LILLEY: Ford secures auto jobs — maybe even his own — in Windsor and Brampton

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It’s a rare occasion simply earlier than a provincial election: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sharing a stage with Premier Doug Ford to announce that they’ve secured 1000’s of jobs within the auto sector.

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It means 1000’s of jobs secured for autoworkers in Windsor and Brampton, but in addition doesn’t damage Ford’s personal re-election probabilities.

In complete, the funding within the two crops will hit $3.6 billion, with simply over $500 million coming from the province and an identical quantity from the federal authorities. The plan is to have the crops in Brampton and Windsor retool to supply “multi-energy automobile meeting services,” which means electrical or hybrid autos.

The announcement means 1000’s of jobs for every metropolis the place in just a few years, each crops can be again to working three shifts producing autos.

“It’s all the time an excellent day to have the ability to work collectively for Ontarians and other people proper throughout the nation,” Trudeau mentioned whereas acknowledging the Ford authorities.

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The Ontario Liberals and their chief Steven Del Duca, presently attempting to painting Ford because the worst factor to ever occur to the province, weren’t proud of the announcement.

With Trudeau, auto producer Stellantis and the union representing employees all praising the work of the federal and provincial governments, it made it powerful for them to say that Ford hadn’t had a job in securing these crops.

“I’ve been concerned on this sector for nearly 30 years and can’t keep in mind funding bulletins by way of each quantity and scale like now we have seen over the previous 18 months,” Shane Wark, Unifor govt for the Detroit Massive Three, mentioned on the occasion.

This announcement was purported to happen over two totally different occasions in early to mid-April. Between scheduling and different considerations, it didn’t appear to be both would come collectively earlier than the election marketing campaign kicks off on Wednesday.

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That it did, and that each ranges of presidency had been keen to face collectively, says so much given we’re so near the June 2 vote. Each Trudeau and Ford had been requested about that, however downplayed the importance.

“That is concerning the fruits of months, if not years, of placing Canada ahead as the fitting accomplice for electrical automobile investments,” Trudeau mentioned, whereas including that the individuals of Windsor and Brampton wouldn’t have needed to attend for an election.

“Because the prime minister mentioned, we’ve been working collectively on this for various months,” Ford mentioned, noting that he places political stripes apart to work with different ranges of presidency. “As soon as the election is over, individuals count on us to work collectively.”

That’s the general public reply, the true reply is that if Trudeau and his staff thought that by standing with Ford, they may damage Ontario Liberal chief Steven Del Duca, then this announcement would have waited till after the election.

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At his personal occasion, saying buck-a-ride transit for your entire province, Del Duca mentioned that he welcomes any good financial information that brings extra jobs to the province earlier than taking a swipe at Ford.

“I recommend that the prime minister is governing, however Doug Ford is campaigning. Frankly, Doug Ford has been campaigning for nicely over a yr now,” Del Duca mentioned.

He went on to say that there was no development in manufacturing jobs in Ontario since Ford took workplace, regardless of his claims that he would convey manufacturing again to the province. Manufacturing jobs have by no means totally recovered over the previous couple of years, however the job losses have stopped because the Liberals left workplace.

Greater than 300,000 manufacturing jobs left Ontario beneath the Liberals and by no means got here again.

After Monday’s announcement, with Trudeau on the stage, Ford’s job seems to be safer than Del Duca’s with the PC Get together probably choosing up seats in Windsor and Brampton.