St. Thomas, ON – On the eve of dropping the writ for the Ontario election, the governing Liberal party has finally acknowledged that there is a job loss crisis in Ontario’s manufacturing sector. But while Labour Minister Steve Peters acknowledged there is a crisis he fell short of endorsing the IAMAW ‘Buy Canadian’ procurement proposal, as a first step to solving the problem.
Peters gave his acknowledgement during an IAMAW sponsored ‘All Parties’ meeting held at the Elgin Labour Temple in St. Thomas, Ontario, Wednesday night. The event was the first of four ‘All Parties’ meetings the IAMAW has planned this week in the hopes of making, manufacturing job losses, an issue in the October 10th provincial election. Since January 2006, Ontario’s manufacturing sector has lost more than 175,000 good paying jobs.
“There can be ‘no buts’ when it comes to buying Canadian and spending the Ontario taxpayer’s dollar,” said Murray Gaudreau, NDP candidate for Chatham-Essex-Kent. “My riding has experienced 17,000 manufacturing job losses in the past year and we have to act now to stop this crisis. A buy Canadian first policy is a step in the right direction.”
“We need to lead by example,” said Peters. “We need to support our friends and neighbours and buy local, buy Ontario and buy Canadian where possible. When you shop you need to ensure that you read the labels before you buy.” But while the minister drives a locally produced Ford product for business and an Ontario-made Toyota for personal use, his government has no ‘buy Canadian’ procurement policy in place to date. Both candidates offered suggestions on how to cure the crisis. Peters referred to investment initiatives his government has made to auto sector in the past two years along with the creation of 351,000 new jobs. But Gaudreau said many of those new jobs pay less than half of what the lost jobs paid and many have no benefits at all. He called for lower electricity costs to help industry and stronger employment standards to protect workers.
Prior to each meeting, the IAMAW will conduct regional workshops to train local activists from the membership of local lodges on lobbying and communication techniques to increase awareness of the local politicians of the extent and importance of the manufacturing job loss crisis. Further meetings and workshops will be held later this week in Mississauga, Trenton and North Bay.
