Carney warns of 'tough days ahead' as tariffs make U.S. recession 'likely'
Pierre Poilievre says Trump endorses Carney, Jagmeet Singh pledges to keep up tariff fight
Donald Trump's latest round of tariffs is only a few days old, but the havoc they're already exerting on the global economy points to upcoming "pressure" on Canada's employment levels, Liberal Leader Mark Carney is warning.
Wednesday's announcement of new tariffs on imports into the United States from dozens of countries — along with starting the 25 per cent levy on "all foreign-made" vehicles — brought "greater certainty," Carney said Saturday, about both the U.S. president's ambitions for tariffs and the repercussions for Canada.
"We can expect pressure on employment in this economy," he said during a campaign stop in Oakville, Ont., a community vulnerable to the new auto tariffs as Ford Motor Co. is one of the area's largest employers.
Carney said the government's recent changes to employment insurance eligibility, announced before the election, will provide some support.
Those measures include waiving the one-week waiting period for workers who lose their jobs because of the tariffs.
As well, Carney repeated his pledge that a re-elected Liberal government would respond to the tariffs by building a stronger economy less connected to the United States. But he also said those actions wouldn't entirely cushion the financial blow.
"There are some tough days ahead. I'm not going to sugarcoat it," he said.
"We've seen the first signs of that in the financial markets, dramatic moves in the financial markets, which is telling Americans, Americans that are listening, that there are future job cuts, higher inflation and likely an American recession ahead."
WATCH | Carney won't 'sugarcoat' it, economic headwinds on the way:
'Tough days ahead,' Carney says, hinting at 'likely' U.S. recession'I have seen this movie before'
Carney said the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union serves as a cautionary tale.
"It took some time for the impacts of Brexit to filter through to the U.K. economy, but I have seen this movie before," Carney said, referring to his work managing that country's economic response to Brexit as head of the Bank of England.
"I know exactly what is going to happen … the Americans are going to get weaker."
Other party leaders didn't specifically discuss the impact of a potential recession on Saturday, but instead continued to argue they're best suited to protect Canada's interests.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre recalled a recent Fox News interview in which Trump said he'd "rather deal with a liberal than a conservative" in the prime minister's office and that Poilievre is "stupidly, no friend of mine."
Poilievre has spun those remarks as a sign the president is backing the Liberals.
"I think a lot of people have to ask themselves: why does Donald Trump want the Liberals in power for a fourth term?" he told reporters Saturday in Osoyoos, B.C.
"The answer is clear: he wants Canada to be weak," Poilievre said.
WATCH | Poilievre says he's right choice for Canada as Trump 'doesn't support me':
Poilievre dismisses claims that his campaign is 'in sync' with TrumpIf elected, he's vowed to make Canada's economy more independent, as Conservatives would fast-track the building of pipelines, natural gas plants and other natural resource projects.
Meanwhile, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh told a news conference in St. John's that he's inspired by Canadians banding together in response to the U.S. tariffs and that voters "can count on New Democrats to continue that fight."
"Cutting things we need is not the way forward," Singh said, a dig at his Liberal and Conservative opponents who've promised to dial back spending if elected.
"The way we go forward is by lifting each other up, strengthening each other."
The Bloc Québécois didn't comment on the recession either, but leader Yves-François Blanchet said his Saturday election promise to make it harder for foreign companies to buy Quebec businesses demonstrates his commitment to keeping jobs in Quebec.
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Fear and uncertainty for Ontario autoworkers after Trump announces 25% tariff
GM workers in Ingersoll, Ont., say government support needed to steady industry
On a day when U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at the vehicle manufacturing industry, Ontario autoworkers said it's the latest wave in what's been a storm of uncertainty and more proof the Canadian industry needs government support.
Late Wednesday, Trump said he'd signed an executive order that will impose a 25 per cent import tariff on vehicles not made in the United States. Although the full implications of the tariff weren't immediately clear, he said the levy will kick in on April 2 and suggested it could start at a base rate of 2.5 per cent.
Trump's statement came the same day Canadian Liberal Leader Mark Carney was in Windsor, Ont., one of the front lines of the tariff war, where he promised $2 billion in new supports for the domestic auto industry while campaigning for the April 28 federal election. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called Trump's latest action a "full frontal attack on autoworkers." Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said tariffs are impacting workers on both sides of the border.
Trump's political parrying has dealt another blow to an auto industry that's had more than its share of ups, downs and shutdowns in recent years.
Mayor of Canada's 'automotive capital' bracing for tariff impactFor Ontario autoworkers at GM's CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, and others in the industry, the help can't come soon enough.
"There's a lot of uncertainty, and that creates a lot of fear," said Bonita McCarthy, a CAMI plant employee since 2011 who now works as a union awareness trainer.
Bonita
McCarthy has worked at CAMI since 2011 and is now a union awareness
trainer with Unifor. 'There's a lot of uncertainty, and that creates a
lot of fear," McCarthy says. (Andrew Lupton/CBC News)
The plant retooled in 2022 so that it could start producing the new BrightDrop electric delivery vehicle.
While the move to the BrightDrop has kept the plant running, there have been occasional shutdowns for reasons including parts shortages and other supply chain issues.
"We haven't worked a full year since COVID," said McCarthy.
It really has an effect on our members — nobody can make any kind of commitments, purchase a house. A lot of people, not just in auto, are living paycheque to paycheque.
- Brent Tree, Unifor Local 88 president
Kim Dionne, a GM worker and co-ordinator for the union's awareness training program, is also frustrated by the U.S. move to impose tariffs, saying they'll inflict damage on both sides of the border.
"The U.S. president ... he's made it clear he doesn't want a Canadian auto industry, but we've been building cars in Canada for over 100 years," she said. "These are our jobs."
Dionne pointed out that vehicles and parts cross the border frequently as they go through various stages of assembly, and travel along a complex and integrated network that's taken years to build.
She sees U.S. autoworkers as her colleagues, not as competitors.
"I feel like we work together," she said. "We're all employed by GM. It's not like [Trump] can say, 'We're going to tariff the crap out of the Canadian auto industry' and they're going to open up shop [in the U.S.] tomorrow. That's not going to happen. By the time those U.S. plants are ready for people to work in them, Trump is going to be out of office."
Workers endure frequent work stoppages
Brent Tree is president of Unifor Local 88, which represents workers at the CAMI plant.
He said there's a misconception that autoworkers all earn $70 or more an hour, but they have to put in years to make top wages and endure work stoppages that make financial planning a challenge.
"It really has an effect on our members — nobody can make any kind of commitments, purchase a house," he said. "A lot of people, not just in auto, are living paycheque to paycheque."
Carney announces $2B 'strategic response fund' to help workers affected by Trump's tariffsDionne said she supports any measure, regardless of the politician putting it forward, than can bring support and stability to an industry facing an unprecedented threat in Trump.
"We need to invest in Canada and make sure that our suppliers can produce the parts that are needed here so that we can supply our own industry," she said. "We've benefited from that, but now we see how quickly it can change. One person's decision disrupts a whole industry."
Tree said the supports Carney is offering make sense, but he'll listen to ideas from any party that can help support an industry. The GM plant employs more than 1,300 workers.
"I really hope they're talking about the industry and not just looking for my vote," he said. "I never miss a vote but I hope they are listening to us."
In a normal year, according to the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, about 80 per cent of vehicles made in Canada — almost all from Ontario — are exported to the U.S. It's about $53 billion worth of exports.
'A real sense of betrayal' among workers as Stellantis plans to idle Windsor, Ont., plant due to tariffs
The factory is set to shut down Monday and reopen the week of April 21
Automaker Stellantis has confirmed it's shutting down its assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., for two weeks, largely because of U.S. tariffs on imported vehicles.
Company spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said they're "temporarily pausing production" starting Monday, with operations set to resume the week of April 21.
"Stellantis continues to assess the effects of the recently announced U.S. tariffs on imported vehicles and will continue to engage with the U.S. administration on these policy changes," she said in an emailed statement to CBC News.
New parked vehicles are shown from above at the Stellantis Windsor assembly plant. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)
Unifor Local 444 estimates roughly 4,500 people work in various jobs and trades at the Canadian border city factory where the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, Chrysler Grand Caravan and Dodge Charger Daytona are made. However, Gosselin said roughly 3,200 people in Canada will be impacted by the decision.
"Immediate actions we must take include temporarily pausing production at some of our Canadian and Mexican assembly plants, which will have an impact to several of our U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities that support those operations," the statement added.
Stellantis, maker of Ram trucks and Jeeps, also said on Thursday it was temporarily laying off 900 workers at five U.S. facilities because of the tariffs.
'Real sense of betrayal'
The union's Local 444 first announced the Windsor shutdown Wednesday night, adding more changes to the schedule were "expected in the coming weeks."
President James Stewart called the border auto tax "unjustified" and said "there is a real sense of betrayal" among local Stellantis workers and the community.
"We know it is not the people in the United States — it is their government," Stewart told CBC News.
"We are a border town. For us it is a little more personal."
Unifor
Local 444 President James Stewart says he and workers at Windsor's
Stellantis assembly plant see U.S. auto tariffs as a 'real sense of
betrayal.' (Katerina Georgieva/CBC)
According to Stewart, he's unsure if the planned work stoppage could last longer than what he's been told.
"It is hard to know," he said.
For every direct job lost at Stellantis, said, Stewart, there are eight other community members building stuff for the factory who will also be affected.
Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to the U.S. auto tariffs with 25 per cent countertariffs, pledging to feed the estimated $8 billion back into the auto industry to support workers. Stewart said it's the right decision, but that tax breaks ultimately mean nothing if you don't have a long-term job.
"It has to go into at least the short term to … make sure the economy is still running … to make sure people are still feeding their families. The workers of the plant can't fix this."
A 2018 file photo of employees entering the Stellantis assembly plant, then known as Chrysler. (Floriane Bonneville/Radio-Canada)
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on a wide range of countries. While Canada was spared from any new tariffs, automotive tariffs announced by the president last week came into force Thursday.
Those 25 per cent tariffs are expected to apply to the value of the non-American content in the vehicles. However, parts imported under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) are expected to remain tariff-free, for now.
Clarifications
- This story has been updated to clarify Unifor Local 444 president James Stewart was referring to tax breaks in response to Mark Carney saying countertariff money would go toward helping auto industry workers.Apr 04, 2025 12:37 PM ADT
With files from Reuters, Kalea Hall and Abby Hughes
FCA Canada Inc. Fact Sheet
FCA Canada Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of FCA, founded as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925.Headquarters: One Riverside Drive West, Windsor, Ontario, N9A 5K3
Telephone: (519) 973-2000
Public Website: stellantis.ca
Media Website: stellantismedia.ca
Executive Management: Jeff Hines, Chairman, President, FCA Canada Inc.
Total Employment: 8,845 (as of January 1st, 2024)
Major Brands: Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Dodge, FIAT, Jeep®, Ram, Mopar, SRT and Wagoneer
Vehicles Sold (2024): 129,945
Manufacturing Facilities:
2199 Chrysler Centre, Windsor, ON N9A 4H6
Chrysler Pacifica, Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, Chrysler Voyager, Chrysler Grand Caravan and Dodge Charger Daytona
Brampton Assembly Plant
2000 Williams Parkway East, Brampton, ON L6S 6B3
Currently retooling for next-generation Jeep Compass
Etobicoke Casting Plant
15 Brown’s Line, Toronto, ON M8W 3S3
Aluminum die castings, pistons, engine and transmission parts
Research and Test Facilities:
3939 Rhodes Drive, Windsor, ON N8W 5B5
In partnership with the University of Windsor, the facility conducts research and testing for various automotive initiatives. The ARDC is equipped with six road-test simulators and a range of research and development support facilities, including the Automotive Coatings Research Facility and the Automotive Lighting Research Facility.
Stellantis North America
Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) is one of the world’s leading automakers, aiming to provide clean, safe and affordable freedom of mobility for all. In North America, it's best known for producing and selling vehicles in a portfolio of iconic, innovative and award-winning brands, including Jeep®, Chrysler, Dodge//SRT, Ram, Alfa Romeo and Fiat. Stellantis is executing its Dare Forward 2030, a bold strategic plan that paves the way to achieve the ambitious target of becoming a carbon net zero mobility tech company by 2038, while creating added value for all stakeholders.
Follow company news and video on:
Company blog: http://blog.stellantisnorthamerica.com
Media website: http://media.stellantisnorthamerica.com
Company website: www.stellantis.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/Stellantis
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StellantisNA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stellantisna
Twitter: @StellantisNA
YouTube: http://youtube.com/StellantisNA
Jeff Hines
President - Canada, Stellantis North America
Hines first joined Stellantis in March 1997 and has since held a series of regional, national and brand positions with increasing responsibility, including most recently as vice president of fleet sales and operations. Hines has a deep understanding of the automotive industry with a strong background in product, sales and the dealer network.
His work and academic background includes:
- 2024-current, President - Canada, Stellantis North America
- 2020-2024, Vice President, Fleet Sales and Operations
- 2018-2020, Head of Jeep, EMEA
- 2015-2018, Vice President, Great Lakes Business Center
- 2010-2015, Vice President, Denver Business Center
- 2009-2010, Marketing Mix & Product Optimization – Dodge/Ram
- 2008-2009, Business Centre Coordination
- 2006-2008, National Field Operations
- 2005-2006, National Dealer Placement
- 2004-2005, Manager, Dealer Operations – Northeast Business Centre
- 2003-2004, Manager, Dealer Placement – Northeast Business Centre
- 2001-2002, District Manager – Northeast Business Centre
- 1997-1999, District Manager – Great Lakes Business Centre
Contact Information
Giorgio Fossati
General Counsel
Giorgio Fossati is General Counsel and a member of Stellantis’ Executive Team.
He has an extensive background and deep experience as General Counsel and Secretary of the Board of Directors.
Fossati worked in positions of increasing responsibility in the legal departments at Fiat S.p.A. and Iveco S.p.A.
Giorgio Fossati served as General Counsel for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCA) since 2011. He also held the title of General Counsel for FCA’s Europe, Middle East and Africa region.How New Brunswick's little-known auto sector is coping with tariffs
U.S. orders on hold, but Canadian ones keeping workers busy, says ambulance-maker CEO
A Dieppe company that makes ambulances and accessible vehicles is among those in the Canadian automotive sector feeling the impacts of the trade war, according to its president and CEO.
Terry Malley says his company, Malley Industries, typically sells to the U.S. and Canada. Its sales to the U.S. are now subject to tariffs.
"The biggest frustration that we've had is educating our U.S. customers what this is all about," Malley said.
"We have to communicate to them that our prices aren't changing. … These extra costs are … because of their government."
Ron
Marcolin is New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island divisional
vice-president for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association. (CBC)
Tariffs and counter-tariffs of 25 per cent were slapped on Canadian and U.S automobiles and Canadian auto parts this month, on top of aluminum and steel tariffs introduced last month.
Malley shipped quite a few vehicles to the U.S. ahead of the latest round of tariffs — as did another New Brunswick company that makes automobiles, said Ron Marcolin, New Brunswick divisional vice-president for the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters association, but that other company didn't want him to release its name or any other details.
Now that tariffs are being imposed at the border, some U.S. customers are asking for their deliveries to be delayed, Malley said.
"Obviously, they're concerned about their costs," he said.
Malley said he is well-stocked with vehicles that were assembled before any supply costs were inflated, but if the trade war goes on for long, he'll have to raise his own prices, too.
