Mayors for Automotive Investment

Statement by Ontario Mayors for Automotive Investment on Automotive Sector Crises.
Mayors call for urgent bilateral talks, concerted Canada/U.S. action   TORONTO, Nov. 19, 2008

The Ontario Mayors for Automotive Investment (OMAI) are preparing to meet in Toronto Friday to discuss the crisis hitting Canada’s auto sector. Twenty-two Mayors from Windsor to Oshawa and their economic development commissioners will be in attendance.   

“The crisis hitting Canada’s automotive sector is real and it is serious. If it is not addressed quickly and decisively as part of a coordinated Canada/U.S. strategy to revamp the sector, it is not just thousands of jobs that will be lost but dozens of communities across Ontario that will face economic devastation.  

For more than half a century, the auto sector has been the backbone of Ontario’s industrial heartland. Communities have developed and grown around the auto industry. Families, hard-working men and women, settled in this corner of our country because of the promise of steady jobs and a bright future for their children.   

Never has that future been as much in doubt as it is today.  

For our communities and our residents, this is not a theoretical debate over economic or industrial policy—the issue is survival.  The collapse of the auto sector would lead to massive job loss and dislocation. The tax base on which our capacity as municipal governments to provide the services necessary for viable, dynamic and prosperous communities rests, would collapse. This must not happen.  

Just as the federal government moved quickly to shore up Canada’s financial institutions in the face of global threats, our governments must now act to help our auto sector navigate these turbulent times. Importantly, they must ensure that U.S. efforts to bolster U.S. auto production do not come at the expense of Canadian operations.  

The integration that exists between the Canadian and U.S. auto industry requires a continental solution to this crisis, but this does not mean that Canada waits passively for Washington to lead the way.

The Prime Minister must signal immediately to the outgoing and the incoming U.S. administrations that finding a concerted, long-term solution to this crisis will be viewed as a test of the strength and nature of our bilateral relationship.”