giving up on Oshawa amounts to a “disheartening failure of the imagination.” Instead, he suggests serious consideration be given to expropriating the GM Oshawa plant and turning it into a publicly owned facility that would produce some of the vast array of products that will be needed in the transition to green energy: wind turbines, solar panels, energy-saving lighting, motors, appliances, and electric vehicles.
A fleet of electric utility vehicles seems the most obvious alternative for the Oshawa assembly plant, he notes. “Public vehicles will inevitably have to be electrified or run on renewable energy resources, and this means a growing market for electric post office vans for mail and package delivery (as suggested by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers), hydro vehicles doing maintenance and repair work, minibuses to supplement public transit … electrified vehicles in agriculture, mining and construction.” Gindin points out that much of the needed equipment and skills for such an ambitious “green production” project already exist in the Oshawa complex; additional high-tech expertise could be pulled in from the Waterloo computer corridor, as well as Canada’s experienced engineering, aerospace, and construction firms.
Of course, Gindin’s idea for producing public utility vehicles would require co-operation from the federal and provincial governments, and it is hard to imagine such co-operation from our current political leaders. And business leaders would no doubt dismiss the notion that the public sector could handle something as complicated as vehicle manufacturing.
In fact, as we’ve seen, Canadian public enterprise has an impressive history and has made its mark in fields that are at least as complicated as vehicle manufacturing. The creation of a public hydroelectric power system in Ontario — and later in other provinces — was a stunning achievement that served as a model for U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt when he created highly successful public power systems, including the New York Power Authority, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Rural Electrification Administration, and the Bonneville Power Administration. There was also Connaught Labs, the publicly owned Canadian drug company, which made remarkable contributions to the development of breakthrough vaccines and treatments for a wide range of deadly diseases. And the publicly owned CNR exhibited innovative business skills in creating a viable national rail network out of five bankrupt railway lines and in establishing, during the pioneering days of radio, a cross-country string of radio stations, which became the basis of the nationwide CBC broadcasting network.
And, as we’ve seen, some of Canada’s most impressive public enterprises were created during the Second World War, when twenty-eight Crown corporations contributed enormously to Canada’s war effort, manufacturing airplanes, weapons, and communications equipment. Crown corporation Victory Aircraft provided the foundation for the postwar Canadian subsidiary that developed the Avro Arrow, a state-of-the-art military fighter plane (discontinued by the Diefenbaker government for political, not technological, reasons). And Crown corporation Research Enterprises, teaming up during the war with Ottawa’s National Research Council, produced highly innovative optical and communications equipment, including radar devices, binoculars, and radio sets — equipment with countless applications that could have been successfully developed for the postwar market if our political leaders hadn’t succumbed to the notion that government shouldn’t be involved in producing such things.
The rationale that the wartime emergency made government ownership acceptable could be resurrected today — with the substitution of the climate emergency. The possibility of producing electric utility vehicles at a nationalized GM Canada plant, or at another location for that matter, would open up truly exciting possibilities if we can get beyond our knee-jerk rejection of government entering the marketplace.
As Toronto Star business columnist David Olive observed, Canadians know a lot about building cars; we’ve been manufacturing them in southern Ontario for more than a hundred years. It started in Oshawa in the 1890s when Sam McLaughlin, along with his father and brother, established McLaughlin Carriage Works, which produced horse-drawn sleighs and carriages. By 1908, the McLaughlins were producing car bodies for Buick Motor Company in Flint, Michigan. In 1918, their company was purchased by General Motors and incorporated as General Motors of Canada, with Sam McLaughlin serving as president of GM Canada and vice-president of the U.S. parent company.
GM, along with Ford and Chrysler, built a substantial auto industry in Ontario, particularly after Canada and the United States signed the 1965 Auto Pact, which provided automakers access to the Canadian market on the condition that they locate a specified amount of their production here. Effectively, the pact required that, for every vehicle sold in Canada, one had to be produced here. This “domestic content requirement” worked extremely well for Canada, leading to the creation of hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs in Canadian auto production and spinoff industries.
In 1988, Brian Mulroney signed the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (later adding Mexico in NAFTA), which eliminated most of the force of these domestic content requirements. The Auto Pact continued to formally exist until 2001 (when it was overruled by the World Trade Organization). But as soon as the ink was dry on NAFTA, the auto companies began planning their migration to Mexico. In 2019, GM is expected to produce one million vehicles in Mexico, while GM’s Canadian production, with the closing of the Oshawa plant, is expected to fall to just two hundred thousand vehicles — about half of what it was producing here a decade ago.