How a Dieppe-based ambulance manufacturer is affected by trade war"Everything that happens to those [original equipment manufacturers] … comes right down to us," he said.
"Second-stage manufacturers," such as Malley operate in communities across the country, adding content to make specialized vehicles. Besides ambulances and accessible vehicles, vehicle types include RVs and commercial trucks.
Malley uses vehicle bases — or chassis — from Stellantis and Ford, that are made in Mexico and the U.S., respectively.
Other inputs come from Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere. Among these are Canadian steel and thermoform plastic parts manufactured on-site in Dieppe.
Some inputs are now subject to counter-tariffs and Malley expects more could be in the future.
It's very confusing to try to figure out what duties are applicable for cross-border sales, he said.
Marcolin, of the exporters' group, describes those calculations as "a giant matrix" that "nobody has figured out yet."
Transport trucks at a Canada-U.S. border crossing. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Generally, it's all done in advance for documents that accompany shipments over the border, he said.
Then, for border agents, it's a matter of checking the particulars and possibly conducting an inspection.
But everyone is learning what categories goods fit into as they go, said Marcolin.
In the last week, some New Brunswick exports to the U.S. have continued to get over the border seamlessly, while others have been held up, he said, adding that holdups seem to be the exception, not the rule.
"But we are wasting a lot of time dealing with all this paperwork," he said. "And the cost is horrific."
"We are, quite frankly, spinning our tires and wasting a lot of valuable time doing that, when we could have free trade."
Holding a lot of inventory isn't ideal either, Marcolin said. It comes with costs such as warehousing, insurance and depreciation.
Malley is hopeful that the tariffs will be short-lived.
"I do think over the next month or so, a lot of this stuff will sort itself out," he said.
"It has to."
Malley expects that plant closures and layoffs, even temporary ones, which are already happening, will make the U.S. administration sit up and take notice.
Many of his competitors in the U.S. are also affected because they use steel from Canada, he pointed out.
Malley has considered the possibility of relocating to the U.S. to try to avoid tariffs, but doesn't see a good business case for it.
"That's not in the cards," he said. "It's not an easy thing … to uproot and move to another country.
"You can re-establish there, but … it takes years. Who's going to want to do that if the rules keep changing?"
Malley has a lot of work to do for Canadian customers to keep busy, he said, and if necessary the company can "pivot."
"Atlantic Canadian companies are used to sometimes dealing in hard times," he said.
About 80 people work at Malley.
So far, no one has been laid off and no planned investments have been delayed, the CEO said.
"It might be a tough slog for a while, but I'm an optimist.
"We survived Trump before, and I think we will again. … I think we'll be here long after he is."
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With files from Information Morning
GM halts production at Ontario plant, hundreds of workers laid off | Power Play for Fri Apr. 11 2025
CTV News 
GM halts production, lays off hundreds at Ingersoll, Ont., assembly plant, to reopen in October
Union says the plant will have reduced production when it reopens this fall
The General Motors CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ont., will shut down next month with plans to reopen in the fall at half capacity.
The company said in a statement Friday that production is coming to halt as a direct result of the market and available inventory to build the BrightDrop electric delivery vehicles manufactured at the plant.
"CAMI is making operational and employment adjustments to balance inventory and align production schedules with current demand," GM said in a statement.
"GM remains committed to the future of BrightDrop and the CAMI plant and will support employees through the transition."
Two models of the BrightDrop Zevo are made on site and sales have lagged behind the competition, with numbers released by GM showing a total of 427 vehicles sold in Canada in 2024 and 1,529 in the United States.
"It's heartbreaking, certainly for the individuals who are affected by it in our community," said Ingersoll Mayor Brian Petrie.
"We want to take care of people, that's what it's really about. Everybody has families and I know that there is an action centre being set up at Unifor to help people, and we'll be certainly doing everything we can through the town to work with our partners to support people."
The news follows the temporary closure of Stellantis's Windsor Assembly Plant in Windsor, Ont., that was announced in early April, following the imposition of U.S. auto tariffs.
The CAMI plant employs approximately 1,200 workers. Unifor said layoffs will start Monday, with some production continuing into May.
After that, production will stop until October, the union said in a statement.
"When production resumes in October, the plant will operate on a single shift for the foreseeable future — a reduction that is expected to result in the indefinite layoff of nearly 500 workers," the statement read.
"Our members have endured so much — from retooling disruptions to months of rotating layoffs — and now they're facing a major production slowdown and job loss," said Unifor Local 88 CAMI plant chair Mike Van Boekel.
"Global demand for last-mile delivery vehicles is only growing. Our members have the skill, the experience and the pride to build world-class electric vehicles right here in Canada — all we need is the opportunity to keep doing it."
Since 2022, workers at GM's CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll have worked to build the BrightDrop electric-powered delivery van. (Andrew Lupton/CBC News)
Politicians respond to the news
Following confirmation of the layoffs and shutdown, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was the first leader to react to the news, issuing a statement on social media.
"I am incredibly saddened by the layoffs at the GM CAMI Assembly plant in Ingersoll," Poilievre wrote. "This morning, I spoke with Unifor Local 88 GM Plant Chairperson Mike Van Boekel and expressed my commitment to protect Canadian auto workers."
Poilievre's statement took aim at U.S. President Donald Trump, saying he "is betraying America's closest friend and attacking our economy."
Conservative candidate Arpan Khanna, who is running for re-election in the riding of Oxford, which includes Ingersoll, issued a statement as well, minutes after the news broke.
"This situation goes beyond just a headline — it's a major loss for our community. It's 500 of our families, friends and neighbours," Khanna said.
Petrie remains hopeful that production will return to the plant in the future.
"We have the best workforce in the world. I know that's going to be successful in the long term. You can't move that, you can't take it anywhere else. It's here and it's been successful for over 100 years and will continue to do so."
'In a fight with one man': Trump's tariffs have autoworkers in Oshawa, Ont., on edge
'So many families, so many livelihoods are attached to the auto sector here in Oshawa,' says union president
For more than a century, Oshawa, Ont., has been the city of autoworkers.
The decades-old Canadian Automotive Museum in the downtown core, murals depicting locally made vehicles and the city's beloved Oshawa Generals hockey team, named after one of the auto giants, are all symbols of that glorious — and often treacherous — history.
The auto industry has gone through ups and downs since its inception. Workers have weathered economic recessions, layoffs and devastating plant closures, including in 2019 when General Motors stopped production of vehicles in Oshawa for nearly two years.
But nothing has prepared them for the cloud of uncertainty brought on by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, that include 25 per cent duties on imported vehicles with temporary reprieve for some parts compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico free trade agreement.
Many say the impact of tariffs is a threat far greater than anything else they have experienced.
How tariffs will impact the Canadian auto industryTrump has said his goal is to move manufacturing jobs back to the United States. That means hundreds of thousands of jobs are on the line in Ontario alone, including those in the automobile production and supply chain in Oshawa.
The president of Unifor Local 222, whose members include autoworkers at the GM assembly plant in Oshawa, said the union's latest fight is different from typical challenges in the sector.
"This is an unusual situation to be in because we're really in a fight with one man and his small group and his administration," Jeff Gray said in an interview at his office, with "Elbows Up" shirts folded on the table in front of him.
Since the union doesn't have a direct line to influence Trump, their only option is to lobby employers and Canadian politicians, he said.
"The history is deep, and so many families, so many livelihoods are attached to the auto sector here in Oshawa that we will do whatever is necessary to keep that production (going)," said Gray, who has been on a leave of absence from his job at the GM plant since becoming the president of Local 222.
Unifor's Jeff Gray, representing workers at Oshawa's GM plant, on challenges facing the auto sectorOshawa's automotive history began in the late 19th century after McLaughlin, a carriage production business, moved into the city. McLaughlin started manufacturing automobiles in 1907 and merged with Chevrolet Canada to form General Motors Canada in 1918.
While the industry's growth wasn't linear, General Motors kept expanding its footprint and operation, hiring more workers and increasing production until the late 20th century.
At one point in the 1970s, tens of thousands of people from Oshawa and the surrounding areas either worked at the auto production plants or for companies that were part of the supply chain, workers said. The industry was booming, and so was the city.
The
Oshawa's General Motors car assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont., shortly
before production shut down for two years. In 2021, the plant reopened,
but many workers now fear they could go through another closure due to
tariffs. (Eduardo Lima/Canadian Press)
That's when Lance Livingstone became an autoworker, following his father's and two brothers' footsteps.
"I was lucky. I was at a good time when I worked," he said, reflecting on his 31 years at General Motors before he retired in 2004.
He said fear of the unknown amid Trump's tariffs is "actually scary."
"I wouldn't want to be a young worker right now in the plant because it's the uncertainty if they're going to work or not."
Decades of decline in Oshawa's auto industry
Gray said he has seen a steady decline in the industry since he started working for GM in 1997.
Back in those days, GM employees in Oshawa worked in eight shifts at three separate locations. Now, there are three shifts at only one plant location that employs about 3,000 people.
Car models produced at the Oshawa plant used to include Chevrolet Impala and Camaro, Buick Regal and Cadillac XTS but now there is only one product: Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks. The plant produces 660 of them every 24 hours.
When GM closed the plant in 2019 as part of a global restructuring plan, many thought that was the end of Oshawa's auto industry. Of nearly 3,000 who worked there at the time — close to 98 per cent were either laid off or went into retirement, Gray said.
In 2018, General Motors announced it would close its Oshawa plant, which employed more than 2,500 people at the time. (Eduardo Lima/Canadian Press)
But GM decided the following year to retool the plant, and the first Silverado pickup rolled off the line in late 2021.
Carl Stitt was among the workers who returned to the plant once it reopened. Now, he is worried about another round of layoffs. Without a job, he said he won't be able to bring food to the table or pay his mortgage.
"What he is doing, like these tariffs, this is going to hurt the Americans even worse than Canadians, and he needs to back off," Stitt said of Trump.
Jason Gale, a GM employee and union representative, said most of the current workers were new hires after the 2021 reopening, and they aren't used to the ups and downs of the industry.
But as a veteran autoworker with 23 years of experience, his own fear is mixed with a lot of hope.
"One thing that we are good at doing is fighting for our jobs, and we will continue to fight to build vehicles in Canada," he said.
"If they want to sell in Canada, they need to have a footprint in Canada, and we have an incredible workforce and membership, highly skilled, and we produce the best vehicles right now."
Trump's tariffs have already
triggered a two-week shutdown at the Stellantis assembly plant in
Windsor, Ont., and Premier Doug Ford has said that he is very concerned
about the province's auto
industry.
Ford discusses tariff fallout after meeting with CarneyJennifer French, the NDP member of provincial parliament representing Oshawa, said autoworkers have a long history of working in uncertain environments, but the ongoing trade war has created a new kind of unpredictability because no one knows what Trump wants.
"The threat of tariffs is a different beast," she said.
French said she drives a 2014 Chevy Impala made in Oshawa and knows the people who have built some parts of her car.
"I'll tell you that the car is probably never going to die," she said.
French said politicians have been promising to stand up for workers and she hopes to see those words put into action after the federal election.
"Oshawa has such deep roots when it comes to automotive, and we have such a storied history of building quality vehicles that it is impossible to imagine that coming to an end," she said.
'Their hearts are in every car they build'
No institution explains that history better than the Canadian Automotive Museum where made-in-Oshawa vehicles, including a 1908 McLaughlin Model F and a 1955 Buick Special, are on display.
There is also the last Chevrolet Lumina produced at the Oshawa plant in 1999 and signed by hundreds of workers to celebrate a quality control award.
"Their names are on the surface, but their hearts are in every car they build," the description of the white four-door sedan reads.
That passion for building cars is what keeps Gray, the Unifor Local 222 president, optimistic about the industry's future even in the face of an unprecedented challenge.
Local
222 president Jeff Gray says auto workers at the General Motors plant
in Oshawa have a passion for their jobs that will be hard to break. (Chris Young/Canadian Press)
He said the North American auto supply chain has become so deeply integrated in the past four decades that it would take at least 10 years for the United States to build everything it needs to keep production at home.
Neither auto manufacturers, nor the Trump administration have that long to deal with the economic fallout, Gray said.
What also makes him hopeful is the fact that Canadians have responded to Trump's threats with unity.
"That gives me optimism that we will get through this together like we always do."
Intro
Meet Local 222's Elected Officials
President
Jeff Gray
jeffgray@local222.ca
'Everyone is confused': Trump auto tariffs spark confusion, concern in car country
Uncertainty reigned in North America's integrated auto industry once U.S. border taxes began
Confusion and uncertainty reigned in the deeply integrated North American auto industry on Thursday, the day the Trump administration hit imports with a hodgepodge of tariffs.
"Everyone is confused," said Peter Frise, an automotive expert at the University of Windsor.
Faced with few new details from the White House, industry insiders on both sides of the border were struggling to understand how, exactly, the U.S. government will apply tariffs to the truckloads of vehicles and parts crossing the border every day.
"It's that unknown, that uncertainty that is kind of gripping the industry at this point," said Jeff Rightmer, an automotive supply chain expert at Wayne State University in Detroit.
The answers the industry seeks will be highly consequential, as it helps determine how much tariffs will actually cost manufacturers — and how both autoworkers and consumers will be affected.
At 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump's 25 per cent tariffs on foreign vehicles kicked in. Next month, the same tariff will be applied to car parts. The president has said the tariffs are intended to force companies to invest in U.S. manufacturing — something industry experts and economists have cast doubt upon.
But the White House has said tariffs will only apply to the value of non-U.S. content in vehicles and parts imported under the existing Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
The confusion stems from the lack of clarity on how the administration will determine the U.S. content in those imports. In other words, the value of their American components.
WATCH | Canada slaps matching 25% tariff on U.S.-made vehicles:
Canada slaps matching 25% tariff on U.S.-made vehiclesThe North American auto industry relies on intricate, interconnected supply chains that stretch from Canada to Mexico.
"The problem becomes, you have certain parts that could go back and forth across the border seven or eight times" before final assembly, Rightmer said. "Is that tariff going to be applied each time it comes back and forth?
"Those are the things that really start to make this whole thing complicated," he said.
Prime Minister Mark Carney instituting retaliatory tariffs on Thursday means parts and vehicles will face levies coming into Canada, too.
It's a tremendously complicated bookkeeping exercise...
- Peter Frise, UWindsor auto expertIt's also unclear how granular the U.S. content provisions will be — whether the administration gets as deep as raw materials, or whether the tariff will apply to parts only once they've reached a certain level of assembly.
"It's a tremendously complicated bookkeeping exercise to figure out where a part came from and what steps it went through in getting to the final customer, and at what steps, what value was added to it," Frise said.
He used a car fender to illustrate the complexity. It begins as raw steel, gets stamped into a fender, assembled into a vehicle, then painted, he said. The vehicle is then shipped to a dealership.
"Well, where did the fender come from? Where did the steel come from when it was stamped into a fender?" he said.
Brian Kingston is the President and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association. (TJ Dhir/CBC)
Brian Kingston, president and CEO of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers' Association, said CUSMA included rules of origin, but the administration has not said whether it will be using those rules yet.
"Given that vehicles have thousands of parts and components, you could imagine the complexity associated with trying to draft rules that would provide guidance to industry on this issue," he said.
The process by which car companies will certify their U.S. content is also unclear, according to Kingston.
