Canada's automotive renaissance is happening because governments are investing to make it happen, says Unifor national president Lana Payne.
In less than three years direct government investment has turned Canada’s auto industry from an apparent global manufacturing “has-been” to a “has-it-all”, according to Lana Payne, national president of Unifor.
“Automakers are pouring tens of billions of dollars into production plants and factory towns across the country – roughly $25 billion at last count – building a truly pan-Canadian auto sector, from car assembly to critical minerals. The two largest-ever factory investments in Canadian history occurred in the past twelve months,” the union leader points out in an open editorial.
She adds this is not happening thanks to “theoretical market forces” being left to play out.
“Let’s be perfectly clear that what’s happening in the auto sector isn’t happening by accident. There are no theoretical market forces guiding us toward new assembly programs and battery plants, which is making more than a few ivory tower, tax-cut loving economists a bit squeamish,” she asserts. “The fact is this industrial renaissance is happening because governments are investing in making it happen.”
Payne says it wasn’t that long ago that most wrote off Canada’s manufacturing sector – and the nearly 2 million workers it employs – as all but dead.
“Somehow, the desire to physically produce things in Canada became a symbol of economic failure. Some politicians would recoil at the idea governments would invest funds to target and win new global product mandates – direct investments that pay back through job growth, industrial spin offs and new economic activity,” Payne says.
She adds that the offshoring of work is partly why Canada’s auto industry shrunk so significantly over 20 years, nearly halving its production capacity, closing four vehicle assembly plants and wiping out nearly 50,000 jobs.
It’s also why Canada lags in other industrial spaces, like steelmaking, shipbuilding, rail, bus and aerospace manufacturing, and so many others, she says.
“The ‘fingers-crossed’, ‘hope for the best’ approach to economy-building is never good strategy. Finally, today, governments are investing in real workplaces and in jobs,” she counters. “Investing directly in big industrial projects also provides government new leverage, as stakeholders, to maximize the economic returns to Canadians. In exchange for inking a deal to support the new Windsor battery plant, governments set conditions that Stellantis must follow through with product mandates for its Brampton Assembly Plant.”
Payne closes her op-ed piece by stating that returning to economy building through industrial strategy “allows us, finally, to think big, build big, and maximize the benefits to working people across the country.”
