Worried about foreign workers, Conservatives demand details of $15B Honda EV deal
Conservative MPs are push‐ ing Ottawa to release de‐ tails of its agreement with Honda Canada to build a sprawling electric vehicle operation in southern On‐ tario - disclosure they say is necessary to ensure Canadians get all the jobs in the multi-billion-dollar project.
The push for transparency comes after Canada's Build‐ ing Trades Union (CBTU) wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this month asking him to inter‐ vene on another EV project, the NextStar plant in Wind‐ sor, Ont. that's backed by Chrysler parent company Stellantis and Korean firm LG.
The union said foreign workers are displacing Cana‐ dian labourers at the NextStar construction site while 180 local millwrights and ironworkers are unem‐ ployed and available to per‐ form the necessary work.
"Canadian workers are now being replaced by inter‐ national workers at an in‐ creasing pace, on work that was previously assigned to Canadian workers," wrote Sean Strickland, CBTU's exec‐ utive director, in an April 10 letter to Trudeau.
WATCH | PM commits to working to ensure most jobs from Honda deal go to Canadians
"Canadian workers are being sidelined without con‐ sequence. This is a slap in the face to Canadian workers and utterly unacceptable from LG and Stellantis, partic‐ ularly when their sharehold‐ ers stand to benefit from more than $15 billion in gen‐ erous tax incentives from the Government of Canada."
At the House of Common‐ s' government operations committee Monday, Conserv‐ ative MP Rick Perkins pounced on the union's let‐ ter, saying the federal gov‐ ernment shouldn't allow tax‐ payer-subsidized projects to employ foreign nationals.
Perkins said that, after re‐ viewing the NextStar con‐ tract, he found Ottawa did not secure enough protec‐ tions for Canadian construc‐ tion workers who will build the plant.
"'Hire Canadian workers' ... It doesn't say that. It would have been pretty simple to put that in the contract - hire Canadian workers only. How much are Canadians going to have to pay to employ these foreign replacement workers while 180 people are sitting unemployed in Windsor?" Perkins said.
Perkins said he doesn't want to see a repeat of this situation at the Honda site in Alliston, Ont., which, after $5 billion in joint funding from the federal and provincial governments last week, will start construction soon.
Perkins, the party's indus‐ try critic, said he wants MPs to review the contract to ver‐ ify that the federal and provincial governments se‐ cured a commitment to hire Canadian workers before handing over public funds.
"Release the Honda infor‐ mation. Transparency is the best disinfectant. What else are they hiding?" Perkins said. "Make it public. I don't trust the government."
Two attempts to force the government to produce the documents - there were sep‐ arate motions at the industry and government operations committees - failed to get enough support Monday.
Liberal MP Irek Kusmier‐ czyk said the government op‐ poses releasing the Honda contract because it contains sensitive business informa‐ tion that could jeopardize Canada's attempts to secure other EV plants.
70 foreigners working at NextStar job site
There are about 70 for‐ eigners working at the NextStar job site, according to government data. That's a relatively small number com‐ pared to the 2,000 Canadian construction workers who are working alongside them to get the Windsor plant up and running.
That plant, when fully op‐ erational, will employ about 2,500 Canadian manufactur‐ ing workers to build EV bat‐ teries, the government and the plant's owners have said.
Speaking at a CBTU con‐ ference in Gatineau, Que. on Monday, Trudeau assured Strickland in a fireside chat that he would "absolutely" ensure that construction jobs go to Canadians.
Strickland said his union "still has issues" with NextStar.
"We need your support to make sure they make good on their promises to Canadi‐ ans. It's not about animosity towards a foreign worker," he said.
"We will be there to sup‐
port you every step of the way. We need to make sure there are as many Canadian workers as possible - if not almost all Canadian workers doing the construction and maintenance and installa‐ tion," Trudeau said.
WATCH | 'Release the contracts': Conservative MP calls for transparency on EV deals
A spokesperson for Inter‐ national Trade Minister Mary Ng told CBC News that she met with the leadership of LG Energy Solutions in South Ko‐ rea last week and "raised the issue of using foreign work‐ ers for jobs at their NextStar plant."
"LGES reiterated its com‐ mitment to ensuring the plant's 2,500 full-time jobs are filled with Canadian workers," the spokesperson said.
"As confirmed by NextStar, less than four per cent of the workforce on the site currently are temporary foreign workers. Our govern‐ ment is committed to maxi‐ mizing Canadian jobs and Canadian workers."
WATCH | Liberal MP says Conservatives 'are playing games' with Honda EV deal
Kusmierczyk, who repre‐ sents Windsor in the Com‐ mons, said the government is working with NextStar to en‐ sure as many construction jobs as possible go to Cana‐ dian labourers.
"We want to maximize Canadian workers at every turn and every opportunity," he said, adding Industry Min‐ ister François-Philippe Cham‐ pagne also has been in con‐ tact with NextStar's president and has insisted that Canadi‐ ans take priority.
Kusmierczyk said there are some tasks that require specialized foreign workers from Korea who have decades of experience with building structures like the NextStar plant.
Koreans are installing spe‐ cialized equipment and are engaged in "knowledge transfer."
"Canada does not have the expertise of building bat‐ tery plants. We're trying to build a brand new industry here in Canada so it stands to reason that there will be workers from Korea," Kus‐ mierczyk said. "Korea they're a world leader in bat‐ tery technology."
WATCH | 'Historic' Hon‐ da EV investment will boost economy for genera‐ tions, says Trudeau
Kusmierczyk said the Lib‐ eral government opposes re‐ leasing the Honda contract because it contains sensitive business information that could jeopardize Canada's at‐ tempts to secure other EV plants.
"We should not be playing games with peoples' jobs. We should not be playing games with working class communi‐ ties like mine that have gone through hell," he said.
Kusmierczyk said the Con‐ servatives are trying to down‐ play a "good news story" be‐ cause the Liberal govern‐ ment has secured some $50 billion in investments to revi‐ talize the once-dormant Canadian auto industry.
"Eight years ago, under the Conservative govern‐ ment, 300,000 manufactur‐ ing jobs were lost in Canada. The Liberal government is building the electric vehicle heartland of North America right here in this commu‐ nity," he said.
Honda has stressed that it wants to use as many local labourers as possible at its forthcoming EV battery plant and the other sites it has planned in Ontario.
WATCH | Ontario gave Honda $2.5B in tax incen‐ tives to secure EV deal. Is it worth it?
In an interview with CBC's Rosemary Barton Live, Hon‐ da Canada's president said he's "very aware of what went on" at NextStar with some jobs going to foreign nationals.
"For sure, this is not something that we want to entertain," Jean Marc Leclerc said.
Leclerc said he wants to craft some sort of "memo‐ randum of understanding" with Canada's Building Trades Union to reiterate Honda's commitment that "Canadians will have these construction jobs."