The administration in the Federal Register has said companies importing vehicles under CUSMA "may submit documentation to the Secretary [of Commerce] identifying the amount of U.S. content in each model imported into the United States."
Kingston said that's good for Canada, because Canadian vehicles have high volumes of U.S. parts.
"However, there's a question mark around when you could apply for a lower tariff and be approved, because in the Federal Registrar notice, it indicates that companies or importers would have to submit documentation directly to the secretary that identifies the amount of U.S. content in each vehicle, and that would then need to be approved by the secretary," he added.
"So it is unclear what that process is going to look like and most importantly, how long that's going to take."
Despite the uncertainty, tariffs are already underway on fully assembled vehicles, such as the Pacifica minivans that Stellantis assembles in Windsor. Kingston said he was unsure whether the company would be forced to swallow the 25 per cent tariff costs until the Trump administration establishes a U.S. content certification process.
"Questions remain and that's the challenge," he said. "We just simply don't have certainty around how all of this is going to roll out."
Parts tariffs kick in May 3, but the administration has said parts that comply with CUSMA "will remain tariff-free until the Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), establishes a process to apply tariffs to their non-U.S. content."
A Canadian worker at an auto parts manufacturer in Ontario assembles components of a light truck transmission. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
Kingston said the uncertainty is bad for business. "It makes it really difficult to move forward with projects and investments when you have no clarity on what the ultimate trade environment is going to look like," he said.
"And given that we've seen the U.S. administration make multiple changes to a range of tariffs, plus ongoing threats of reciprocal tariffs [...] it is stifling investment and it stifles production decisions."
Already, Stellantis has announced it will pause production for two weeks at its Windsor plant in light of Trump's trade war. The company said Thursday it "continues to assess the effects" of the U.S. tariffs and "will continue to engage with the U.S. Administration on these policy changes."
WATCH | The impact of automotive tariffs has already hit Windsor. Here's what it mean for the city:
The impact of automotive tariffs has already hit Windsor. Here's what it mean for the city. Kingston said more layoffs could be on the horizon. "We could see that across the industry, not just in Canada, in the United States and Mexico."
Rightmer and Frise echoed that statement. "I think what's going to happen is what's already happening, which is the companies will shut the factories down," Frise said. "They can't eat the cost because this industry typically has a profit margin of five, six, seven, eight per cent, so a 25 per cent tariff is more than the profit margin."
Frise and Rightmer also said smaller parts producers have even thinner margins – and if assembly plants lack parts, they can't assemble vehicles.
"I just don't have that many answers and I don't think anyone will," Frise said of the new tariff regime. "You know, people may say they understand it, but I don't think they do because I don't think that the U.S. government understands what they're trying to do."
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Trump slaps retaliatory tariffs on dozens of countries but Canada is spared the worst this time
U.S. president announces a 25% levy on foreign-made vehicles
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Wednesday his long-awaited plan to impose what he's calling "retaliatory" tariffs on imports coming from dozens of countries — but the White House said there will be no more across-the-board levies applied to Canada than what has previously been announced.
Trump said however that he is going ahead with a 25 per cent tariff on "all foreign-made" automobiles as of midnight Wednesday, which could have severe implications for the Canadian auto sector.
The White House said that tariff rate will apply to Canadian-made passenger vehicles, but there is a caveat — it will only be levied on the value of all non-U.S. content in that automobile.
Trump also said he would apply "a minimum baseline tariff of 10 per cent" on all goods coming into the U.S., with rates higher than that for countries the president said have supposedly been more egregious about ripping off the Americans.
In a fact sheet disseminated to reporters after Trump's announcement, the White House said Canada will not be subjected to that additional baseline tariff rate because the previously announced border-related tariffs will continue to apply instead.
Trump slapped a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian goods (and 10 per cent on energy) last month, supposedly in response to drugs and migrants coming into the U.S. across the northern border, but made some exceptions for importers who can prove the products they're bringing in from Canada are compliant with the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA).
Prime
Minister Mark Carney arrives outside the Office of the Prime Minister
and Privy Council in Ottawa before Trump's tariff announcement on
Wednesday. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who paused his election campaign Wednesday to meet in Ottawa with his cabinet to craft a response, said Trump's announcement has "fundamentally changed the international trading system."
Carney said Trump preserved some aspects of the Canada-U.S. "commercial relationship" by holding off on deploying the full force of reciprocal tariffs on this country. But he said the tariffs that will now take effect on autos are a particular concern, and warned there may be more to come for other sectors.
Carney said the White House has signalled to Canada that there may be more U.S. tariffs at a later date on other "strategic sectors" such as pharmaceuticals, lumber and semiconductors.
"The series of measures will directly affect millions of Canadians," Carney told reporters on his way into cabinet Wednesday.
"We're going to fight these tariffs with countermeasures. We are going to protect our workers and we are going to build the strongest economy in the G7. In a crisis it's important to come together and it's essential to act with purpose and with force, and that's what we'll do," he said.
Carney says Canada will ‘fight’ latest Trump tariffs Carney has already agreed with Trump to sit down right after this federal election and start the process of renegotiating a new, comprehensive economic and security relationship to bring this era of fractious relations to a close.
A 3-pronged approach
Trump is pursuing a three-pronged approach to tariffs as he tries to radically reshape the American economy.
There are the "reciprocal" tariffs that Trump imposed Wednesday on a whole host of other countries except Canada and Mexico.
Then there are so-called "section 232" tariffs that have already been levied on Canadian steel and aluminum and, as of midnight, will also be slapped on automobiles.
Those tariffs take their name from the section of a U.S. trade law that allows the president to impose levies on certain goods that are said to threaten "national security."
And third, there are the border-related tariffs to punish Canada for what the president has described as an "emergency" drug crisis fuelled by fentanyl coming in from the north.
The White House said Wednesday if the drug and migrant "emergency" trade order is cancelled at some point, then the tariff on goods that do not comply with USMCA will fall from 25 per cent to 12 per cent.
Still, Trump singled out Canada for criticism when announcing the latest tariff regime, repeating his oft-cited falsehood that the U.S. somehow "subsidizes" this country by $200 billion a year. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada — which is largely driven by cheap oil imports — is much smaller than that.
"You gotta work for yourselves," Trump said of Canada. "We subsidize a lot of countries, keep them going and keep them in business."
"Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike," Trump said. "They rip us off, it's so pathetic. Now, we're going to charge."
Sharp price increases feared
Trump said the tariffs are meant to "supercharge our domestic industrial base" and force companies to make more products in the U.S., but they also risk prompting a brutal economic slowdown as consumers and businesses will soon face sharp price hikes as a result of the new taxes.
It's Trump's latest broadside against Canada, its one-time ally and free-trading partner.
In the roughly 10 weeks he's been president, Trump has been on a rampage against Canada, levying tariffs, spreading misinformation about the dairy sector, threatening the country's sovereignty with near-daily "51st state" taunts and repeatedly saying the Americans need nothing from Canada despite trade data that shows that's patently false.
Those persistent attacks and insults have damaged bilateral relations. Some Canadians are boycotting American goods, pulling travel plans to the U.S. en masse and booing the American national anthem at sporting events, actions that were thought unthinkable only a few months ago.
How to handle Trump, his tariffs and the takeover threats have also become the central issue of the upcoming federal election.
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In Oshawa, tariffs loom large in election campaign
Customers at longtime burger joint also name housing affordability as a key issue
From a table at Mr. Burger in Oshawa, you can see the General Motors plant that anchors the city's economy.
People there for the lunchtime rush — whether they work in the auto sector or not — are keenly aware of the potential impact of the tariffs that U.S. President Donald Trump is threatening to impose starting Wednesday.
Trump is "the number one thing we're most concerned about, and of course tariffs," said Dana Lynchock, a retired auto worker, as he waited for his order.
The impact of the tariffs on Oshawa will be terrible, says Lynchock.
"It's going to threaten everybody's livelihoods," he said. "A lot of good people are going to get hurt."
Lynchock wants the federal government to strike back as much as possible against the tariffs and in the election, he's looking for a leader who's strong enough to stand up to Trump.
Dana Lynchock (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
"I would not have voted for [Justin] Trudeau. That would never have been an option" said Lynchock. But he says he's open to supporting new Liberal Leader Mark Carney.
"Maybe Carney is the guy, I don't know," he said. "We're just starting to get introduced to him. But so far, he's presented very well."
'I think about my kids'
Harry Porquet works for a company that transports newly built vehicles from the GM plant to auto dealerships in Canada and locations south of the border. He expects the industry to be hit hard by tariffs.
"I'm at the end of my career, so I'm OK, but there's a lot of people in our office that have younger families and mortgages and I feel bad for them," said Porquet in an interview.
Harry Porquet (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
He says his top issue in the election is the future prospects for young people, particularly housing affordability.
"I think about my kids. I have a 22-year-old and a 27-year-old and without their parents' help, they're not going to be able to get into the real estate market," he said.
Porquet says he wants to find out more about what the parties are promising on housing and will wait until later in the election campaign to decide how he'll vote.
'I'm afraid of Donald Trump'
Trump is the first thing that comes to mind for George Mitchell when asked what matters to him in the election.
"I'm afraid of Donald Trump," said Mitchell, who lives in Courtice, just a few kilometres east of Oshawa. "I think the tariffs are going to hurt us. We're going to see some unemployment, some layoffs."
Mitchell, who is retired, also says the cost of living and the availability of housing are of concern.
George Mitchell (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
How does all that affect his intention to vote?
"I like Carney's approach," Mitchell said. "I think he'll do a good job."
'Don't want to live at home forever'
Muhammad Ross, who works in the construction industry, says the cost of housing is top of mind, particularly for his adult children who are still living with him.
"I would just like my kids to be able to afford a house," said Ross. "I don't want my kids living at home forever. They don't want to live at home forever."
Muhammad Ross (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
He questions how young people are supposed to manage to save enough for a down payment, even if they have good jobs, given the cost of renting.
Ross says he hasn't heard anything from any party that will help with housing affordability and doubts the election will bring any drastic change. "Honestly, I don't think I've heard what I want to hear yet," he said
'Rent is so high'
Denis Doyon would love to elect a politician who can actually make life more affordable but he is highly skeptical that's possible.
Denis Doyon (Rob Krbavac/CBC)
"For example, the price of rent is so high right now. How can it come down?" said Doyon, an Oshawa resident.
Doyon says he won't support the Liberals and describes Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre as "a pretty good guy," but still needs convincing he'd keep his promises if he wins the election.
Trump has signed a proclamation to impose 25 per cent tariffs on imported vehicles effective Wednesday. According to a White House fact sheet, the tariffs will only apply to the value of "non-U.S. content" in vehicles imported under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade.
Trump is scheduled to reveal a broader swath of tariffs against countries around the world during an event in the White House Rose Garden at 4 p.m. ET.
Trump tariffs: is this the perfect window to buy a home in Canada?ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tariff trouble; '51st state' gear will remain for sale: CBC's Marketplace Cheat Sheet
The consumer news you may have missed this week.
'Dumbfounded and disgusted': Canada's car capital grapples with Trump tariffs
John
D'Agnolo is the president of Unifor Local 200, which represents nearly
2,000 Ford workers in the Windsor, Ont., region. He warns that the
impact from U.S. tariffs could be 'like 2008 all over again.' (Katerina Georgieva/CBC)
A
long-awaited tariff announcement from U.S. President Donald Trump on
Wednesday spurred confusion and concern in Canada's automotive capital.
The president, in a lengthy Rose Garden address at the White House,
provided some relief to Canada by leaving it out of a list of nations
facing new reciprocal tariffs from the U.S.
But the Trump
administration is maintaining previously announced tariffs affecting
Canada, including up to 25 per cent levies on assembled vehicles and
some automotive parts.
"I'm dumbfounded and disgusted at the
same time, because we're talking about people's livelihoods on the
line," said John D'Agnolo, president of Unifor Local 200.
D'Agnolo's nearly 2,000 members build Ford's V8 engines, which are shipped to the U.S. to be put into trucks and Mustangs.
The White House has said that
engines are among the "key automobile parts" subject to a 25 per cent
tariff starting this week. However, parts that comply with the
Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) are tariff-free, until the
administration "establishes a process to apply tariffs to their
non-U.S. content." Read more
Amazon is selling products calling Canada the 51st state, and many Canadians aren't happy
This screenshot of Amazon.com, taken Tuesday, shows products for sale on the retail giant's website. (Amazon.com)
U.S.
President Donald Trump's threats to turn Canada into the 51st state
have hit the virtual shelves of online retail giant Amazon — and fed-up
Canadians are calling for the company to shut it down.
A petition is
urging Amazon to disable listings of shirts, hats, stickers and other
products emblazoned with quotes referring to Canada as the 51st state or
otherwise celebrating the idea of Canada being annexed by its southern
neighbour.
"This is not a joke to us. It's a threat to our
autonomy and identity as Canadians," Ontario resident Sue Williams-Dunn,
who started the petition in February, wrote in its description.
The petition had more than 64,000 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.
A quick search of "51st state" on Amazon's website brings up a flood of
items, including t-shirts that say "Make Canada Great Again" in a
reference to Trump's slogan, stickers of the map of Canada coloured in
with the American flag and hats declaring Canada as "the 51st state of
America."
"This is offensive and foments dissent and war. I
will immediately not buy products from Amazon," one commenter wrote
underneath the petition.
The emergence of products cheering
for the U.S. to take over Canada is just the latest front in the ongoing
trade war between the two countries, a bitter back-and-forth of tariffs
and counter-tariffs that has sparked many Canadians to embrace a "buy
Canadian" sentiment.
Amazon said in an email to CBC News that the products in question did not breach their policies. Read more
The consumer carbon tax is gone. What will that mean for your wallet?
A flare stack lights the sky from the Imperial Oil refinery in Edmonton on December 28, 2018. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)
It's official — the consumer carbon tax is over.
Mark Carney cancelled the fee on his first day as prime minister last
month, signing a directive for the fuel charge to be removed on April 1.
The levy had been added to the sale price of carbon-emitting products
by fuel type. For gasoline, it was 17.6 cents a litre, and natural gas
was 15.25 cents per cubic metre. (The average Canadian home uses about
2,500 cubic metres of natural gas a year.)
Carney initially
supported the carbon tax, but reversed course while campaigning for
Liberal Party leadership, saying it had become too "divisive." Though
the consumer price on carbon is gone, the industrial price for
large-scale polluters remains.
The Liberal government under
Justin Trudeau first put the tax in place in 2019 as a way to
incentivize Canadians to transition to greener energy sources. But even
in the early days, the policy faced opposition from provincial
governments, while Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's pledge to "axe
the tax" later became a central part of his platform.
The
federal carbon price for consumers disappeared Tuesday in all provinces
except Quebec, where a provincial price on carbon meant the federal
price didn't apply. B.C. also had its own consumer carbon tax, but that
province's carbon price is lifted as of today, too.
Now that
the tax is gone, how might that impact your wallet? Experts say there
will be some cost savings passed on to consumers almost immediately, but
the loss of the carbon rebate will also have an impact further down the
road. Read more
What else is going on?
U.S. tariffs on the auto sector will substantially raise the sticker price of cars, experts say
The White House imposed 25 per cent tariffs on cars and some auto parts as of April 3.
Quebec wants to make it harder for doctors to go from public to private system
Québec Solidaire MNA scoffs at proposal, says it shows 'lack of courage.'
Could Trump's tariffs spell the end of Canadian-made NHL jerseys?
