BRUCE CHEADLE
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — A majority of Canadians are comfortable with billions of dollars in government loans for the ailing auto industry, a new poll suggests.
The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey found that 56 per cent of respondents supported the notion of “proportional, repayable loans,” while 33 per cent were opposed.
Ontario, the heart of Canada’s auto sector, showed the most support, with 62 per cent in favour of the bailout and just 28 per cent opposed.
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By DON PEAT, JONATHAN JENKINS AND JENNY YUEN
A $4-billion bailout is an investment in the Canadian economy, not a Christmas gift from Premier Dalton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Canadian Auto Workers national president says.
Ken Lewenza told reporters yesterday the two governments did the responsible thing by agreeing to an auto aid package.
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Canada offers $4 billion in loans to automakers
By DON PEAT, SUN MEDIA
Ontario mayors welcomed yesterday’s auto announcement but hoped the much-needed aid doesn’t idle too long so it’s stalled out by the new year.
“This has finally happened,” Oshawa Mayor John Gray told the Sun yesterday just after the announcement. “I wished it happened a while ago because it would have lifted a lot of the uncertainty. They have done the right thing and they are trying to preserve our share of automotive production in North America.”
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Demise of auto industry would be ‘economic equivalent of a nuclear freeze’: Bryant
Canada would lose 582,000 jobs within five years if the Big Three automakers completely shut down, according to a report prepared for the Ontario Manufacturing Council, a government advisory panel of industry and labour representatives.
The report, which was prepared by the Centre for Spatial Economics, projects a bleak economic picture for the province and the rest of the country if the automakers were to go out of business.
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Centre for Spatial Economics
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DEREK DeCLOET
Globe and Mail Update
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment when Rick Wagoner, the auto workers’ unions and the rest of the Detroit apparatus lost their grip on the public. Maybe it was when they admitted, during a mid-November trip to Washington to beg for money, that they’d flown there on corporate jets. Or maybe it happened long before that.
It doesn’t matter now. What matters is that the auto industry has lost its ability to sway opinion. What’s good for General Motors is no longer what’s good for America. That’s what Americans say, at least.
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