NDP Leader Jack Layton touted "green-collar" jobs for the future while Conservative Leader Stephen Harper said Ottawa can't do much for those auto workers losing their jobs right now.
"I think you have to be honest with people. The government can't go in and say 'we can guarantee your job.' We can't guarantee your job," Harper told reporters Wednesday, referring to the 500 workers at Ford's Oakville plant who will lose jobs in the paint and body area.
"Some jobs are going to disappear, the main stage is that we're part of the jobs that are coming on-line," Harper said.
"I think we're successfully making that transition. . . . there's no point in telling people we can solve all the problems of Ford."
The Conservative government struck a deal with GM two days before Sunday's election call to forgive a $200 million loan in exchange for the company agreeing to build a mid-sized hybrid vehicle and a new manufacturing plant in St. Catharines to manufacture fuel-efficient transmissions. GM announced in June it would be closing a light truck plant.
Both St. Catharines and two Oshawa-area ridings are represented federally by Conservatives. Oakville is currently a Liberal riding, but the Tories came close there in 2006.
In Oshawa, Layton said an NDP government would create an $8.2-billion investment package to help create "green-collar" jobs and environmentally friendly cars.
Layton claimed his party's plan would lead to the creation of 40,000 jobs:
- The NDP would spend $4 billion over four years to help the auto industry develop environmentally friendly cars
- Another $3 billion would bo to retraining workers for "green-collar jobs"
- $400 million on a job protection commissioner charged with investigating major layoffs and plant shutdowns to prevent jobs from leaving Canada
- $840 million would go towards research and development tax credits.
Layton said he would pay for the measures by reversing Tory corporate tax cuts.
The NDP finished second to a Tory candidate in the Oshawa riding in the 2006 federal election. Oshawa was represented for years by former NDP leader Ed Broadbent.
Dion on food safety
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion spent the afternoon at a town hall session with high school students in Walkerton, Ont. -- the location of a tainted drinking water tragedy eight years ago. He noted that the inquiry into the event found that privatizing water testing could have played a role.
Dion tried to draw a line from that to the current listeriosis crisis affecting food safety in Canada.
"A Liberal government will invest an additional $50 million to build a more robust food safety network," he said.
Walkerton sits in Huron-Bruce riding. Paul Steckle held the riding for the Liberals in 2006, but his margin of victory fell to 971 from about 9,600 two years earlier.
On Tuesday, Dion had told a rally in Pickering a Liberal government would help defend the manufacturing sectory.
Harper
Harper made a significant policy announcement today -- that Canadian troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2011.
At a speech in Vaughn to the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce, he hammered the Liberals' carbon tax proposal and told the crowd how he was trying to build trade relations between India and Canada.
He also promoted the Conservatives' record as tax-cutters and economic managers.
"Our plan is the only plan on offer this election that will allow Canada to weather the effects of global economic uncertainty and emerge stronger than ever before," Harper said.
The Vaughn riding is represented by Liberal Maurizio Bevilacqua, who won by about 20,000 votes in 2006. The GTA ridings surrounding Vaughn are all currently Liberal. Nearby Dufferin-Caledon riding is represented by a Conservative.
With files from The Canadian Press