NHL game jerseys have been manufactured in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., since 1975.
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'Enough is enough' says president of Unifor Local 200 following latest tariff announcement
The head of the union representing Ford workers in Windsor says 'enough is enough already' following U.S. President Donald Trump's latest tariff announcement.
Unifor Local 200 President John D'Agnolo says we've been hearing this now since the day he was elected.
"We're up and down like a yo-yo, anxiety for our members and Canadians across this country. It's got to stop," he says.
Trump announced Wednesday that the U.S. will impose a 10 per cent baseline tariff on trading partners, in addition to higher tariffs on a series of individual countries and a 25 per cent levy "on all foreign-made automobiles" that takes effect April 3.
A White House fact sheet issued after the announcement said that Canada and Mexico are exempt from the new reciprocal tariffs and that goods imported under the existing free trade deal will not face tariffs, while others will see a 10 per cent tariff.
Unifor Local 200 represents close to 2,000 members between Ford's Windsor Engine Plant and the Essex Engine Plant.
Workers at Windsor Engine produce the 7.3L V8 engine for Ford Super Duty pickups and commercial vehicles, while workers at Essex Engine produce the 5.0L V8 engine for the Mustang and the F-150, the best-selling truck in North America.
D'Agnolo says Ford has no choice but to keep operations going in Windsor despite the tariffs because the engine is the heart of the F-150.
"All we can do is continue to put out a productive, high-quality product. We have to continue to do that; that's what we're known for in Canada. Hopefully with the election over soon, the new leader in Canada will understand the importance of making sure we protect ourselves in our own country and our workers in our own country," he says.
D'Agnolo says he's hoping there will be a day they don't have to worry about their jobs.
"That they recognize the fact that it's not going to work, and I hope we continue to work with the United States and build good products on both sides of the border," he says.
Engines made in Windsor and used in the F-150 are sent to Ford assembly plants in Michigan and Missouri, while the engines in the Super Duty pickups are sent to an assembly plant in Kentucky.
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Conservatives select new candidate for Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore
A new Conservative candidate has been selected for the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore.
Kathy Borrelli is now listed on the Conservative party website, after her husband, Paul Borrelli, president of the Conservative Windsor-Tecumseh EDA, announced her candidacy in a post on Facebook.
Paul Borrelli confirmed the news to AM800 by phone Saturday morning.
The move comes after previously selected candidate, Ward 4 Windsor city councillor Mark McKenzie, was dropped by the party earlier this week.
The Conservatives dumped McKenzie on Tuesday for comments he made on a 2022 podcast about public hangings, joking that former prime minister Justin Trudeau should receive the death penalty.
McKenzie told AM800 News that he officially withdrew as the party's candidate on Wednesday after he says the party met his demands.
Borrelli previously ran as the Conservative candidate in 2021 for the Windsor-Tecumseh riding, coming in third.
The party needed to select or nominate a candidate by the Monday deadline.
'Dumbfounded and disgusted': Canada's car capital grapples with Trump tariffs
Confusion remains, says the union representing workers at a key Ford engine plant
A long-awaited tariff announcement from U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday spurred confusion and concern in Canada's automotive capital.
The president, in a lengthy Rose Garden address at the White House, provided some relief to Canada by leaving it out of a list of nations facing new reciprocal tariffs from the U.S.
But the Trump administration is maintaining previously announced tariffs affecting Canada, including up to 25 per cent levies on assembled vehicles and some automotive parts.
D'Agnolo's nearly 2,000 members build Ford's V8 engines, which are shipped to the U.S. to be put into trucks and Mustangs.
The White House has said that engines are among the "key automobile parts" subject to a 25 per cent tariff starting this week. However, parts that comply with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) are tariff-free, until the administration "establishes a process to apply tariffs to their non-U.S. content."
John
D'Agnolo is the president of Unifor Local 200, which represents nearly
2,000 Ford workers in the Windsor region. He says he is "dumbfounded and
disgusted" by automotive tariffs. (Katerina Georgieva/CBC)
D'Agnolo said many of the parts that go into the engines are American-made, but others come from Canada, China and other countries.
"This is why it's so confusing," D'Agnolo said.
D'Agnolo said that if a 25 per cent tariff applies to the engines his workers build, it would cost the company an extra $75,000 for each trailer load of engines it sends across the border.
"That will raise the price of these vehicles substantially, and then no one will buy them," he said. "It's going to destroy a company that's one of the most American companies, period."
D'Agnolo and industry experts have warned that due to North America's deeply integrated automotive supply chains, tariffs could hurt workers on both sides of the border.
Parts can cross the border a half-dozen times before final assembly, meaning that any U.S. tariffs – as well as Canadian or Mexican counter-tariffs – would raise costs significantly, both for manufacturers and consumers.
WATCH: Carney says Canada will fight latest Trump tariffs
Carney says Canada will ‘fight’ latest Trump tariffs Many of them build Pacifica minivans at Stellantis' Windsor assembly plant. Those vehicles are set to be hit by Trump's tariffs, but by how much will depend on how many of the thousands of parts in the vehicle are not made in the U.S.
The White House has said companies importing vehicles under CUSMA "will be given the opportunity to certify their U.S. content and systems will be implemented such that the 25 per cent tariff will only apply to the value of their non-U.S. content."
Still, workers are already feeling the impact.
Just hours after Trump's announcement, Unifor Local 444, which represents employees at the plant, announced that Stellantis will be halting production for two weeks starting on April 7, "with more changes to the schedule expected in the coming weeks."
"While we had heard rumours of potential downtime, the company said there are multiple factors at play, with the primary driver behind the final decision being this afternoon's announcement from US President Donald Trump of the U.S. tariffs," the union said.
Earlier in the day, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said he was still "trying to decode everything that has been released," but that Trump's announcement seemed "far better than any of us had anticipated."
Dilkens said he understood Windsorites' anxiety around the tariffs, though.
"I've been on pins and needles for this community for the better part of two months, so I can understand exactly how people are feeling, and we've been rattling every cage and beating every drum that we can to try and make sure that there is an understanding by the president of the United States that a tariff on Canada is a tax to U.S. consumers," he said.
"It appears on the face of it today that there is an understanding of that so I'm pleasantly surprised by what I've heard the president say ... But to my fellow Windsorites, we're all in this together."
D'Agnolo said he'll be telling his members to avoid unnecessary spending at the moment.
"I've talked about the recession time in '08, but the cost of living wasn't even close to what it is today," he said. "These poor workers are going to be suffering and it breaks my heart.
"So I'll just tell the people, listen, we'll continue to put out a good quality product, be productive, do what we can to support, show that we are the best workforce in the world and hopefully we can get through this."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Katerina Georgieva
Feeder plants for Windsor Assembly could face potential layoffs as an aftermath of tariffs
'Around 600 members at the five feeder plants can be impacted,' says the union representing the workers
Automaker Stellantis has confirmed it's shutting down its assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., for two weeks, largely because of U.S. tariffs on imported vehicles, and an aftermath of that would be potential layoffs at feeder plants.
Unifor Local 444 president James Stewart said that while between 3,000 and 3,500 workers will be directly impacted at Windsor Assembly, more than 1,250 employees at the five main feeder plants for Windsor Assembly can also face layoffs now.
Unifor
Local 444 President James Stewart says for every Windsor Assembly plant
worker, it results in around eight workers being impacted at the feeder
plants that send the Assembly Plant many parts. (Katerina Georgieva/CBC)
Stewart said while assembly plant workers get Employment Insurance (EI) benefits around 65 or 70 per cent of their wages, the feeder workers "don't have any of that" with EI around 40 to 50 per cent of wages.
"Most will have a hard time getting through this," he said.
Emile Nabbout, president at Unifor Local 195, which also represents workers at the feeder plants, said the tariffs are going to create a "problem in the community."
"It's concerning, the feeder plants we represent … members are all nervous of what's happening. Every time the assembly plant is shut down, notice of layoff will go to our members here as well," he said.
EI reform needed: Unifor Local 195
Around 600 members at the feeder plants can be impacted, Nabbout said.
"We are in the middle of the election. We want all those political parties to make a commitment to stand and fight along the worker and the union to have a safety net and protection to the worker when they face those uncertainties," he said.
"Definitely unemployment insurance is one of the avenues when there is a quick and unpredicted layoff, then we would like the government to increase the benefit."
Emile
Nabbout is the president of Unifor Local 195 and says EI reform is
needed in these times of uncertainty to protect workers at feeder
plants. (Kathleen Saylors/CBC)
Nabbout said it is "not a reliable income" when there is an interruption to work and asks the incoming government to eliminate the waiting period and implement comprehensive EI reform.
"It's very crucial in this election that we as workers, stand up and vote for a candidate who supports the reform for EI and enhances the complete labour issues that impact our worker every single time there is an interruption."
Nabbout said amidst all the tariff layoffs and uncertainties, EI reform is an important issue.
He said the weekly earnings need to increase to reflect inflation.
Stellantis spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said the company is "temporarily pausing production" starting Monday, with operations set to resume the week of April 21.
"Stellantis continues to assess the effects of the recently announced U.S. tariffs on imported vehicles and will continue to engage with the U.S. administration on these policy changes," she said in an emailed statement to CBC News.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Christopher Ensing
Strike averted at Windsor, Ont., casino — tentative deal reached
Roughly 1,400 workers represented by Unifor Local 444 were set to strike at 12:01 a.m. Thursday
It's business as usual at Caesars Windsor along the Canadian border city's riverfront.
A work stoppage was avoided before workers were set to walk off the job at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, according to the union and employer.
Unionized employees will vote to ratify the agreement at a later date that has yet to be disclosed.
During negotiations, Unifor Local 444 officials previously told CBC News better pay was a top priority for the some 1,400 employees it represents at the casino.
"Make no mistake, the monetary gains are probably a number one priority," said James Stewart, president of the local union, in an interview a few days before the tentative deal was announced.
Caesars Windsor's president and CEO Kevin Laforet said in a statement, "We would like to commend Unifor Local 444 and the entire bargaining team for their respectful and productive efforts resulting in an agreement that is mutually beneficial for both parties."
Details within the agreement have not been released by either side.
Nearly 2,000 casino workers went on strike for 60 days in 2018.
With files from Pratyush Dayal and Chris Ensing
Windsor Morning's election panel on polls, tariffs & candidate controversies
'An unjustified attack on the auto industry:' Unifor Local 444 president responds to U.S. tariffs
James Stewart spoke with CBC's Amy Dodge on Windsor Morning
The president of Windsor's largest auto union is responding to news of new U.S. tariffs on Canadian-made autos heading stateside.
James Stewart of Unifor Local 444 spoke with CBC's Amy Dodge on Windsor Morning Friday, calling the tariffs "an unjustified attack on the auto industry here in Canada."
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday imposing a 25 per cent tariff on finished vehicles imported into the U.S.
The tariffs go in effect April 2.
Hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs are tied to the auto sector.
It's Canada's largest manufacturing industry and the country's second largest export to the US, after oil.
And at the heart of it all is Windsor, the automotive capital of Canada.
What's your reaction to President Trump actually moving forward with these tariffs?
You know, the reaction hasn't changed. The fact is, it's an unjustified attack on the auto industry here in Canada. We are not a jurisdiction that has stolen jobs from the United States in any shape, way or form.
The facts are, we have lost jobs just like the United States has to lower paying jurisdictions, to jurisdictions that don't offer the same types of healthcare benefits, the same health and safety regulations. We've seen the same issues. And this really is an unjust attack, and I think it's going to affect the American worker in the auto industry, and it's going to affect the Canadian worker in the industry, both in negative ways. It's going to be very tough time if this comes to fruit.
Yeah, can you share some stories or concerns you've been hearing from your members?
Well, all of our members are concerned. … Right now, it's probably a perfect balance. The amount of cars we sell to the States is the same amount that we buy from the United States across Canada. And our workers know that. So they know that, you know, without the sales in the States, and if tariffs go into play, they know their jobs are at risk. They know the plants are at risk. They know it could happen fast.
What about their mental health?
Well, that's severe when you … don't know what the future holds. There's this cloud hanging over you that you can't control. … There's nothing they can do but sit back and watch and hope for the best and hope that there's a way, a path, to be found through this.
They all want to make a good wage. They're good at their jobs … And this is really devastating.
It feels like the goal posts just keep shifting, making it hard to sort of keep up with the ever changing discussion around tariffs between the U.S. and Canada. What has it been like for you in your position at the heart of Canada's auto industry?
You're right. The goal posts have moved. This is not about fentanyl. It's not about illegal immigration. That's just the avenue he uses to break the agreements we have in place. It's about the 51st state. It's about our natural resources, about our auto industry, it's about what he … sees as unfair trade balance.
And every time, there's a counterpoint or something that defeats his argument, there's a new argument. So it's really, really been difficult. … It's hard to negotiate when the goal posts keep moving.
What have you heard about Stellantis' response to the upcoming tariffs? Any idea of how they're preparing?
The Detroit three generally, along with all the automakers, have been meeting with [U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick. They've been meeting with the United States, trying to make sure they understand the industry, how the industry is interconnected, how this will affect the United States, Canada, Mexico, all the same way. … I think they're still having those meetings trying to figure things out.
We've met with them. We've made sure it's clear to them that the footprint in Canada has to remain, that they have to be committed to their employees and our members in Canada. … They're responsive to it. They understand it. But, you know, they're trying to figure the mess out as well.
Yesterday we heard that Ontario's premier is expecting … the US to ease the auto tariffs. And later we heard that … it wouldn't apply to vehicles that were more than 50 per cent made in the US, and they would start with a 12.5 per cent tariff. And then Doug Ford said that Lutnick claims the lower tariff will avoid plant closures in Canada. I'm just wondering what that all means. … Are you convinced that a lower tariff will keep the plants open?
No.
The problem is, it's very unclear. They're talking about the percentage of the vehicle that has American parts won't be taxed. The other parts of the vehicle will be taxed. It's a very complicated equation.
If you look at the United States, there's not a vehicle built over there – not one vehicle – that is 100 per cent U.S.-made – not even the Teslas that they're bragging about out of Elon Musk's plants in Texas and California. …. But a Canadian vehicle gets – whether it's five per cent or whether it's 25 per cent — it's still going to raise the cost of those vehicles, and consumers are going to look elsewhere.
Do we know how much of the Pacifica or the Chargers are actually made in the US versus here in Windsor?
The company has those records. We don't have that. … We have tier one assembly plants in Canada — quite a few of them that feed the plant. But all the smaller parts that go into that come from all over the place. So the only ones that would be able to find that is actually the OEMs. .
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity
Unifor Local 444 president believes 'if you don't build in this country, you don't sell in this country'
The president of Unifor Local 444 believes there needs to be measures that state, 'if you don't build in this country, you don't sell in this country.'
James Stewart, who represents over 4,000 workers at the Stellantis Windsor Assembly Plant, was reacting Thursday to U.S. President Donald Trump's move to sign an executive order Wednesday to implement 25 per cent tariffs on all automobile imports into the United States starting next week.
Trump said the latest round of auto tariffs will be permanent and has argued that they will lead to automakers opening more factories in the U.S.
Stewart says our industry is so integrated.
"I think it has to be; if you don't build in this country, you don't sell in this country. Not that you're tariffed, if you are not going to build, that has to be our message to the Big 3; they have commitments to Canada," he says.
Automakers have spread out their supply chains and production facilities throughout North America. Parts and production steps often cross one or more borders during the process. That means It will cost the major automakers more money to build their cars and trucks.
