Jun 04, 2008 - 06:00 AM
Rob Ferguson
OTTAWA - Critics are accusing Finance Minister Jim Flaherty of helping to drive GM out of Oshawa with his anti-Ontario rhetoric.
In particular his recent comment in Halifax suggesting that investors would steer clear of Canada’s most populous province is being cited as a defining moment.
“We had a finance minister who stood up and recommended to companies like GM that they not invest in Ontario. It looks like they took his advice,” NDP Leader Jack Layton told the House of Commons.
“ The fact is these workers are losing their jobs because the government has no vision, no plan, no strategy for green cars, no strategy for the jobs that are needed,” he said.
For weeks now Flaherty has been blaming the provincial Liberal government’s high business taxes for Ontario’s economic woes.
“Canadians have zero confidence in the minister. He told companies not to invest in Ontario and today General Motors took his advice,” Liberal MP John McCallum (Markham-Unionville) said.
In a comment that has dogged Flaherty ever since, he said in February that the McGuinty government’s business taxes discourage companies from pumping money into Ontario.
“If you are going to make a new business investment in Canada, and you’re concerned about taxes, the last place you will go is the province of Ontario,” he said.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper told MPs yesterday that GM’s decision is “very unfortunate” but he said it’s a problem with truck sales that is affecting the company in other countries as well.
Ford in Oakville has announced it is adding jobs, Harper noted, so “there will be possibilities of job changes.”
Speaking to the media, Industry Minister Jim Prentice did not suggest any specific response from Ottawa to the GM layoffs.
“GM wants to be here, but the truck they are producing, people aren’t buying, so they are looking at a passenger vehicle run and we will continue our discussion,” Prentice told reporters later.
Later, McCallum said it’s time for Flaherty to take his head out of the sand and face up to the challenges of today’s economic conditions in central Canada.
Flaherty has focused his efforts to boost the economy mainly on tax reductions. In his fall mini-budget, he introduced costly corporate and personal income tax cuts, as well as a further reduction in the GST.
But McCallum said the latest job losses at General Motors drive home the need for Ottawa to do more than cut taxes.
The federal Liberals have called for immediate, wide-ranging efforts to strengthen the business environment at a time when the combination of the high loonie and the United States economic slump have put Ontario on the edge of a recession.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion had urged the government to take $7-billion that Flaherty had earmarked for government debt reduction and use it for a massive infrastructure rebuilding strategy to stimulate the economy and spur job-creation. But the Conservatives turned down that suggestion.
The Liberals would also like to see Ottawa set up a $1 billion fund to help manufacturers adapt to new “green” technologies.
In the Commons, Flaherty declared that the economy, overall, is strong and that there are lots of jobs being created. “
In fact, we have labour shortages in most regions of the economy,” he remarked.
-- With files from Tony Van Alphen, Les Whittington and Richard Brennan, Torstar news service
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