There was a time when it was said: “What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” That’s not necessarily true today, at least not in Ontario.

The thriving car maker, which employs more than 8,400 people across Canada, is in negotiations toward a Sept. 19 strike deadline. Unifor, the autoworkers union, wants the company to commit to continued production, especially in Oshawa. But GM is rejecting any such obligation. This should trouble the entire province.

Operations in Oshawa are especially in peril with the firm shutting its truck plant here in 2009 and then moving Camaro production to Lansing, Mich., last year, killing about 1,000 jobs. Assembly of the Chevy Equinox is scheduled to stop in 2017. And three other vehicles, being built on the plant’s high-tech “flex” line, are expected to go out of production in a couple of years.

With the company refusing to commit to any further product line beyond 2019, preserving 2,500 unionized jobs here has become Unifor’s top priority. And for good reason — there would be economic devastation if GM closed its Oshawa plant.

“We are not, under any circumstances, going to sign a collective agreement” without a firm commitment to production in Oshawa, and also in St. Catharines, says Unifor’s national president Jerry Dias. “That may be considered a line in the sand. So be it.”

Unfortunately, GM Canada has drawn a line of its own. More time is necessary to develop a business case for continued work in Oshawa, David Paterson, the company’s vice president, corporate and environmental affairs, said in an interview Wednesday.

Signing a collective agreement with Unifor represents only one factor, and not a particularly large one, in building a competitive business case, said Paterson. Government policy is also a factor, as is the state of the Canadian supply base. “We have to look at 100 per cent of the costs and make decisions on that.”

What worries Unifor is that the Oshawa truck plant closing and loss of Camaro production both followed the signing of new contracts.

Given the myriad complications involved in researching and installing a specific product line, it’s too much to expect GM to announce — before a strike deadline less than two weeks away — precisely what new vehicles it will build in Oshawa.

But given the low Canadian dollar and the company’s financial health, earning a record $2.87 billion (U.S.) profit in the second quarter of this year, it should be possible to commit to produce something here. That would be especially appropriate in light of the billions of dollars in bailout money Canadian governments provided to GM a few years ago in the depths of the financial crisis.

Instead, GM is bargaining to keep the option of shutting Oshawa down. “Every plant in the world has that option,” said Paterson.

Perhaps, but that doesn’t change the fact it would be a blow to workers who served the company well; to a community sorely in need of jobs; and to a province that was there when GM looked to it for help.

Good for the country? GM’s sole concern now appears to be what’s good for itself. And that’s not good enough.

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