Stewart says the tariffs will be devastating for Canada, but it will be just as devastating for American workers.
Speaking at the Unifor union hall on Turner Road, Stewart says we are not the jurisdiction that's taking jobs away from America.
"We are a high-paying jurisdiction. We have good healthcare and benefits. We have good health and safety regulations in Canada. Our standard is high. We have lost jobs just as much as the United States on a per capita basis. We were second or third, but we are now eighth in automotive building," he says.
Unifor Local 200 President John D'Agnolo, who represents close to 2,000 members between Ford's Windsor Engine Plant and the Essex Engine Plant, says this is just creating unrest.
"When you have unrest, you don't shop. When you have unrest, you don't buy anything," he says. "It's already impacting our community. When you don't have stability, it affects your plants. Think about that. You're thinking, Oh my God, will I have a job?"
The tariffs will take effect on April 3.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he was told by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick that Canadian-made vehicles with 50 per cent or more American parts will not face tariffs.
Lutnick called Ford later Wednesday to say that Canada would face a different rate but it was unclear when Canadian vehicles would see the tariff break.
Most of the vehicles made in Canada are already constructed with more than half American parts, as the North American auto industry is deeply integrated.
With files from the Canadian Press
Intro
AFederal NDP would prevent companies from gutting Canadian auto plants, says Singh
The Board
The Unifor Local 444 Executive Board
James Stewart
President
Manny Cardoso
Secretary-Treasurer
Mike Stevenson
1st Vice President
Mike D'Agnolo
2nd Vice President
Steve Morgan
3rd Vice President
Jon Binns
Recording Secretary
Local 444 Unifor's Post
Buzz Hargrove | |
|---|---|
| 2nd President of the Canadian Auto Workers | |
| In office 1992–2008 | |
| Preceded by | Bob White |
| Succeeded by | Ken Lewenza |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Basil Eldon Hargrove March 8, 1944 (age 81) Bath, New Brunswick, Canada |
| Political party | New Democratic Party (until 2006) |
Basil Eldon "Buzz" Hargrove OC (born March 8, 1944) is a Canadian labour leader and the former National President of the Canadian Auto Workers. He is currently serving as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's Ted Rogers School of Management.[1]
Born in Bath, New Brunswick, Hargrove first became involved in the automotive sector as a line worker for the Chrysler assembly plant in Windsor, Ontario. He succeeded Bob White as president of the CAW in 1992. On July 8, 2008, he announced his intention to retire, before he turned 65, in September 2008. The CAW National Executive Board and staff endorsed then CAW Local 444 president Ken Lewenza to replace Hargrove as National President, and on September 6, 2008, Lewenza was formally elected to the position at a special union convention.
In 1998, Hargrove co-authored the book Labour of Love: The Fight to Create a More Humane Canada with Wayne Skene. Also in 1998, Brock University honoured him with a Doctorate of Laws degree. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Windsor in 2003, from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2004, from the University of New Brunswick in 2008,[2] and from Queen's University in 2009. In 2008, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.[3]
Hargrove is seen as a proponent of social unionism, and his supporters claim that he has steered the CAW to become a more activist union. In the field of electoral politics, however, under his leadership the CAW has broken from its longtime support for the left-wing New Democratic Party and lent increasing support instead for the Liberal Party of Canada.
Hargrove is married to Denise Small, a mediation officer for the Ontario Labour Relations Board.
1999 Ontario election
Hargrove was the leading advocate of tactical voting (sometimes also called "strategic voting") in the 1999 Ontario provincial election. Hargrove proposed this approach in an attempt to defeat the Progressive Conservative Party government of Mike Harris. Hargrove's support for this approach, and his union's subsequent commitment of resources in its pursuit, marked the CAW's first major departure from its previous policy of unconditional support of the Ontario New Democratic Party, although the CAW had been somewhat estranged from the Ontario NDP ever since the union had opposed the "Social Contract" austerity measures imposed by the previous 1990-1995 Bob Rae NDP government. The 1999 election, however, was the first time that the union did not at least formally endorse the NDP, instead urging its members (and all voters) to vote for the candidate, NDP or Liberal, that had the best chance of defeating the Progressive Conservative candidate.
Tactical voting not only failed to prevent the re-election of the Tories to another majority government but also was blamed by New Democrats for the party's poor electoral performance, returning only 9 Members of Provincial Parliament, down from 17 in the 1995 election.
An attempt, following the 1999 Ontario election, to expel Hargrove from the Ontario NDP was defeated, but Hargrove's relationship with provincial leader Howard Hampton remained acrimonious.
Federal politics pre–2006
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources. (November 2007) |
Hargrove was also a long-time critic of federal NDP leader Alexa McDonough, calling for her resignation on several occasions. He criticized McDonough for her effort at modernizing federal NDP policy, which involved moving towards the political centre and adopting "Third Way" policies. Hargrove stated repeatedly that NDP should move to the left instead.
In 2002, he planned to run for the NDP leadership, but found a "notable lack of enthusiasm" for his potential candidacy. He instead endorsed CAW lawyer Joe Comartin who placed fourth.
Hargrove was initially much more publicly supportive of McDonough's successor, Jack Layton, and the CAW unequivocally supported the federal NDP in the 2004 federal election. The NDP made significant gains in popular vote but gained only 5 seats for a total of 19, well short of its aspirations of 40 or more.
Hargrove reportedly played a role in bringing Prime Minister Paul Martin and Jack Layton together to negotiate a budget agreement to keep the federal Liberal government in power in exchange for including NDP proposals in the 2005 federal budget.
However, Hargrove sharply criticized Layton when he joined with Conservative leader Stephen Harper and Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe to bring down the Liberal government with a vote of non-confidence in November 2005. He also echoed his earlier criticism of McDonough by suggesting that Layton, too, was not sufficiently moving the party to the left. The eventual bringing down of the Liberal minority government led to a Conservative minority in the subsequent election.
2006 federal election
Tactical voting
For the 2006 Canadian federal election, Hargrove resumed his previous endorsement of tactical voting and urged CAW members (and all voters) to vote for the candidate, NDP or Liberal had the best chance of defeating the Conservative candidate.[4] During the final days of the 2006 campaign, Hargrove urged all progressive voters in Canada to vote Liberal, which he claimed was the only party that could prevent the Conservative Party of Canada from winning the election. He publicly stated that "ideology does not matter" when the reporter asked about his position.
Despite the qualification of his stated support for NDP incumbents and candidates in 40 "winnable" ridings, Hargrove's speech was widely reported by the media as an endorsement of the Liberals. When questioned by a reporter on this, Hargrove also stated that he "did not like the campaign that Jack Layton was running," criticizing Layton for "spending too much time attacking the Liberals." [5] No doubt his photo-op appearance with Paul Martin in matching CAW jackets contributed to this impression. He has been reported as saying that voters should support incumbent NDP MPs and NDP candidates in ridings "where they can defeat the Conservatives."
Break with NDP
Hargrove's strategy caused some controversy among long-time NDP activists and union members who saw him as reneging on core labour and left-wing values. In response, they carried anti-Hargrove placards at rallies and distributed buttons with the slogan: "Buzz Off. I'm voting NDP."[6]
Traditional NDP supporters were also opposed to aligning their movement with the Liberals, who were embroiled in the Sponsorship and income trust scandals.
Despite being one of Hargrove's 40 endorsed NDP candidates, Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the candidate for Oshawa, blamed his loss on tactical voting. Ryan claimed Hargrove's statement confused potential NDP supporters in his riding and caused some of them to vote Liberal even though the Liberal candidate was not a viable contender. A poll in Oshawa found that the proportion of voters sampled who initially planned to vote for Ryan before switching their support to the third-place Liberal candidate late in the campaign (thinking it might help prevent a national Conservative victory) significantly exceeded the narrow margin of Ryan's loss - if the poll is accurate then the tactic did indeed result in Tory Colin Carrie's election.
Some pointed out that Hargrove's call for strategic voting has also caused financial harm to the NDP under Canada's system of public financing for federal elections, which pays a subsidy to each federal party based on their popular vote.[6]
Controversy
On January 18, 2006, Hargrove made a widely criticized speech at a Liberal rally in Ontario where he urged voters in Quebec to vote for the Bloc Québécois in preference to the Conservatives, calling Conservative leader Stephen Harper's view of Canada "a separatist view" and recommending "anything to stop the Tories". The statements forced Liberal leader Paul Martin to defend Harper later in the day by saying "I have profound differences with Mr. Harper, but I have never questioned his patriotism". Afterwards, many commentators viewed Hargrove as having been an active hindrance to the gaffe-filled Liberal campaign.[7]
Hargrove also attacked the principles of Albertans, and Stephen Harper in particular (though Harper was actually born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, moving to Alberta only in his early twenties),[8][9] saying "His sense, is about Alberta, where the wealth in Alberta, everyone recognizes, is much greater than it is anywhere in Canada. The principles that (Harper's) brought up with, and believes in coming out of there, don't sit well with the rest of Canada."
Results
Near the end of the 2006 campaign, sensing the momentum that would result in a Conservative victory, NDP leader Jack Layton defied Paul Martin and Hargrove's pleas to unite all progressive voters under the Liberal banner. Layton intensified his attacks on the Liberal scandals, while also pledging to use the NDP's clout in a minority government to "keep the Conservatives in check".
The NDP increased their caucus to 29 seats, a significant gain over the 2004 election. Hargrove afterwards argued that strategic voting had prevented the Conservatives from forming a majority government and suggested that the three main opposition parties could form a coalition to get several key pieces of legislation passed.
Suspension from the NDP
Following the election, on February 11, 2006, the provincial executive body of the Ontario NDP voted to suspend Hargrove's NDP membership and effectively expel him from the party for supporting the Liberals. This move also automatically suspended his membership in the federal party; the NDP, unlike other major Canadian parties, is integrated at the federal and provincial/territorial levels. Hargrove stated he was "shocked and surprised" by this decision, but he would not apologize for his actions during the 2006 election nor would he commit not to endorse candidates for other parties in the future.[10] On February 23, 2006, Hargrove also confirmed that he would not appeal the Ontario NDP executive body's decision.[11]
The CAW retaliated against the NDP for Hargrove's suspension by severing all union ties with the Party, a move formalized at the CAW's 2006 convention.[12]
2006 CAW leadership race
On December 9, 2005, Hargrove confirmed that he would seek a sixth and final three-year term as CAW President at the union's convention in Vancouver, British Columbia, in August, 2006.[13] This would be the final term that Hargrove would be eligible to serve under the CAW constitution, which provides for mandatory retirement at age 65. Hargrove was to be 62 years old at the time of the upcoming CAW convention.
On February 8, 2006, Maclean's reported rumours that, for the first time, Hargrove may face an opposing candidate for the CAW presidency.[14] CAW Local 1256 chair and Oakville and District Labour Council President Willie Lambert was subsequently confirmed as an opposition candidate.[15] In 1999, Lambert won the support of over 40% of voting delegates at that year's Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) convention, in an unsuccessful challenge to Wayne Samuelson for the OFL presidency.[16]
On February 13, 2006, the CAW's former chief economist Sam Gindin raised a series of questions about the political, electoral and bargaining orientation of the CAW in an open letter addressed to Hargrove. That letter, Hargrove's response and Gindin's response to Hargrove were posted on the Canadian political website rabble.[17] Gindin later wrote another piece criticizing recent bargaining concessions by the CAW at the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario, which was published in the Socialist Project bulletin on March 22.[18]
On May 22, 2006, auto parts workers at A.G. Simpson in Oshawa, Ontario, went on strike against their employer. Hargrove characterized the dispute as a "wildcat" (unauthorized) strike and criticized the workers involved, describing the situation as a "powder keg" that threatened other auto workers jobs.[19] Hargrove's rival Lambert, however, fully supported the workers, joining the picket line and condemning Hargrove's conduct in an open letter.[20] The labour dispute was successfully resolved on May 25, 2006, although the workers involved remained critical of Hargrove and the National CAW's interventions.[21]
On June 22, 2006, the executive committee of CAW Local 1256, Lambert's home local, adopted a motion to reconsider its support for Lambert's campaign and lend support instead to Hargrove. Lambert alleges that the local executive took this action at the prompting of Hargrove's executive assistant, Hemi Mitic, who allegedly threatened to dissolve Local 1256 and merge it into the larger CAW Local 707. Both Mitic and the local union president, James MacKenzie, deny this allegation.[22][23] The motion to reconsider support for Lambert was overwhelmingly defeated by the general membership of Local 1256 on July 9, 2006, confirming that Local 1256 continued to support Lambert.[24]
The CAW's Constitutional Convention, at which the leadership election was scheduled to occur, took place Tuesday, August 15 through Friday, August 18 at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre.[25] Delegates were scheduled to vote for CAW executive officers on Thursday, August 17. However, on Wednesday, August 16, the union announced that Lambert had withdrawn his candidacy for CAW president, leaving Hargrove unopposed.[26] This was, however, a half-truth. According to standard union practice, candidates for CAW offices must be nominated before they can run. As Lambert was not himself a delegate, the decision on whether or not he was able to contest the presidency fell to the nearly 1000 elected delegates present. Since no one came forward, even delegates from his own local which had recently declared its unanimous support for his candidacy-—Lambert was effectively barred from contesting the leadership and Hargrove was therefore acclaimed for another term.
Basking in the glow of his "victory", Hargrove concluded his acceptance speech by proposing to his long-time girlfriend Denise Small. Small accepted.[27] The two were subsequently married at a small, private ceremony in Toronto on December 22, 2007.[28]
Hargorve criticized the Ontario legislature when all three parties (Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and NDP) passed emergency back-to-work legislation, after a wildcat strike by the Toronto Transit Commission union.[7]
2007 Ontario election
In the 2007 Ontario provincial election the CAW as a union again endorsed strategic voting. Hargrove, however, again went further to slam both the NDP and its leader, Howard Hampton. He told the editorial board of the Toronto Star that the NDP had "lost complete touch" with the people of Ontario and that he saw "absolutely no reason to vote NDP." Hargrove then went on to lavish praise on the Ontario Liberals, claiming the party had been "more left than the NDP over the last four years" and predicting left-leaning voters would vote Liberal in the upcoming election. The Ontario Liberal Party ultimately won a second consecutive majority government.
Books and films
- Buzz Hargrove is featured in the 1985 National Film Board documentary Final Offer by Sturla Gunnarsson and Robert Collision. It follows the 1984 contract negotiations with General Motors that saw the CAW's birth, and split with the UAW.
- Buzz Hargrove is the author of the books "Labour of Love" (1998) and "Laying It On The Line" (2009).
Currently
On February 27, 2009, Buzz Hargrove replaced Eric Lindros as the NHLPA ombudsman on an interim basis. He would later resign from the position on November 8, 2009.[29]
Unifor Auto Council and Unifor Independent Parts Supplier Council statement on U.S. Tariffs
For more than 60 years, the Canadian and American auto industries have depended on each other. Together, we build best-in-class cars and trucks that remain the envy of the world. Unionized autoworkers fought for and won gold standard collective agreements that created good jobs, raised living standards and built strong, vibrant communities. Two-way trade in automotive goods is about $160 billion per year and split virtually down the middle in near perfect balance. There is no better, fairer, and more productive trade relationship.
