OSHAWA — Oshawa MPP Jennifer French has written to Premier Doug Ford asking him to push General Motors (GM) Canada to manufacture personal protective equipment (PPE) in its mostly empty Oshawa assembly plant.

“We hear terrible and heart-wrenching stories about the dire need for medical equipment and personal protective equipment across our health-care system,” wrote the NDP MPP in an April 15 letter. “Families are desperately concerned for the safety and well-being of their loved ones working on the front lines, and the anxiety is only heightened by the reality of PPE shortages and uncertain supply chains.

“We have a clear opportunity in Oshawa to rise to the challenge and manufacture what is needed during this unprecedented challenge.”

French’s letter comes after labour and environmental groups, including Green Jobs Oshawa, made a similar request last week.

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“The General Motors plant in Oshawa sits nearly empty, while an experienced, skilled and motivated workforce is ready and raring to keep front-line workers and communities protected in this fight,” wrote French. “In the heart of our community sits GM’s massive, underutilized facility that could be easily and quickly retooled to make masks, gowns or medical equipment required across the province.”

She pointed out that in Indiana, GM has partnered with Ventec Life Systems to produce ventilators and French said she would like to see similar efforts in Oshawa.

On Friday, GM Canada director of communications Jennifer Wright commented on GM’s efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have our engineers supporting Ontario Tech University and OPG (Ontario Power Generation) on the development of medical face shields and our first delivery of donated personal protective equipment is being picked up soon by the Public Health Agency of Canada from our Oshawa Parts Plant,” she said. “We also have Canadian suppliers helping with the GM partnership with Ventec in the U.S. to manufacture ventilators. We are looking at a number of other ways we can help and will share those details when appropriate.”