Staff
Passing through Fort Frances with the “Drive to Work” caravan, Ontario Federation of Labour president Wayne Samuelson spoke to town council Monday night to advocate a “Buy Ontario” policy to help protect jobs in the province.
“In the early ’80s when we went through the recession, many of the factories and mills had some downtime and people were put out of work,” noted Samuelson.
“Eighty percent of them qualified for employment insurance.
“Today, 25-30 percent qualify, and sadly many of those jobs are not coming back,” he warned.
“The plant I worked in in 1982 had difficult times back then—workers were laid off, but they went back to work,” Samuelson continued. “If you look at that plant today, thousands of people are out of work and they’re taking it down. It will never open again.
“In many respects, it calls for all of us to look for different solutions,” he stressed. “I am going to encourage you to adopt a ‘Buy Ontario, Buy Canadian, Build Communities’ resolution tonight.”
Samuelson said many countries in the world, including the United States and European Union, have put such policies in place to ensure public money goes into stimulating the economy and creating and maintaining jobs, and asked that council take the time to look at the policy and adopt a similar stance.
The “Buy Ontario” policy for municipal purchases would include:
•requiring a minimum of 50 percent Ontario content and domestic final assembly in the purchase of transit vehicles;
•requiring the purchase of goods and services with the highest possible level of Canadian content;
•requiring potential vendors to identify the source of goods and services, and the overall level of Canadian content, as part of the tendering process;
•reporting annually to council on the level of Canadian content in municipal purchases; and
•identifying opportunities to enhance the level of Canadian content in future purchases.
He also asked council to call on the Ontario government to immediately enact “Buy Ontario” legislation applying to direct public purchases, grants, and other funding provided to municipal governments.
Dan Maltais of Dryden, president of the Ontario Elementary Catholic Teachers’ Association, also shared some heartfelt words Monday night, noting the forestry sector in Northwestern Ontario has seen a slow and steady decline over the years, but now has reached a critical low.
He said it’s time for the people of the region to stand up and say they’ve had enough.
Maltais added the government has done nothing to help the forest industry, introducing more and more environmental protection policy and other red tape, while corporations and shareholders “do not care about our communities.”
Maltais said the region, and other parts of Canada, are doing the “dirty work,” cutting down trees and making pulp, and then shipping it elsewhere.
“The forest industry at all levels and the government must stop the sell-out of our natural resources for short-term profit,” he stressed, noting the government needs to invest in new infrastructure for the forest industry and create jobs for unemployed forestry workers.
“We can’t sit around and wait for the markets to correct themselves with interest in short-term policies,” Maltais argued. “That’s the problem now—it’s all about short-term profit, not about the longevity of our communities or our mills.”
Council referred a resolution regarding Samuelson’s proposed policy to the Administration and Finance executive committee for its recommendation, with input from the Community Services executive committee.