The ongoing threat of tariffs by the United States on Canada is an attack on Canadian jobs. These tariffs would cause an industrial crisis in the automotive sector on a scale never seen. An unprovoked trade war between North American countries not only upends decades of shared development and mutual benefit but also represents a betrayal of the greatest magnitude that will have consequences for autoworkers.
If tariffs on Canadian and Mexican vehicles and parts come to pass, we anticipate the North American industry will grind to a halt, likely within days. The cost of building vehicles will rise exponentially. Production lines will freeze, and the effects will ripple to workers across the supply chain. Consequently, and with the cost of new vehicles rising, consumers will shift to relatively cheaper, imported vehicles – those built in non-North American assembly plants. This presents a disaster scenario for autoworkers in all three countries.
North American autoworkers have, for years, been unfairly burdened by bad trade policies. Of all the vehicles sold in North America last year, 5 million were built in places other than North America, which is unlike most auto-producing regions in the world. Most of these imports (3.5 million, or 70% of the total) were sold in the United States.
Rather than encouraging importing automakers to invest and build more in North America, where they sell these cars, the U.S. President has instead taken aim at his allies. In turn, he’s given importing automakers an even easier path to undercut domestic jobs. This reflects a clear lack of understanding of the car industry and the challenges autoworkers face.
Unifor’s Auto Council and Independent Parts Supplier Council, and our 37,000 combined members, are committed to defend the Canadian auto industry, to protect jobs, investments and industrial capacity through whatever means necessary.
We join with millions of other Canadians, labour unions, businesses and across civil society calling for an immediate and permanent end to this tariff threat.
We will fight to keep production moving for as long as possible, and work on contingency plans with automakers and parts manufacturers. Canada remains an important part of the North American auto market, representing more than 2 million vehicles sold per year. Access to Canada’s domestic market matters and we will continue to build vehicles and parts for our market and international markets.
We will fight to defend and preserve our factories, our tools and machinery; we will work to sustain operations, and ensure they serve Canada’s productive, industrial objectives and ambitions.
We will continue working with federal, provincial and municipal governments to develop economic protection and financial assistance plans, trade diversification strategies, mitigate job losses and enhance income security provisions for all workers. And we will lean on our strong collective agreement provisions to ensure our members – and all Canadian autoworkers – can navigate this challenge.
Above all, we will work to end this economic threat that imperils our industry and our broader economy. We will coordinate with like-minded allies, and those willing to stand up for a brighter, more prosperous future of fair trade, good jobs, global solidarity, and mutual respect.
John D’Agnolo
President, Unifor Local 200
Unifor-Ford Master Bargaining Committee Chairperson
Unifor Auto Council Chairperson
Emile Nabbout
President, Unifor Local 195
Unifor Independent Parts Supplier Council President
Marc Brennan
Plant Chairperson, Oakville Assembly, Unifor Local 707
Unifor-Ford Master Bargaining Committee Vice-Chairperson
James Stewart
President, Unifor Local 444
Unifor-Stellantis Master Bargaining Committee Chairperson
Vito Beato
President, Unifor Local 1285
Unifor-Stellantis Master Bargaining Committee Vice-Chairperson
Jason Gale
Plant Chairperson, Oshawa Assembly, Unifor Local 222
Unifor-GM Master Bargaining Committee Chairperson
Trevor Longpre
Plant Chairperson, St. Catharines Propulsion Plant, Unifor Local 199
Unifor-GM Master Bargaining Committee Vice-Chairperson
Mike Van Boekel
Plant Chairperson, CAMI Assembly Plant, Unifor Local 88
Unifor-CAMI Bargaining Committee Chairperson
Mike D’Agnolo
First Vice-President, Unifor Local 444
Unifor Independent Parts Supplier Council Treasurer
Jody Schneider
Plant Chairperson, Android Industries, Unifor Local 1285
Unifor Independent Parts Supplier Council Recording Secretary
Larry Herrington
Plant Chairperson, Android Industries, Unifor Local 222
Unifor Independent Parts Supplier Council Vice-President
Executive Board
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Brent Tree President brenttree@unifor88.ca 519 317 6059 GroupsExecutive BoardOffice Phone519 425 0952In plant Extension101
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Steven Pye Vice President stevenpye@unifor88.ca 519 533 3231 GroupsExecutive BoardOffice Phone519 425 0952In plant Extension101
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Linda Leyten Financial Secretary lindaleyten@unifor88.ca 519 636 2415 GroupsExecutive BoardOffice Phone519 425 0952In plant Extension102
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Todd Scott Guide GroupsExecutive Board
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Juli Franklin Trustee GroupsExecutive Board
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Amy Durston Trustee GroupsExecutive Board
-
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Mike Van Boekel Chairperson GM CAMI mike.vanboekel@gm.com 519 608 4298 GroupsExecutive BoardOffice Phone226 825 8531In plant Extension58531
-
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Jason Herman Skilled Trades jason.herman@gm.com 519-983-3776 GroupsCAMI/GMExecutive BoardSkilled TradesOffice Phone226 825 8517In plant Extension58517
Protesters tee off on Trump, Musk in global 'Hands Off' rallies
'He's tearing this country apart,' says Ohio demonstrator
Protesters rally against Trump in dozens of cities across U.S. and worldwideOpponents of U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk rallied across the U.S. and around the globe on Saturday to protest the administration's actions on government downsizing, the economy, human rights and other issues.
In the United States, more than 1,200 "Hands Off!" demonstrations were planned by more than 150 groups, including civil rights organizations, labour unions, 2SLGBTQ+ advocates, veterans and elections activists. The protest sites included the National Mall in Washington, D.C., state capitols and other locations in all 50 states.
Protesters assailed the Trump administration's moves to fire thousands of federal workers, close Social Security Administration field offices, effectively shutter entire agencies, deport immigrants, scale back protections for transgender people and cut federal funding for health programs.
Rallies were also held in countries around the world, including the U.K., Portugal, Germany and India.
Musk, a Trump adviser who owns Tesla, SpaceX and the social media platform X, has played a key role in government downsizing as head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. He says he is saving taxpayers billions of dollars.
Elon Musk's conspiracist grandfather and his Canadian rootsSpeaking at the Washington protest, Paul Osadebe, a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a labour union steward, criticized Trump, Musk and others in the administration for not valuing the work federal employees do in creating "a baseline of economic security and power for working people."
"Billionaires and oligarchs don't value anything other than profit and power, and they sure as hell don't value you or your life or your community," he said. "And we're seeing that they don't care who they have to destroy or who they have to hurt to get what they want."
In Massachusetts, thousands of people gathered on Boston Common holding signs including "Hands Off Our Democracy" and "Diversity Equity Inclusion Makes America Strong. Hands Off!" In Ohio, hundreds rallied in rainy conditions at the statehouse in Columbus.
Roger Broom, 66, a retiree from Delaware County, Ohio, said at the Columbus rally that he used to be a Reagan Republican but has been turned off by Trump.
"He's tearing this country apart," Broom said. "It's just an administration of grievances."
Hundreds of people also demonstrated in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., a few kilometres from Trump's golf course in Jupiter, where he spent the morning at the senior club championship. People lined both sides of PGA Drive, encouraging cars to honk and chanting slogans against Trump.
Archer Moran from Port St. Lucie, Fla., said, "They need to keep their hands off of our Social Security."
Protesters gather near the Trump National Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., on Saturday. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press)
"The list of what they need to keep their hands off of is too long," Moran said. "And it's amazing how soon these protests are happening since he's taken office."
The president plans to go golfing again Sunday, according to the White House.
Asked about the protests, the White House said in a statement: "President Trump's position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats' stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors."
Activists have staged nationwide demonstrations against Trump or Musk multiple times since Trump returned to office. But the opposition movement has yet to produce a mass mobilization like the Women's March in 2017, which brought thousands of women to Washington, D.C., after Trump's first inauguration, or the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that erupted in multiple cities after George Floyd's killing in 2020.
Ottawa man charged after lockdown on Parliament Hill, police say
The 31-year-old man allegedly entered the security screening area of East Block and made threats
Ottawa police say a 31-year-old man has been charged with multiple offences following an hours-long Parliament Hill lockdown on Saturday.
In a news release sent Sunday morning, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) said the man entered the security screening area of the East Block of Parliament Hill around 2:40 p.m. Saturday and "began making threats to the safety of those inside."
"The man was isolated to the security screening area, and the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS) and the [OPS] attended to facilitate an evacuation of the building and surrounding area," the release said.
According to officers, several packages were found in the area which were searched and cleared. Nobody was injured, and no explosives, weapons or hazardous materials were found on the man.
"After hours of negotiations, the man surrendered peacefully to police and was arrested on scene," the OPS added.
Parliamentary Protective Service officers secure the perimeter of Parliament Hill on Saturday. (Blair Gable/Reuters)
The man, who was not named in the release, has been charged with a breach of probation, public mischief and uttering threats to cause property damage.
Police initially released a warning Saturday afternoon telling anyone in East Block, which houses parliamentary offices, to seek shelter in the nearest room, close and lock all doors and hide.
The building was then evacuated, as police temporarily shut down a significant stretch of Wellington Street in front of Parliament Hill — blocking traffic and pedestrians.
Hours after the lockdown began, police extended the exclusion zone from Wellington Street one block back to Sparks Street.
A police vehicle is seen at the corner of Wellington and O'Connor streets in Ottawa on Saturday. (CBC/Radio-Canada)
Ottawa police also brought in specialized units, including at least one canine unit and explosives units. Two bomb disposal unit robots were seen in front of Centre Block.
A government web page says the East Block houses the offices of senators and their staff, but there is little activity on the Hill because Parliament is dissolved for the ongoing federal election.
The same web page says the building once held the offices of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Étienne Cartier, and that it still contains "faithful recreations of the offices of its famous occupants from the 19th century."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Canadian Press
Lockdown declared at East Block on Parliament Hill
Ottawa, Parliament Hill police on scene for a 'barricaded man' in East Block Area
A lockdown remains in effect on Parliament Hill as Ottawa police say they have been speaking with a barricaded man in the East Block.
"There is a large police presence in the area. East Block has been evacuated," Ottawa Police Service (OPS) said in a social media post shortly before 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, which noted that their officers are being supported by the Parliamentary Protective Service (PPS)
"There are no known injuries and police continue to deal with an individual in this ongoing incident that began just before 3 p.m. [ET]," the police force added.
Members of the public are being asked to avoid the area and follow officers' directions. Road closures remain in place on Wellington Street, which runs in front of Parliament Hill, from Bank Street to Sussex Drive, OPS said.
Police have brought in a robot to deal with the situation, and a large police truck has been ushered through the security roadblock.
Earlier on Saturday afternoon, PPS declared a lockdown for 111 Wellington St., also known as East Block. The notice was sent to staffers who work on Parliament Hill.
They were told to seek shelter in the nearest room, close and lock all doors and hide.
"If you are not in the immediate area, stay away until further notice. Do not travel to locations under lockdown," the PPS said in their notice. "Wait for further instructions from first responders."
A government web page says East Block houses the offices of senators and their staff, but there is little activity on the Hill these days because Parliament is dissolved due to the ongoing federal election.
The same web page says the building once held the officers of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir George-Etienne Cartier," and that it still contains "faithful recreations of the offices of its famous occupants from the 19th century."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from The Canadian Press
Canadian detained for 11 days by U.S. immigration speaks out for others stuck in limbo
‘That place breaks you into a million pieces,’ Mooney said of her detention by U.S. immigration
Jasmine Mooney's smile went viral after the 35-year-old Canadian was taken into U.S. custody at the Mexican border in March, but her story is now whispered in fear.
On March 3, Mooney tried to get her work visa renewed, entering at an immigration office at the Mexico-San Diego border, against a U.S. lawyer's advice. Instead she ended up being denied, and then, all of a sudden, detained.
Mooney spent 11 days in custody — off and on in cement cells she says are dubbed "ice boxes" — with little more than a thin foil emergency blanket. Mooney says she faced numerous transfers, humiliating medical tests, degrading treatment and no answers — despite pleas to let her pay for her own flight home.
She at first refused food and couldn't sleep, but then forced herself to get up and help others.
"It breaks you. That place breaks you into a million pieces. It is so disgusting what goes on in there," Mooney told CBC News in an interview on Thursday.
Her case is one of a series of instances involving non-U.S. travellers that has travellers and legal experts concerned.
‘That place breaks you’: Canadian woman describes 11 days in ICE custodyMooney's story has become a sort of warning, a harbinger of a shifting attitude toward Canadians travelling or trying to work in the U.S.
Immigration lawyers are urging people who need visa renewals to opt to go to airports, where they can be processed on Canadian soil, with no risk of getting detained if they are deemed ineligible.
'Chilling effect'
Mooney's Blaine, Wash.-based immigration lawyer Len Saunders said her case is scaring Canadian travellers.
"It has a huge chilling effect on Canadians going to the United States," said Saunders.
He advised her not to try to reapply for her visa at a Mexican entry point, given changes he saw under the new Trump administration.
"She wasn't trying to do anything illegal. She thought she was doing the right thing," said Saunders.
"I've never seen a Canadian citizen who's applied for a work visa, either a brand new one or a renewal, being detained like this."
Mooney
says she left a lot of women behind when she was released and wants to
shine a light into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention
centres and how people end up trapped there. (Submitted by Alexis Eagles)
Mooney was at one point held at a San Diego-area prison where a Chinese inmate offered up her phone time enabling Mooney to get her plea out to at least one reporter. At that point, she had no idea that her story had gone viral and so many people were fighting for her freedom. She was released within a few days and left feeling "lucky."
Mooney says she left a lot of women behind when she was released and wants to shine a light into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centres and how people end up trapped there.
"I met a girl who had been in there eight months," she said.
She says the women helped her get out — and urged her to tell their stories. Mooney says there were about 140 women in her unit at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, one of the first places she was held, in the Ysidro Mountains foothills of Otay Mesa overlooking the U.S.-Mexico border.
She describes how most of the women she met had lived in the U.S. illegally and overstayed visas — detained with no warning when they reapplied.
In
this 2017 file photo, a vehicle drives into the Otay Mesa Detention
Center in San Diego. Mooney says there were about 140 women in her unit
when she was held there. (Elliot Spagat/The Associated Press)
"You meet all of the girls who had trekked from India, from Iran, from Africa, they're covered head to toe in bug bites and scars from their journey and they paid all of this money, gave up everything they owned to come to America and then end up in jail and they're all most likely getting shipped back to their countries," said Mooney.
'Scorched earth' approach to immigration
Mooney, who grew up in Yukon and had been living in B.C. until last year, is one in a series of recent U.S. immigration detention cases that have caught attention internationally.
In January, German tattoo artist Jessica Brösche was was held for more than a month after border agents assumed she'd work illegally. A 28-year-old British backpacker was held for 10 days after trying to enter Washington State from Canada. She'd been living with host families trading housework for board on a tourist visa. A couple returning from Tijuana ended up handcuffed: U.S. citizen Lennon Tyler was chained to a bench, her German fiance Lucas Sielaff held for 16 days for violating his 90 day tourist permit.
NPR reported the story of a Guatemalan immigrant named Sarahi who accidentally drove the wrong way across the Ambassador Bridge trying to go to Costco — and ended up held for five days in a windowless office near the bridge with her daughters, two U.S. citizens aged one and five.
"I don't think that the Americans are targeting Canadians. I think they're targeting anyone immigrating or visiting the United States. There's this heightened scrutiny," said Saunders. "It's almost a scorched earth whether you're coming in and applying for a work visa or coming in as a visitor."
