TORONTO -- The last vehicle will leave the production line this week at General Motor’s Oshawa plant, ending more than 100 years of automobile production in Canada’s Motor City.
Standing just steps from the entrance to the Oshawa Car Assembly plant, the president of the union representing most of the 2,300 soon-to-be unemployed workers said he was both frustrated and concerned.
“We are not throwing in the towel”, Unifor’s Jerry Dias told reporters on Monday. “As long as we have the ability to manufacture vehicles, we are going to be pushing for another product for this plant.”
The announcement came in October of 2018, that GM would cease vehicle production at five plants, including Oshawa. The last vehicle will leave the line by the end of this week.
“The timing couldn't be worse. We're less than two weeks before Christmas. I can't understand how this decision could be made at this time of year,” Dias said.
The vice president of corporate and environmental affairs for General Motors Canada said the company has spent much of the past year working with officials from the City of Oshawa, Unifor, and area colleges, to ensure that workers have options for the future.
David Paterson told CTV News Toronto workers would be offered a number of options including “a well-deserved retirement and a very well paid package, or another job within General Motors, or working with the colleges to one of about 5,000 that we've lined up with about 50 employers in Durham region, so they land on their feet in the new year.”
The Mayor of Oshawa, Dan Carter, said he’s both anxious and optimistic about the future.
“I’m anxious because people are transitioning into something that they didn't expect and for many of them this is generational,” Carter said.
“They've worked there, their daddies worked there, their granddaddies worked there so we have to respect that and also help them through this period of time.”
The plant itself won’t be closed after vehicle production stops. General Motors has signed a 10-year deal to build auto parts in the facility and they’re also building a test track on-site that will be used to develop autonomous and other advanced vehicles.
For the city’s mayor, it’s a sign of what could be the future for Oshawa.
“I see the components of something we can build on. I'm optimistic because General Motors made a commitment of $170 million, I'm optimistic because the test track is under construction, I'm optimistic because the things that made us a great place to build cars still lives here,” Carter said.
The company said the changes to the plant, along with new partnerships with Canadian universities and technology companies will help the company succeed in the future.
“You go back a hundred years, Colonel Sam McLaughlin saw one of the biggest disruptions and changes in the auto industry as we moved from horses to the automobile,” Paterson said.
“Now we're in that second big shift a hundred years later where we're moving to electric cars, and cars that drive themselves, and we are doing that work and testing that work and developing the technology right here in Oshawa.”
“We intend to be here in Oshawa for another hundred years."
