(The following article is from the December 1-31, 2008, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

The Communist Party of Canada (Ontario) is calling on federal and provincial governments to save good industrial jobs and the auto industry by taking over the Big Three operations in Canada and creating a crown corporation to produce a small, affordable, fuel-efficient, and environmentally sustainable Canadian car.

     "If the price is right, people will buy them, and not only in Canada," said CPC (Ontario) leader Liz Rowley. The loss of the Auto Pact makes it virtually impossible to guarantee Canadian jobs in the auto industry, she said, adding that public ownership and democratic control over a Canadian section of the auto industry is the only way to do it. The CPC(O) regards the fight to save Canadian automobile jobs and plants as central to staving off a full-fledged economic depression in Canada.

     "Greed is what has determined production by the US automakers in Canada, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of well-paid and productive jobs in Ontario, and in Quebec the end of auto production altogether," says Rowley. "Now in Ontario we're faced with the certainty of new layoffs, and the possibility that the US automakers may shutdown most of their remaining plants and operations here altogether. The impact on the provincial economy will be immediate, and because automobile production has been the engine of the Canadian economy, further layoffs and shutdowns will contribute directly to moving from a recession into a full-blown depression.

     "The federal and provincial governments must step up to the plate - but not to bail out the Big Three. At the very least, any public investments in the Big Three should buy equity in the corporation, and should be conditional on iron-clad guarantees prohibiting layoffs and closure of any Canadian plant, prohibiting wage or benefit cuts or tiered wages, or pension cuts or shortfalls.

     "But the best option would be negotiations to take over the Canadian plants and facilities, and retool to produce a small, fuel-efficient and affordable Canadian car that's environmentally sustainable. 

     "Along with it, we need to develop a transportation strategy that builds and expands urban public transit systems as well as rail and light rail for urban, inter-city and long distance transportation. This rolling stock should be built in Canada, some of it under public ownership and democratic control. This is the only way to protect jobs, and to protect the public interest for fewer cars and more mass rapid transit built in Canada.

     "The federal government should be pressed to nationalize the gas and oil industries and to roll-back and cap fuel prices for domestic use, and raise prices for export. The federal government should also be pressed to get out of the free trade deals which give the US complete access and control over Canada's energy resources today - and tomorrow.

     "Immediately the federal government must introduce plant closure legislation with teeth, to stop the closure of GM's Canadian operations while it invests $1 billion in Brazil. And the government must expand EI to cover all the unemployed for the duration of unemployment, increase benefits to 90% of previous earnings, and eliminate the waiting period."