He's urging anybody reapplying for visas to do it at an airport — where they are safe on Canadian soil and can't be detained.
However, he says he's not shocked that some Canadians are just opting to skip any U.S. travel
Mooney's immigration
lawyer Len Saunders said her case is scaring Canadian travellers. "It
has a huge chilling effect on Canadians going to the United States," he
said. (Submitted by Alexis Eagles)
Work visa trouble
Mooney first hit immigration trouble last spring. She'd applied for her work visa at the Blaine, Wash., border office and was denied. The officer had noticed a missing employer letterhead.
She tried again at the San Diego border in April of 2024. The visa was issued without a problem, so she returned to California and worked.
Mooney says she didn't have a problem again — despite multiple border crossings — until she headed back into the U.S. after a visit to family in November.
Upon her return, she says a border agent told her that her visa had been improperly processed. She was interrogated and that work visa was revoked, after border officials noted her product contained hemp.
After a few months in Canada, she was offered another job and says she was told by another lawyer that it was acceptable to try to reapply.
"The worst that I thought would happen is that I would get denied," she said.
She headed to the San Diego immigration office that first processed her visa on March 3. After hours there explaining her situation, she says the officer told her she'd have to reapply through a consulate. Then Mooney says the female officer added: "You didn't do anything wrong, you are not in trouble, you are not a criminal."
She was told they'd have to send her back to Canada. But as Mooney sat searching for flights home on her phone she says that a man appeared and told her to come with him.
She knew something was way off when they pulled the shoelaces from her sneakers.
"Later I found out that's so you don't hang yourself in jail," said Mooney.
A
spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that
Mooney was processed in light of an executive order signed on Jan. 21. (Gregory Bull/The Associated Press)
CBC News reached out to U.S. officials for more details about her case.
A statement from Sandra Grisolia of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement explained that Mooney was processed in accordance with the "Securing Our Borders" Executive Order dated Jan. 21.
It states that all aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the U.S., regardless of nationality.
Saunders says that Mooney plans to appeal her revoked visa and loves the U.S. She was pursuing a marketing career there selling a hemp-infused water product – after running bars and restaurants in Vancouver.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from CBC News
Stellantis warns of $3.7B Cdn loss for first half of 2025 due to tariffs and some big charges
Head of Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association fears impact on Ontario's Windsor, Brampton plants
Automaker Stellantis warns of $3.7B Cdn loss due to tariffs, restructuring
Stellantis, the maker of Jeep and Ram vehicles, says its preliminary estimates show a 2.3-billion euro (nearly $3.7-billion Cdn) net loss in the first half of the year due to U.S. tariffs and some hefty charges.
The head of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association (APMA) says plants like those in Windsor and Brampton, both in Ontario, can't survive that kind of storm.
The automaker anticipates an impact of about 300 million euros (about $480 million) for net tariffs incurred, and also expects planned production losses related to implementing its response plan.
Stellantis also expects approximately 3.3 billion euros (nearly $5.3 billion) of pre-tax net charges mostly related to program cancellation costs and platform impairments, restructuring and the net impact of recent legislation eliminating the CAFE penalty rate.
Automakers have been penalized if the average fuel economy of their annual fleet of vehicle production exceeds a certain level.
'Get the tariff removed'
The loss is a pressing reason the tariffs need to be removed, said Flavio Volpe, president of the APMA, which represents the interests of automotive original equipment suppliers.
"When I think about the tariff impact on Stellantis, I think about the Brampton assembly plant, which is idle and doesn't have any product assigned to it," he said.
"I think about the Windsor assembly plant, that every few weeks goes down for a week. Those two plants can't survive the tariff. The company can survive the tariff. Those plants can't. That's why it's important that we get the tariff removed."
Volpe said the Brampton plant alone employs 3,000 people directly and 9,000 people through suppliers. If the tariffs continue, that plant is in serious danger.
"Stellantis can't fight the White House and the market at the same time."
Two months ago, Stellantis named Antonio Filosa as its new chief executive officer. He replaced Carlos Tavares, who resigned under pressure last year.
Stellantis, which was created from the 2021 merger of France's PSA Peugeot with Italian-U.S. carmaker Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, is the world's fourth-largest car manufacturer. It is based in the Netherlands.
The automaker provided preliminary financial figures on Monday in the absence of financial guidance, which it suspended in April.
With files from CBC News
Buzz Hargrove and the rotten corporatist legacy of the Canadian Auto Workers—Part 1
Buzz Hargrove [Photo: CAW]
Basil “Buzz” Hargrove, a career union bureaucrat who steadily rose through the ranks of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) officialdom, ultimately serving as CAW president for 16 years, died last month at the age of 81.
Hargrove succeeded Bob White as CAW president in 1992, some seven years after the union was formed through a nationalist split with the United Auto Workers (UAW), the union that had hitherto united Canadian and US autoworkers. He remained at the CAW’s helm until September 2008, stepping down just as the world financial system was imploding.
Upon his death, the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece of Canadian big business, published an obituary notable only for highlighting the fawning and mendacious tributes from “past and present union associates, business leaders, politicians, community activists and,” or so the Globe claimed, “front-line workers.” Hargrove was, according to these eulogies, “a tireless champion for workers’ rights and human rights, a worthy adversary, a master negotiator and a strategic genius.”
Lana Payne, herself a consummate career union functionary and the current president of Unifor (which was formed through the CAW’s 2013 merger with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union), proudly proclaimed that the current union is following squarely in the tradition of “the legend” Hargrove.
Of course, the publishers of the Globe, while printing obsequious quotes from auto executives and Hargrove’s fellow union bureaucrats, were somehow unable to find anything worth printing from the “front-line workers” who supposedly also offered their “tributes.”
They would perhaps have done better had they emulated reporters from the World Socialist Web Site in conducting plant gate interviews with rank-and-file autoworkers during the final years of Hargrove’s presidency. At GM in Oshawa, for example, shortly before Hargrove’s retirement, workers were not shy about sharing their opinions. “Hargrove better not set foot in this plant,” said one worker, “or he just might end up like Jimmy Hoffa.” “Get a broom and push them all out,” opined another. “Listen. Hargrove’s got to retire. He’s no good to anybody except maybe [Magna CEO] Stronach. Or the Liberals,” said a third.
Of the steady stream of miserable concessions contracts pushed through by the CAW, another worker said, “Hargrove says he doesn’t do concessions here in Canada. But that’s bullshit. They just don’t admit it, that’s all. But he’s not going to be able to hide it any more. Our next contract’s going to be loaded with concessions. I just don’t know what we’re going to do. We should never have split with the Americans. That opened the floodgates.”
Pillars of the Canadian business establishment, preparing for a black-tie retirement gala organized in Hargrove’s honour, saw things differently. Arturo Elias, then GM Canada’s president, told reporters, “Buzz has had a remarkable career leading the CAW, steering it through growth and maturity as Canada’s largest private sector union. Well done, Buzz!”
Hargrove’s infamous statement in his 1999 autobiography, Labour of Love: The Fight to Create a More Humane Canada, promoting unions as good for big business and profits, goes far to spotlight the vast gulf that opened up between rank-and-file workers and the CAW officialdom, as well the union’s ever deepening partnership with the auto bosses.
Hargrove is most indignant when he rails against those “outdated” corporate and political opponents who arrogantly refuse to acknowledge the role that unions play in guaranteeing workers’ acquiescence on the shop floor and in society at large.
“Unions,” he writes, “probably prevent more strikes than they precipitate. Three out of every four workers say they don’t trust their employer. Good unions work to diffuse that anger. ... Unions deflect those damaging and costly forms of workers resistance (low productivity, absenteeism). If our critics understood what really goes on behind the labour scenes, they would be thankful that labour leaders are as effective as they are in averting strikes.” Just look at the Big Three auto companies, asserts Hargrove, those huge profits show that unions provide a valuable service to the corporations.
If Hargrove’s eulogists highlight his “strategic genius,” it is precisely in his endeavours to diffuse worker militancy, scuttle strikes, ram through concessions contracts, and ensure a steady dividend return to the shareholders of the auto companies and the continued growth of the salaries and expense accounts of his fellow bureaucrats.
On a broader political scale, Hargrove’s services rendered to the ruling class as a key architect of a “ground-breaking” union alliance with the big business Liberals earned him particular esteem, especially in the wake of the leading role the CAW played alongside the Ontario Federation of Labour in scuttling the mass working class movement that erupted in the latter half of the 1990s against Mike Harris’ Thatcherite Tory provincial government. (See Part 2).
The 1985 UAW Split
Hargrove first came to the attention of the national press during and in the immediate aftermath of the 1985 split with the UAW, while he served as chief lieutenant to UAW Canadian Region head, then CAW President Bob White.
Like White, Hargrove argued for and justified the split in frankly Canadian nationalist terms, as an assertion of Canadian workers’ “independence” and right to determine “their own course.” At the same time, the CAW, aided and abetted by its research director, the pseudo-left Sam Gindin, tried to cast the split as a blow to contract concessions, in opposition to the pro-company orientation of the UAW Solidarity House leadership in Detroit.
This was entirely disingenuous.
As White later admitted in his autobiography Hard Bargains, he organized the secession of the union’s Canadian division because he feared and opposed the prospect of a militant, united struggle by Canadian and US autoworkers against the concessions policy of the UAW leadership, and its subordination of workers’ jobs and working conditions to the imperative of capitalist profit.
Bob White (centre) and Buzz Hargrove (right) in 1985 [Photo: "Hard Bargains," National Film Board]
In the years immediately prior to the split, the Canadian UAW leaders were able to negotiate contracts that excluded some, but not all of the horrendous give-backs engineered by UAW President Owen Bieber. This was not because of any principled opposition or genuine resolve to mobilize workers’ power against concessions and challenge the companies’ “right” to shut “unprofitable” plants, but because the Big Three automakers enjoyed an $8 labour-cost advantage at their Canadian operations. This was due to the lower value of the Canadian dollar, the existence of a publicly-funded national healthcare system and other factors.
Canadian workers, it need be added, were more adamant in their opposition to wage cuts than their brothers and sisters in the US, because their pay cheques were being eroded far more quickly by skyrocketing inflation and interest rates.
The UAW split was a divorce initiated by White and the union apparatus in Canada and ultimately supported by Solidarity House—including through the ceding of more than $40 million in union assets—that served the interests of the bureaucracy on both sides of the border.
The decision to abandon any fight against concessions within the UAW and split the unity of North American autoworkers opened the way not just for a whole wave of further concessions in the US. It enabled the Big Three auto companies to increasingly pit Canadian and American workers against each other in a series of “whipsaw” threats to close plants and cut wages.
The UAW and CAW bureaucrats responded by ever more explicitly pursuing a bidding war at workers’ expense, with each seeking to undercut the other by offering lower labor costs and higher profits to the auto companies.
White and Hargrove did everything in their power to break the international unity of autoworkers because they were bitterly hostile to waging a joint struggle against concessions by tapping into the immense oppositional sentiment amongst American autoworkers reeling from years of layoffs and concessions. Speaking as a faithful servant of big business and the Canadian ruling class, White said, “I didn’t become the leader of the workers revolutionary league overnight just because we are taking an independent course.”
White and Hargrove’s breaking of the bonds of international solidarity that had united Canadian and US autoworkers since the 1930s was part of the drive of the union bureaucracy on both sides of the border to repudiate all the militant traditions with which the UAW had once been associated.
Recognizing they were fighting against the same bosses and inspired by the 1937 Flint, Michigan, sit-down strike and other militant struggles, workers in Canada invited the UAW to organize them. When Oshawa GM workers struck in 1937, and again in 1945, when Ford’s operations in Windsor, Ontario, were blockaded by workers on both sides of the border, the Canadian business and political elite responded with vituperative Canadian nationalist and anti-communist tirades against the workers.
In
1945, 11,000 Ford Canada workers in Windsor, Ontario, struck for 99
days. At the strike's height, workers blockaded Ford's operations with
2,000 vehicles. [Photo: CAW]
Similarly, in 1985, the Canadian ruling class made clear its support for the breaking-up of the UAW along nationalist lines, notwithstanding White and Hargrove’s ostensible “no concessions” stand.
Hargrove later explained that the CAW leadership’s view on the crisis in the North American auto industry in the 1980s was informed by the opinion that concessions only delayed the Big Three from taking the “tough decisions” on corporate restructuring that were necessary. For Hargrove, the CAW’s position, unlike that of Bieber in the US, was meant to encourage the Big Three to take the “tough decisions,” i.e., to lobby for trade war against Japan, lay off workers and close plants. Of course, the Big Three, for their part, pushed whenever possible for both concessions and the restructuring of their operations.
The auto bosses took full advantage of the reactionary nationalist rivalry between the UAW and CAW to systematically whip-saw jobs, wages, benefits and working conditions back and forth across the border. In Canada, more than two-thirds of all unionized auto assembly jobs have been lost since the split. Two-tier wage systems operate in both countries, defined benefit pension schemes exist only for the rapidly retiring group of veteran workers, traditional cost-of-living allowances are eroded or abolished and speed-up on the line continues unabated. In both countries, the unions back big-business parties that are complicit in the relentless attacks on the living standards of working people.
An ever-expanding anti-worker corporatist partnership
Under Hargrove, the CAW worked ever more directly in overt collusion with the employers. In a particularly egregious scheme, Hargrove openly lobbied in support of billionaire CEO Gerald Schwartz of the private equity firm Onex in his failed 1999 bid to merge Air Canada and Canadian Airlines (CAI). Hargrove’s support for the Onex bid was viewed by the press and investor analysts as a coup for Schwartz that could very well tip the balance in a pending Air Canada shareholder vote on the Onex offer.
The CAW president had repeatedly said the union recognized that there were too many workers in the Canadian air transport industry. The union’s role, Hargrove insisted, was to assist in an “orderly” rationalization of the industry. Hargrove claimed that in return for the CAW’s support, Onex had given a written guarantee that for two years there would be no layoffs of CAW members at Air Canada or CAI. For the first two years, all job cuts would be achieved through retirements, attrition and buyouts.
The 5,000 CAW members in the industry did not believe their president. Demonstrations were organized. Workers from other airline unions who had no such guarantees against layoffs also revolted. With opposition amongst airline workers and an unfavourable court ruling, the Onex bid was eventually withdrawn.
But perhaps the most outrageous corporatist deal engineered by Hargrove was his ill-fated “Framework of Fairness” agreement in 2007 with Frank Stronach, the notorious anti-union boss of auto parts giant Magna International. Under the deal, Stronach was to invite the CAW to organize his company’s plants in return for the union giving an indefinite no-strike pledge and abandoning the grievance procedure and other fundamental union principles. The proposed agreement was greeted with unbridled enthusiasm from the investor community. Of the 21 investment analysts who covered Magna, as tracked by Bloomberg, eight posted “buy” or “outperform” stock ratings, 12 recommended a “hold,” and only one posted a “sell” report.
But once again, workers had a different view. The deal would become effective only when ratified by workers at each plant in the Magna empire. Both Stronach and Hargrove actively promoted the new “non-adversarial” arrangement, in which the union would work as an adjunct of management in enhancing corporate competitiveness and profitability and suppressing worker dissent. But autoworkers in explosive mass meetings at GM plants in Oshawa, St. Catharines and CAMI Ingersoll angrily voted against the proposals.
