TORONTO—Citing pressures from Donald Trump’s tariff war, auto corporations are moving to eliminate jobs in Canada. The latest wave of layoffs, which hit 1,200 workers at General Motors’ plants in Oshawa and Ingersoll, follows temporary layoffs of 3,000 workers at Stellantis in Windsor last month and combines with 1,500 additional layoffs in the auto industry supply chain.
The moves expose the unchecked power of auto monopolies, and they have prompted an upsurge in calls for the industry to be nationalized.
One of the organizations raising that demand is the Communist Party, whose Ontario provincial executive committee issued a tough statement on May 8 that says public ownership is urgent.
“While the trade war actions from the Trump administration are new, these layoffs are not isolated incidents. They are part of a decades-long assault on workers’ livelihoods and sovereignty in Canada, enabled by free trade deals like the USMCA, which empower corporations, pit workers against each other across borders, and sacrifice entire communities for higher profits.
“With over 100,000 jobs in Canada directly tied to auto parts and assembly, and hundreds of thousands more in communities built around this industry, we cannot let these layoffs continue without a fight. The solution is clear: it’s time to take auto out of corporate hands and put it under public ownership and democratic control.”
Private control of the industry has allowed enormous amounts of public money to be drained and used to enrich the auto giants at the expense of all of Canada’s workers.
The Communist Party’s Ontario leader, Drew Garvie, explained that successive Liberal and Conservative Party governments have facilitated “the theft of public funds” by continuously bailing out the huge monopolies.
“GM has relied on public handouts in Canada for over a century,” Garvie said in an interview. “It started with the City of Oshawa’s $50,000 interest-free loan in 1899, and has continued to the most recent handout in 2022, when the Ontario government provided $259 million in direct grants to ‘secure’ investment in the same facilities that are now issuing mass layoffs.”
General Motors received $10.5 billion in federal and provincial bailouts in 2009. Garvie noted that, while the public took a loss of nearly $3 billion at the end of that agreement, GM demanded massive concessions from workers and retirees. “Now, it is laying off those same workers to curry favor with the Trump administration and shift production to Indiana. Enough is enough!”
In recent years, federal and provincial governments have shovelled public money into monopoly coffers to fund the Electric Vehicle (EV) transition, but with no guarantees, no ownership, and no long-term plan for workers or communities. The Ontario provincial government and the federal government have both handed billions in subsidies to GM, Stellantis, Volkswagen, Honda, and Ford, with $28 billion to Volkswagen and Stellantis alone.
“This is not a ‘just transition’,” said Garvie. “It’s state monopoly capitalism, in which the government transfers public wealth into private hands. And it’s failing workers. It’s failing the environment. It’s failing Indigenous peoples, whose lands are being raided for battery minerals without consent. The Communist Party rejects this profit-driven model. We call for a real green industrial plan that is based on public ownership of the auto sector.”
Garvie acknowledged that many people find it hard to imagine a nationalized industry, particularly one that is operated democratically in the interests of working people and climate justice. But he also pointed out that this is precisely what happens when nationalization is in the interests of monopoly corporations. The key is creating the political will.
“With a fight, we can nationalize the auto sector and make it a central pillar of a necessary green transition by building an affordable, electric Canadian car and converting manufacturing to mass transit. Working people need to fight for a transition where they aren’t left behind. This means bringing the fossil fuel industry under public ownership to facilitate an economic transition that protects the environment while guaranteeing jobs at equal pay in new, sustainable industries.”
While capitalist political parties’ response is to beg foreign corporations to stay in Canada, the Communist Party says the answer lies in solidarity across the labor movement, building a united mass fightback to defend people’s sovereignty and roll back the power of corporations, both foreign and domestic.
The Communists are calling for nationalization of the auto industry, to guarantee jobs and wages; for a domestic auto manufacturing sector under public ownership and democratic control and operation, to produce electric passenger vehicles, light industrial vehicles, and mass transit, while meeting climate goals; and strong plant closure legislation that requires corporations to justify closing or moving plants and to repay every dollar of public subsidies before closure.
The Communist Party is also calling for strengthened Employment Insurance to cover all unemployed workers at 90% of wages for the full duration of unemployment, and for Canada to withdraw from corporate trade deals like USMCA, and pursue multilateral trade on a mutually beneficial basis with countries throughout the world.
“To save jobs and communities,” said Garvie, “we need to bring auto under public ownership now!”
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