SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
February 28, 2023 09:00AM
  • Feb/28/23 3:10:00 p.m.

Thank you, my friend, for the question. I did ask that question the other day, and I learned that there is some facilitation that’s going to go on between St. Thomas and Central Elgin, which is a common way to resolve any kind of issues. I think that those municipalities will put the prospect of getting thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs ahead of their own issues, and I would expect they would come to some kind of an arrangement. The only dispute I would be aware of is whether they can share tax revenue. I trust that they will be able to get together to resolve those issues.

I can remember, growing up, when my dad started working at General Motors—10,000 or 12,000 jobs. He started out in the forge and worked his way through the plants. And to see those jobs leaving through the 1990s—very, very painful. It had a ripple effect through the whole community. I was active in my dad’s union, CAW 199, which my friend from Niagara Falls was president of—and just the money that that union local gave to local charities and seeing that dry up as a proportion of the membership was painful to watch.

This will have the opposite effect of a positive ripple effect through the community.

All levels of government and all political parties have to get together to bring these jobs. We’re going to have disagreements, even on economic issues, when it comes to attracting investment. There are all kinds of issues. My friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane might talk about having a way to track how much farmland we’re using and things like that. But at the end of the day, we need these jobs to come back, and I think there’s enough credit for everyone to take.

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