Yet, even as GM has drastically cut its Canadian operations, Canadian taxpayers have contributed generously to keeping the company alive. When the 2008 financial crisis pushed the U.S. automaker into bankruptcy, the Canadian and Ontario governments provided financial assistance worth more than ten billion dollars (including a 10 percent ownership stake in the company) as part of the joint U.S.- Canada financial rescue of GM.
Jim Stanford, former economist for Unifor, argues that the ownership stake gave Ottawa some real clout in dealing with GM. He points out that Ottawa could have held on to that stake and used it as leverage to pressure the company in the future to maintain production and jobs in Canada. This has worked elsewhere. France’s 15 percent interest in Renault and a German public ownership stake in Volkswagen have helped ensure that Renault and Volkswagen maintain high employment levels in France and Germany, Stanford says.
But the Harper government, with its strong ideological resistance to public ownership, made clear that it intended to be a purely passive investor in GM and that it would sell its stake as soon as possible. By 2015, the Harper government had sold off the last of Canada’s shares, over the strenuous objections of Unifor.
This was a tremendous missed opportunity. Stanford recalls how much clout Canada had had when the rescue package was negotiated. He was in meetings where “the CEO of GM was basically on his knees begging for help from an assistant deputy minister of industry in Ottawa. That’s not what normally happens.” As part of the rescue package, Canada insisted that GM agree to maintain its Canadian production at the existing level of 16 percent of the company’s overall production. That production requirement — reminiscent of the Auto Pact — was good, Stanford says, except that the Canadian negotiators allowed it to expire by 2017.
So, in 2018, after the expiry of the production requirement and with no remaining Canadian government ownership stake in the company, GM felt free to shut down its major Canadian plant in Oshawa and move those jobs to Mexico, which is exactly what it did. Given the Harper government’s failure to take advantage of the clout we had with GM, we have been left with a dwindling, uncertain presence in a once-booming Canadian industry.
It’s striking to think that we were veterans of the auto manufacturing industry by the 1960s, when Honda was just beginning its transition in Japan from making motorcycles to making cars. While Honda has gone on to produce some of the world’s most popular cars, Canada is facing the end of auto making in Oshawa, amid fears about which of our remaining auto plants will be closed next.
Is it feasible to save the once-vibrant Oshawa complex and transform it into a publicly owned plant producing environmentally essential products, as part of a Green New Deal? Gindin notes that, during the Second World War, GM facilities were converted to produce military vehicles. And he suggests that the Oshawa plant be expropriated today without compensation, since Canadian taxpayers have already provided generous subsidies to GM. While he acknowledges that his plan is a long shot, he adds, “It seems criminal not to at least try.”
What is needed is some bold, out-of-the-box thinking — a willingness to consider innovation that is not just Wall-Street-designed, self-enriching financial innovation, but untapped made-in-Canada innovation aimed at building something the world needs. Given the fact that Canada’s historic auto-making centre is about to be shut down, we should at least give serious consideration to the possibility of creating a publicly owned company that could potentially start a transformative industry here. If that idea is ultimately rejected, the rejection should be based on something more than the notion that such a project is too ambitious for public enterprise and is best left to the private sector.
In truth, the very ambitiousness of the project seems to call out for public enterprise. For most of our history we’ve been mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water” and operators of branch plants. When we’ve risen above that, it’s usually been because we’ve created public enterprises that served a broader public purpose than what private interests were offering. We became the country we are today in part because, at key moments in our past, some visionary figures had bold, ambitious ideas of what was possible and weren’t deterred by the admonitions of the business elite.
Would Adam Beck have backed off from creating a public power system for Ontario, thinking that he couldn’t possibly match the skill set of those in business? Would Henry Thornton have decided not to transform bankrupt railway lines into the profitable, publicly owned Canadian National Railways on the grounds that railways belong exclusively in the hands of private, profiteering monopolists? Would Dr. John G. FitzGerald have decided not to take great personal risks experimenting in a makeshift lab in a horse barn, considering it better to leave the production of affordable, life-saving medical treatments to the business world?
There may be a good reason not to turn the Oshawa plant into a green production facility, but let’s not succumb to the ill-informed notion that Canadians aren’t up to the task or that we don’t know how to do public enterprise in this country.
Unifor, the union representing Canadian auto workers, protested vehemently and focused on trying to negotiate a less draconian deal with GM in order to save at least some of the jobs. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government in Ottawa and the Ford government in Toronto signalled their willingness to accept the closure of the plant without a fight.