Workers at the auto parts plants organized by the CAW were also seething. Autoworkers at Ford assembly operations in St. Thomas and Oakville had already mobilized against another corporatist deal proposed by Hargrove and Stronach that would have introduced for the first time collective agreements featuring two tier-wages and benefits at St. Thomas Assembly in exchange for a parts supply arrangement with Magna.
Such was the outrage among the CAW membership that these schemes largely fell by the wayside. Not even the mobilization of the long-retired icon of the union bureaucracy, Bob White, to shill for the deals with Magna could turn the tide.
Buzz Hargrove and the rotten corporatist legacy of the Canadian Auto Workers—Part 2
Shackling the working class to the union-NDP-Liberal alliance
During Hargrove’s 16 years as CAW president and in tandem with its ever more naked role as an enforcer of concessions and job cuts, Canada’s largest industrial union lurched politically sharply right.
Hargrove emerged as a keen advocate of closer ties with the big business Liberals in national politics and in Ontario, the country’s most populous and industrialized province. From 1998 on, Unifor championed so-called “strategic voting”—that is, votes for Liberal candidates in preference to those of the social-democrats of the New Democratic Party (NDP), if they were better placed to defeat the Conservatives. Inside the NDP, with which Unifor remained formally affiliated until 2008, Hargrove and the CAW bureaucrats pressed for governmental alliances with the Liberals when parliamentary arithmetic allowed.
Hargrove was thus among the principal architects of the union-NDP-Liberal alliance, which has been used to politically suppress the working class for the past quarter-century. Just three months after Hargrove stepped down as CAW president, the NDP agreed to serve as the junior partner in an abortive Liberal-led national coalition government pledged to implementing more than $50 billion in corporate tax cuts, ensuring “fiscal responsibility,” and waging neo-colonial war in Afghanistan through 2011.
Bob White (centre) and Buzz Hargrove (right) in 1985 [Photo: "Hard Bargains," National Film Board]
In pursuing closer ties with the Liberals, long the ruling class’s preferred party of national government, and developing an ever-expanding network of corporatist ties, Hargrove was true to his mentor Bob White. White and the CAW had championed the 1985 Liberal-NDP accord, which had brought the Liberals to power in Ontario, and aligned the CAW closely with John Turner and his Liberals in the 1987 “free trade” federal election.
That said, in response to the intensification of the class struggle, the CAW bureaucracy under Hargrove abandoned ever more brazenly even the pretense of independent working class politics; and in the name of opposing the Tories propped up “progressive” governments committed to austerity and advancing the interests of Canadian imperialism through aggression and war.
This was part of a much larger, worldwide process. The development of globally integrated production and a global labour market, beginning in the 1970s, had pulled the rug out from under the pro-capitalist trade unions and social-democratic parties, whose reformist programs were based on the possibility of pressuring capital within the nation-state.
The universal response of the union bureaucracies was to defend their privileges by wooing investment and enforcing concessions on the workers they claimed to represent. The social-democratic parties, meanwhile, jettisoned their pursuit of social reform and, when in office, dismantled the very public services and social provisions they had previously held up as proof capitalism could be “humanized.” Tony Blair’s Labour government and Gerhard Schröder’s Social Democrats in Germany, to mention only two of the most prominent, emerged as unalloyed proponents of right-wing capitalist policies.
The same was true of the NDP, most notoriously in Ontario, where, to the surprise of both the social democratic politicians and the CAW bureaucrats, the social democrats were elected to office for the first time ever in October 1990. Workers had turned to the union-sponsored NDP in the hopes that it would protect them from the ravages of a rapidly developing economic slump. Instead, the Rae NDP governments imposed massive public spending cuts and wage austerity and parroted the rhetoric of the right on everything from welfare “reform” to law and order. Returning from a session of the Davos Economic Forum, Rae bluntly declared there was “no alternative” to the imperatives of the capitalist market.
The United Steelworkers (USW), United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), and most industrial unions staunchly supported the Rae government throughout, including the wage and job cutting “social contract” it imposed on the province’s more than one million public sector workers. Hargrove and the CAW top brass, by contrast, struck a pose of opposition, assisting the leaders of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU), and the other major public sector unions in containing mass anger among their membership by organizing a few token protests.
Hargrove could on occasion make a demagogic speech, thundering against the bosses and the politicians, and throwing in a few expletives for extra spice. He even blustered a handful of times in his decades-long career about a “general strike.” All of this was aimed at suppressing worker opposition, straitjacketing it within the pro-employer, state-regulated collective bargaining system and channeling it into capitalist parliamentary politics.
The CAW and the mass working class challenge to the Harris Tory government
The Rae NDP government’s assault on the working class, and the unions’ suppression of workers’ opposition to it, opened the door to the election of a rabidly right-wing Tory government headed by Mike Harris.
When a mass movement of workers against Harris’ Thatcherite “Common Sense Revolution” developed, raising the issue of a general strike to bring down the government, unions in the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) worked systematically to block the struggle by preventing it from developing into a direct political confrontation with the Tory Premier’s class war agenda. Union bureaucrats refused to set a date for a general strike demanded by their members, staging various “days of action” organized regionally to diffuse popular anger. Hargrove and the CAW negotiated with the auto bosses for workers to have the day off, so production was not disrupted. Summing up the bureaucracy’s politics, OFL President Gord Wilson infamously declared that the unions were not challenging the “legitimacy” of the Tory government or Harris’ “right to govern.”
Mass demonstration in support of the 1997 Ontario teachers' strike [Photo: OSSTF]
Hargrove and the CAW were intimately involved in the sabotage of this movement. As a CAW insider present at the November 1995 convention reported in David Rapaport’s book No Justice, No Peace, “The labour movement was dragged into [the anti-Harris protests] kicking and screaming. The vast majority wanted to do nothing except just educate our members to just vote NDP in the next election.”
Hargrove shutdown a militant three-week contract strike by thousands of General Motors workers only two days before a Toronto “day of action” shut down the largest city in the province and Canada’s financial capital. And when teachers mounted an overtly political strike in 1997 challenging legislation that dramatically increased class sizes and otherwise attacked their rights and public education, the CAW and other OFL unions ensured the mass popular support for the teachers was not translated into industrial action and a fight to bring down the hated Harris regime.
Plumping for votes for Paul Martin and Dalton McGuinty
With the mass movement of workers finally isolated and then stifled, Hargrove summed up his own perspective. “Our message here … has to be that, in spite of some differences in the labour movement … we are of one mind—one thing we are determined and united on—that’s to defeat Mike Harris’ government in the next election.”
But how to do that?
In the wake of the tumultuous events between 1995 and 1997—which saw workers nearly break free of the death grip of the union bureaucracies—Hargrove and many others in the array of unions that formed the OFL, clearly saw that the danger of renewed working class struggle could no longer be politically managed by an NDP that had been overwhelmingly rejected by its electoral base after the abject betrayals of the previous Rae government. New political alliances would have to be built.
In the 1999 provincial election the CAW called for a “strategic vote” for the Ontario Liberals in select ridings, a position effectively endorsed by Howard Hampton, the new leader of Ontario’s NDP. The Harris Conservatives were, nevertheless, returned to government with another majority.
Hargrove was undeterred. In the next election in 2003 he bluntly declared, “People know how to bring about a change in government and you don’t do that by voting for someone who doesn’t have a prayer of winning. We are looking at information riding by riding, to see where there are opportunities to knock off a Tory.”
The Liberals, led by Dalton McGuinty, won the election, on a program that was widely described, even in the capitalist media, as “Tory-lite.” With the CAW/Unifor’s support the Liberals would impose austerity policies for the next 15 years before handing the baton back to the Conservatives. But unlike Harris and his brief Conservative successor as premier, Ernie Eves, McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne did not bait the “union bosses.” Rather through a network of institutionalized and informal corporatist ties, they used them to provide a phony “progressive” cover for a continued assault on the working class.
In 2007, Hargrove enthusiastically ushered McGuinty onto the podium of a CAW National Council meeting at the union bureaucracy’s Lake Huron retreat. “I believe this government has done an incredible job for people,” he gushed. McGuinty’s appearance marked the first time in the CAW’s history that an Ontario premier had been invited to address the CAW leadership. Hargrove went on to tell the assembled officials that he was “absolutely thrilled” to introduce McGuinty, whom he characterized as a “champion” of the automobile industry. The big business Liberal premier returned the compliment. “The CAW,” he affirmed, “has always been a force for good across Canada and we are rolling in the same direction.”
Hargrove’s unabashed embrace of McGuinty on the shores of Lake Huron was the CAW bureaucracy’s response to a looming and unprecedented crisis in the auto industry that threatened the jobs, wages and pensions of tens of thousands of auto workers. Its embrace of the Liberals was the political corollary to the union’s imposition of a new round of concessions at various Detroit Three auto plants and its agitation for protectionist measures to defend “Canadian jobs” at the expense of workers in other countries.
During this time, Hargrove did not rule out supporting select Conservatives. After McGuinty’s unprecedented appearance before the CAW leadership, Hargrove told the press that he fully expects to have union members working for all three national parties, including the Conservatives.
Hargrove also extended his strategic voting orientation to the federal Liberals and strongly supported the moves of the NDP to prop up the minority Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin. Cementing this new relationship during the 2006 federal election, and to much fanfare, he presented the multi-millionaire Martin with a CAW union jacket—the same man who, previously as Jean Chretien’s finance minister, had orchestrated the greatest social spending and big business tax cuts in Canadian history. Hargrove would go on to publicly stump for Martin and Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, daughter of the boss and principal owner of auto parts giant Magna International.
Hargrove responded to a subsequent NDP decision to expel him for having endorsed a rival political party by successfully pressing for the CAW and its locals to disaffiliate from the NDP. This ruptured a decades-long relationship between the CAW and Canada’s social democrats. The latter, it should be added, were not too upset to see the severing of the NDP-CAW tie, since they, in response to pressure from big business and the corporate media, were anxious to refute allegations that they were organizationally and financially dependent on the unions. It would only be a few years later that an NDP convention would go further and vote to expunge from their constitution the word “socialism.”
In his final years as CAW president, Hargrove acquiesced to a steady stream of auto plant closures and pushed through ever more draconian concessions contracts. In 2008, just prior to his retirement, and with Oshawa autoworkers seething from GM’s reneging of previous promises to keep open the local truck plant, Hargrove sought to diffuse calls for wildcat strike action and instead organized a phony “blockade” of GM’s white-collar headquarters building in Oshawa. The so-called blockade allowed any staff that GM deemed critical to operations to proceed through the picket line. Less critical staff, meanwhile, continued to work from home or from a pre-arranged backup site.
The publicity stunt at the headquarters was a grandstand play—a transparent attempt to convince the membership that the union leadership was not simply a patsy to the company. The captains of industry, however, had long ago taken the measure of Hargrove as little more than a junior partner of their corporations. Even as the blockade was limping towards its final days before the union began negotiations for the “orderly” closure of the truck plant, Mr. Buzz Hargrove was the guest of honour at perhaps the largest ever gathering of millionaires, big business politicians, and well-heeled labour bureaucrats in Toronto’s history.
The tuxedo-only event was ostensibly meant to honour Hargrove for his contributions to a Toronto charity. Over fine wines and gourmet delicacies, Hargrove, whom the media was touting as the scourge of the auto companies, was feted by the likes of Magna International boss Frank Stronach, anti-union book retailer Heather Reisman and her husband Gerry Schwartz, CEO of Onex Corporation. Amongst the political glitterati on the guest list were arch neo-conservatives Brian Mulroney, Ernie Eves, and Mike Harris. Workfare pioneer and former New Brunswick Premier Frank McKenna acted as co-chair at the festivities. Perhaps most telling of all was the presence—at the head-table no less—of Troy Clarke, vice-president of GM North America and Arturo Elias, president of GM Canada.
Hargrove’s ruinous, anti-worker legacy
Hargrove’s lengthy tenure at the head of the CAW set the stage for the union to move sharply further to the right and deepen its anti-worker corporatist ties with big business and the state following his retirement.
Together with the UAW in the US, the CAW worked closely in 2009 with the Big Three auto bosses, the Obama administration in Washington, and the federal Conservative and Ontario Liberal governments to impose massive wage and benefit cuts and multi-tier wage structures to restore the profitability of the North American auto industry. Although Ford Canada eschewed a government “bailout,” which was conditional on the unions’ reopening of workers’ contracts, the CAW “in fairness” imposed the same concessions on Ford workers.
Politically, the CAW’s transformation into Unifor in 2013 was accompanied by the development of still more intimate working relations with the Liberals. Unifor joined with the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and other unions in corralling the mass working class opposition to the hard-right Harper government behind an “Anybody but Conservative” campaign that delivered the 2015 election to Justin Trudeau’s big business Liberals.
Unifor President Jerry Dias emerged as a key booster and advisor of both Trudeau and Ontario Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne, whom he hailed as “progressives” and “workers’ allies.”
Unifor supported the Liberals’ massive military spending increase and renegotiation of NAFTA to consolidate a US-dominated trade bloc for the waging of war around the world. After Trudeau’s Liberals were reduced to a minority government in the October 2019 election, Unifor pressed for the NDP to strengthen its support for the government, including through a formal coalition.
During the pandemic, Unifor and the CLC were instrumental in helping the Trudeau government orchestrate a multi-billion-dollar bailout of corporate Canada and implementing the murderous profits-before-lives back-to-work policy that claimed thousands of lives.
From its beginnings in 1985 to today, the CAW/Unifor apparatus has incessantly promoted reactionary Canadian nationalism. In 2023, when contracts expired for autoworkers at GM. Ford and Stellantis on both sides of the Canada-US border simultaneously for the first time in over two decades opening the door wide to a joint struggle, Unifor President Payne rushed to proclaim Unifor’s commitment to charting “our own Canadian course”; then helped sabotage a growing strike movement in the US by signing concessionary contracts.
Prime Minister Mark Carney with Unifor President Lana Payne [Photo: Mark Carney]
Today Payne sits on Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Council on Canada-US Relations, where she helps the Canadian ruling class elaborate its strategy in the reactionary trade war between North America’s imperialist powers. Like the CLC, Unifor has been in the frontlines of agitating for aggressive trade war measures whose principal victims will be workers in the US, China and Canada.
Hargrove’s career exemplified the evolution of the trade union bureaucracy in Canada and internationally. In response to the globalization of production and capital’s drive to intensify worker exploitation, the caste of well-heeled union officials integrated themselves ever more fully into corporate management and the state, imposing concessions and suppressing working class resistance to the dismantling of public services and the evisceration of workers’ rights.
Workers seeking to fight today against capitalist austerity and war must not simply repudiate Hargrove, but the entire nationalist, pro-capitalist perspective of trade unionism that he so avidly promoted.
To assert their class interests and defend their livelihoods and lives, workers must reject the subordination of their jobs, working conditions, and public services to the accumulation of private profit by a tiny wealthy oligarchy. Against the transnational companies and capitalist governments that seek to pit them against each other in the drive for profit and commercial and geopolitical advantage, workers in Canada must forge the closest fighting unity with their class brothers and sisters in the US, Mexico and around the world. To mobilize their industrial and independent class political power, workers in Canada must break out of the corporatist union/NDP/Liberal alliance that Hargrove did so much to straitjacket them within.
To restore power to the rank and file, abolish the union bureaucracy, and intensify the class struggle, workers should build new organizations of struggle—rank-and-file committees under the leadership of the International Workers Alliance of Rank-and-File Committees—and take up the fight for workers’ power and socialism.
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