PC Leader Patrick Brown says he's an 'unapologetic supporter of auto sector'
'There was some concern our party had previously shied away for support of the auto sector,' Brown says
New Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown has thrown his support behind Ontario's stagnant auto industry.
"I'm an unapologetic supporter of the auto sector. I think the auto sector is critical to Ontario's economic development," Brown told CBC Windsor Morning host Tony Doucette on Monday.
Brown — and four other family members — studied at the University of Windsor, so he's familiar with what the auto sector means to Windsor, traditionally the automotive capital of Canada, and the rest of Ontario, which has auto assembly plants in Brampton, Oakville, Cambridge, Oshawa and more.
"Living in Windsor I realized the auto sector is as important to Ontario as potash is to Saskatchewan and oil is to Alberta," Brown said.
Automakers simply aren't investing in new capacity in Canada and some are moving production from Ontario to the U.S. and Mexico.
Canada has not received new capacity investments in four of the last five years. Over a four-year period from 2011 to 2014, Canada has received $180 million, or 0.2 per cent, of all global new capacity investment announcements.
In late April, GM confirmed it will cut 1,000 jobs at its Oshawa, Ont., assembly plant, even as it announced $5.4 billion US in investment in its American operations.
Two weeks before that, Toyota announced it will spend $1 billion on an assembly plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, and move production of its popular Corolla sedan there from another plant in Cambridge, Ont.
Overall, Canada's share of North American production of cars and light trucks has fallen to 14.1 per cent in 2014 from more than 17 per cent in 2009.
"I know there was some concern our party had previously shied away for support of the auto sector," Brown said.
Last year, former Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said the Ontario government should not give Chrysler hundreds of millions of dollars in what he called "ransom money" to retool the Windsor Assembly Plant, which employ 4,500 hourly employees. It's one of the city's biggest employers.
With files from Pete Evans