One veteran of the auto industry calling for a more robust response from government has been Sam Gindin, who served from 1974 to 2000 as research director of the Canadian Auto Workers (Unifor’s predecessor). Now an adjunct professor at York University, Gindin argues that giving up on Oshawa amounts to a “disheartening failure of the imagination.” Instead, he suggests serious consideration be given to expropriating the GM Oshawa plant and turning it into a publicly owned facility that would produce some of the vast array of products that will be needed in the transition to green energy: wind turbines, solar panels, energy-saving lighting, motors, appliances, and electric vehicles.
A fleet of electric utility vehicles seems the most obvious alternative for the Oshawa assembly plant, he notes. “Public vehicles will inevitably have to be electrified or run on renewable energy resources, and this means a growing market for electric post office vans for mail and package delivery (as suggested by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers), hydro vehicles doing maintenance and repair work, minibuses to supplement public transit … electrified vehicles in agriculture, mining and construction.” Gindin points out that much of the needed equipment and skills for such an ambitious “green production” project already exist in the Oshawa complex; additional high-tech expertise could be pulled in from the Waterloo computer corridor, as well as Canada’s experienced engineering, aerospace, and construction firms.
Of course, Gindin’s idea for producing public utility vehicles would require co-operation from the federal and provincial governments, and it is hard to imagine such co-operation from our current political leaders. And business leaders would no doubt dismiss the notion that the public sector could handle something as complicated as vehicle manufacturing.
In fact, as we’ve seen, Canadian public enterprise has an impressive history and has made its mark in fields that are at least as complicated as vehicle manufacturing. The creation of a public hydroelectric power system in Ontario — and later in other provinces — was a stunning achievement that served as a model for U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt when he created highly successful public power systems, including the New York Power Authority, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Rural Electrification Administration, and the Bonneville Power Administration. There was also Connaught Labs, the publicly owned Canadian drug company, which made remarkable contributions to the development of breakthrough vaccines and treatments for a wide range of deadly diseases. And the publicly owned CNR exhibited innovative business skills in creating a viable national rail network out of five bankrupt railway lines and in establishing, during the pioneering days of radio, a cross-country string of radio stations, which became the basis of the nationwide CBC broadcasting network.
And, as we’ve seen, some of Canada’s most impressive public enterprises were created during the Second World War, when twenty-eight Crown corporations contributed enormously to Canada’s war effort, manufacturing airplanes, weapons, and communications equipment. Crown corporation Victory Aircraft provided the foundation for the postwar Canadian subsidiary that developed the Avro Arrow, a state-of-the-art military fighter plane (discontinued by the Diefenbaker government for political, not technological, reasons). And Crown corporation Research Enterprises, teaming up during the war with Ottawa’s National Research Council, produced highly innovative optical and communications equipment, including radar devices, binoculars, and radio sets — equipment with countless applications that could have been successfully developed for the postwar market if our political leaders hadn’t succumbed to the notion that government shouldn’t be involved in producing such things.
The rationale that the wartime emergency made government ownership acceptable could be resurrected today — with the substitution of the climate emergency. The possibility of producing electric utility vehicles at a nationalized GM Canada plant, or at another location for that matter, would open up truly exciting possibilities if we can get beyond our knee-jerk rejection of government entering the marketplace.
As Toronto Star business columnist David Olive observed, Canadians know a lot about building cars; we’ve been manufacturing them in southern Ontario for more than a hundred years. It started in Oshawa in the 1890s when Sam McLaughlin, along with his father and brother, established McLaughlin Carriage Works, which produced horse-drawn sleighs and carriages. By 1908, the McLaughlins were producing car bodies for Buick Motor Company in Flint, Michigan. In 1918, their company was purchased by General Motors and incorporated as General Motors of Canada, with Sam McLaughlin serving as president of GM Canada and vice-president of the U.S. parent company.
GM, along with Ford and Chrysler, built a substantial auto industry in Ontario, particularly after Canada and the United States signed the 1965 Auto Pact, which provided automakers access to the Canadian market on the condition that they locate a specified amount of their production here. Effectively, the pact required that, for every vehicle sold in Canada, one had to be produced here. This “domestic content requirement” worked extremely well for Canada, leading to the creation of hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs in Canadian auto production and spinoff industries.
