THUNDER BAY - New Democratic Party leader, Jagmeet Singh, said the situation facing hundreds of workers at the local Bombardier plant should never have happened, and strong procurement policies could have protected jobs in the city.
“When one person is laid off, it also means their whole family is impacted,” Singh said. “That is the reality these folks are facing and it breaks my heart.”
Singh was in Thunder Bay on Tuesday where he met with Bombardier workers at the Unifor Local 1075 office.
It was announced earlier this month that 550 Bombardier workers would be laid off in November because of two contracts winding down at the end of 2019 and no future contracts on the horizon.
“At a time when they are faced with struggles, we have politicians at the federal level just pointing fingers instead of actually getting the job done,” Singh said. “These folks need work. They need projects and the government can actually provide those contracts, so we need them to step up and do what needs to be done.”
Singh used the example of VIA Rail signing a billion dollar contract for trains to be built in Germany.
“Instead of having a Canadian company provide those trains, they send those contracts off shore,” he said. “That is just wrong.”
Following the meeting with workers, Singh announced his party’s plans for stronger procurement policies focussing on Canadian content regulations that he says will protect Canadian jobs.
“We are announcing we would change procurement rules to require made in Canada content,” Singh announced. “This is something that would meaningfully protect jobs in Canada. We know there are various jurisdictions and countries around the world that are already doing this.”
According to Singh, changing those rules will ensure there is Canadian content being produced by Canadian workers and will “allow us to build up and ramp up our production and give companies some confidence that there will be contracts for them,” he said.
How that change to procurement policies will look, Singh said Canada can look to what other jurisdictions and countries are doing, many of which already have their own content rules in place.
“We want to have a significant content that is Canadian, we need it to be significant so it creates a climate where our companies know that there is going to be jobs and work for Canadians, so let’s make it comparable to other jurisdictions and something robust and meaningful,” Singh said.
“It’s not enough to say we are worried about jobs unless we actually change the rules and change policies, we are not going to get the outcomes that we need,” Singh continued. “If we want to keep jobs in Canada, we can do that, we just have to have the courage to make different choices. Our choices are: let’s make rules that support Canadian manufacturers.”
When it comes to other employment sectors in the north, Singh said the NDP will continue to support the resource sector, including the Ring of Fire.
“What we need to do with resource sector jobs is support the development of opportunities we have,” he said. “We have long hard talks about the Ring of Fire. There haven’t been any investments in any of that. That is something the federal government has got to play a role in. It has to step up and be a part of that.”
Singh also toured the TEC Hub at Confederation College and held a meeting at the Da Vinci Centre in the evening.
