Ontario Corporate welfare
Quarantine McGuinty for Trying to Spread Corporate Welfare Disease
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today responded to Premier McGuinty’s calls for the federal government to match his corporate welfare ‘Next Generation Jobs’ scheme in Ontario. CTF Ontario Director, Kevin Gaudet, said, “if corporate welfare created jobs, every Ontarion would have two. Mr. McGuinty should worry about his own budget, instead of giving bad advice to Mr. Flaherty.” Premier McGuinty is calling on the federal government to match his $1.15 billion ‘Next Generation Jobs’ scheme in its upcoming budget.
Corporate welfare does not create jobs and instead provides unfair competition as the government gets into the business of picking winners and losers. Here are a few examples of Ontario Corporate welfare in action:
The Public Accounts for 2007 show a payment of $55,061,011 to Ford Motor Company of Canada. Ford is cutting shifts in St. Thomas;
The Public Accounts for 2007 show a loan receivable to General Motors of Canada for $29,096,192. GM is reportedly cutting shifts in Oshawa;
Magna firms have received tens of millions of dollars in government aid while its CEOs, Donald Walker and Siegfried Wolf, each have received over $5 million making them two of Canada’s best compensated executives, according to the Globe and Mail’s Executive Compensation Report, 2006.
Employees of the Hershey’s plant in Smith Falls may find it hard to understand why their firm went under and yet their competitor, the chocolate maker Ferrero Rocher, received a $5.5 million interest free loan; and,
Despite a $2 million provincial loan guarantee and a $400,000 grant handed out on the eve of the 2007 election in July, FibraTECH went into receivership. Northern Ontario Business reports the firm refuses to pay workers for their last three weeks of pay.
Gaudet concluded, “Instead of blaming the federal government for Ontario’s woes and demanding more corporate welfare cash, Mr. McGuinty should fix his own track record of fiscal mismanagement”
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