In 1988, Brian Mulroney signed the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (later adding Mexico in NAFTA), which eliminated most of the force of these domestic content requirements. The Auto Pact continued to formally exist until 2001 (when it was overruled by the World Trade Organization). But as soon as the ink was dry on NAFTA, the auto companies began planning their migration to Mexico. In 2019, GM is expected to produce one million vehicles in Mexico, while GM’s Canadian production, with the closing of the Oshawa plant, is expected to fall to just two hundred thousand vehicles — about half of what it was producing here a decade ago.
Yet, even as GM has drastically cut its Canadian operations, Canadian taxpayers have contributed generously to keeping the company alive. When the 2008 financial crisis pushed the U.S. automaker into bankruptcy, the Canadian and Ontario governments provided financial assistance worth more than ten billion dollars (including a 10 percent ownership stake in the company) as part of the joint U.S.- Canada financial rescue of GM.
Jim Stanford, former economist for Unifor, argues that the ownership stake gave Ottawa some real clout in dealing with GM. He points out that Ottawa could have held on to that stake and used it as leverage to pressure the company in the future to maintain production and jobs in Canada. This has worked elsewhere. France’s 15 percent interest in Renault and a German public ownership stake in Volkswagen have helped ensure that Renault and Volkswagen maintain high employment levels in France and Germany, Stanford says.
But the Harper government, with its strong ideological resistance to public ownership, made clear that it intended to be a purely passive investor in GM and that it would sell its stake as soon as possible. By 2015, the Harper government had sold off the last of Canada’s shares, over the strenuous objections of Unifor.
This was a tremendous missed opportunity. Stanford recalls how much clout Canada had had when the rescue package was negotiated. He was in meetings where “the CEO of GM was basically on his knees begging for help from an assistant deputy minister of industry in Ottawa. That’s not what normally happens.” As part of the rescue package, Canada insisted that GM agree to maintain its Canadian production at the existing level of 16 percent of the company’s overall production. That production requirement — reminiscent of the Auto Pact — was good, Stanford says, except that the Canadian negotiators allowed it to expire by 2017.
So, in 2018, after the expiry of the production requirement and with no remaining Canadian government ownership stake in the company, GM felt free to shut down its major Canadian plant in Oshawa and move those jobs to Mexico, which is exactly what it did. Given the Harper government’s failure to take advantage of the clout we had with GM, we have been left with a dwindling, uncertain presence in a once-booming Canadian industry.
It’s striking to think that we were veterans of the auto manufacturing industry by the 1960s, when Honda was just beginning its transition in Japan from making motorcycles to making cars. While Honda has gone on to produce some of the world’s most popular cars, Canada is facing the end of auto making in Oshawa, amid fears about which of our remaining auto plants will be closed next.
Is it feasible to save the once-vibrant Oshawa complex and transform it into a publicly owned plant producing environmentally essential products, as part of a Green New Deal? Gindin notes that, during the Second World War, GM facilities were converted to produce military vehicles. And he suggests that the Oshawa plant be expropriated today without compensation, since Canadian taxpayers have already provided generous subsidies to GM. While he acknowledges that his plan is a long shot, he adds, “It seems criminal not to at least try.”
What is needed is some bold, out-of-the-box thinking — a willingness to consider innovation that is not just Wall-Street-designed, self-enriching financial innovation, but untapped made-in-Canada innovation aimed at building something the world needs. Given the fact that Canada’s historic auto-making centre is about to be shut down, we should at least give serious consideration to the possibility of creating a publicly owned company that could potentially start a transformative industry here. If that idea is ultimately rejected, the rejection should be based on something more than the notion that such a project is too ambitious for public enterprise and is best left to the private sector.
In truth, the very ambitiousness of the project seems to call out for public enterprise. For most of our history we’ve been mere “hewers of wood and drawers of water” and operators of branch plants. When we’ve risen above that, it’s usually been because we’ve created public enterprises that served a broader public purpose than what private interests were offering. We became the country we are today in part because, at key moments in our past, some visionary figures had bold, ambitious ideas of what was possible and weren’t deterred by the admonitions of the business elite.
Would Adam Beck have backed off from creating a public power system for Ontario, thinking that he couldn’t possibly match the skill set of those in business? Would Henry Thornton have decided not to transform bankrupt railway lines into the profitable, publicly owned Canadian National Railways on the grounds that railways belong exclusively in the hands of private, profiteering monopolists? Would Dr. John G. FitzGerald have decided not to take great personal risks experimenting in a makeshift lab in a horse barn, considering it better to leave the production of affordable, life-saving medical treatments to the business world?
There may be a good reason not to turn the Oshawa plant into a green production facility, but let’s not succumb to the ill-informed notion that Canadians aren’t up to the task or that we don’t know how to do public enterprise in this country.