No more bailouts, handouts for corporations

Every time I open a newspaper, I see someone telling the government that they must do something to help the GM workers because the plant in Oshawa is closing. I say to myself, "why?" Why are GM workers any different than any other workers in Ontario who have faced plant closure over the last 30 years? They have already had our tax dollars used to prop up the company in the last few years, so they could keep their jobs and earn good wages. I was involved in a plant closing in Toronto 15 years ago, and no one came to our doors asking to provide taxpayer money to tide us over. We were good citizens who paid taxes and fulfilled our job responsibilities, so why do people feel the GM workers need to be treated differently?

Quite frankly, the union and its workers bled every dollar they could out of GM over the last 20 years, regardless of the company’s failing financial position. In 1990s, the union and the company went to Bob Rae and asked that they relax the provincial pension requirement, to keep the funds 85 per cent funded on an ongoing basis (look it up) — so it was lowered to approximately 65 per cent. Take a guess why the employees' pension fund had to cut pension and benefits in the late 2000s?

Both management and the union have to take responsibility for the position that the current GM management is in, there is no question about that. But if Doug Ford feels it is necessary to spend taxpayer dollars to help these employees who lived high off the hog when GM was in its heyday, I say no way! Myself and many others went through what they are facing now, so what is different now? We were made us go through it ourselves with no help, and so why not these socalled “unfortunate ones?”

I say: suck it up GM workers, like the rest of us, and move on with your lives without feeding on the government teat one more time.

Dave Imeson Sr., Whitby