Ford confirmed yesterday that $16.5m in bribes public money from the province of Ontario was a crucial factor in its decision to reopen the Essex Engine plant in Windsor, Ontario. The Toronto Star reports that Ford says it will expand the Windsor reopening to include a further 300 jobs, but only if the Canadian federal government makes with more pork. "We are not able or willing to move forward with the second phase of the project until we can find resolution to all the issues we have outstanding with the governments," said FoMoCo group VP Joe Hinrichs. Translation: we won't add more output without more federal assistance input. For perspective, some 900 jobs were lost when the factory was shuttered by Ford in November, 2007. Naturally, CAW President Buzz Hargrove is lending his considerable extortion negotiating experience to the project, arguing that the 300 additional jobs would surely be worth a few mil in taxpayer lucre. The sad part? With Canada's manufacturing sector in the statistical scrap heap, Ottawa just might go for it.
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I’m so happy my tax dollars are going to support autoworkers. After a lifetime of hardship and toil they deserve charitable support, don’t they?
Seriously, it’s not bad enough to spend a lifetime listening to these unskilled errand boys (and girls) run their yaps about their income, now i have to shell out to keep them in work, building cars nobody wants. Pathetic.
The Canadian knuckle dragging mouth breathing sub-moronic imbeciles in charge of pi$$ing away taxpayer monies should wake up and get a clue, already. (Of course, I can easily say the same – in spades – about all American politicos as well).
Canada, 1965. Renault and Peugeot were subsidized in order to assemble cars in Quebec (where else?!) – and as soon as the subsidies ended, so did production.
Canada, 1966. CMI were given subsidies to allow them to assemble Toyotas and Isuzus in Nova Scotia – which ended soon enough.
Canada, 1988. Hyundai were subsidized in order to assemble cars in Quebec – ditto.
Not to mention British Leyland, 1972-1984, UK. Look how well that worked out for the taxpayers of Britain (NOT).
It seems ridiculous. 300 factory jobs for what, $55,000 per job created? Almost seems this bidding should be made illegal. Let the chips/jobs fall where they may.
Out of curiousity, what’s the per-job value on recent plants in the US? Alabama for Mercedes maybe? Texas or Mississippi for Toyota? People make a big deal out of the jobs created in the south, but rarely is it mentioned they subsize each job extensively, in addition to the usual $1/year taxes for 10 years on top of that.
Ridiculous.
Menno,
You forgot the Bricklin and Delorean boondoggles.
Ford installed a new crankline in Essex that can build 6.2l cranks and will supply Romeo Engine during their launch of the new Ford V8. This new product kicks in the COA(sort of a 2 tier agreement) that the union signed with Ford and will lead to at least 100 Ford employees being replaced. It is a regular soap opera.
This article is accurate.
http://communities.canada.com/windsorstar/blogs/vanderblogger/default.aspx
Your headline should read Toronto, not Ottawa. The money is coming from the province, not the feds.
Who can blame Ford thier out looking for who can cut the best deal.Hey if we don’t want play ball maybe Michigan will eh?
Yes I am a CAW represented, well paid Ontario auto worker.I have paid a fortune in taxes to have the money thrown away on all kinds of crap.
Our jobs and our tax base is vanishing here in Ontario.I really don’t give a rats ass if Queens Park or Ottawa or the city of Windsor writes the check.The auto industry has carried Ontario for a long time.
Ford wiil get thier engine plant one way or the other.If its not the Canadian taxpayer,it will be a taxpayer somewhere else.
Not disagreeing with you mikey. Ontario has been, until recently, the breadbasket of Canada and we are all going to suffer as the manufacturing jobs leave.
Just want to see the facts reported correctly.
“Who can blame Ford thier out looking for who can cut the best deal.Hey if we don’t want play ball maybe Michigan will eh?”
Already did but it cost Michigan nothing.
They put the 6.2l in Romeo instead of Windsor with no government incentives. And all the new V6 lines were added in the USA without government money. Buzz must be special.
With the reduced demand for V8’s Windsor might lose all their V8 production to Romeo, Michigan.
It’s my money and I want it back.
Alberta is looking better every day.
Is that a real book cover? It’s hilarious.
At any rate, the first step for both the US and Canada is the passage of a law requiring federal approval of all tax breaks and subsidies to businesses to ensure that they are not just stealing jobs from within the country at taxpayer expense.
The next step is for countries of similar business environments to create federations which keep them from doing the same thing to each other. IOW, US and Canada get together and keep from subsidizing a company from crossing their borders, but allow each other to keep jobs from going to Mexico. Eventually, the practice will thus end as the blocs get big enough that it becomes a non problem.
The real beauty of this is that it could stop the stealing of poor people’s sales taxes to build new stadiums for sports franchises full of multi-millionaires.
Maybe Dalton will use our health tax money to help fund this.
I’m still waiting to hear GM and Buzz clamoring for money to save the flex plant in Oshawa.
BTW, sales numbers just released for March.
I think I heard the loud “thunk” resonate all the way north of the border.
Just for scope and scale, Honda purportedly received $140 million in tax breaks and incentives for their plant in Indiana. That will be about $100,000 per worker employed there.
Toyota is probably the king of raking in tax breaks and incentives to locate facilities, factories and suppliers.
This is just part of doing business now.
RobertSD,
+1. I don’t blame Ford one little bit. Toyota has gotten sway with this for years along with just about every other automker and supplier. It’s just Toyota, since it has been building whole new plants has done more than anyone else. Why should Ford not do it if everyone can (and is)?
Part of the reason is that money turns over in the economy something like 19 times (I don’t know why 19 is sticking in my head right now, but it’s a similar number). So do the math. If a 50k job costs the taxpayers 100k it will turn over to the tune of $950,000 before it’s done winding it’s way thru the local or regional economy.