Premier Doug Ford and the federal government traded barbs after the bombshell news that Bombardier plans to lay off half of all workers at its Thunder Bay rail car plant, and amid union fears more job losses are on the horizon.

Federal labour minister and MP for Thunder Bay Patty Hajdu said Ford’s Progressive Conservative government in Ontario failed to put forward any concrete proposals that would have freed up federal infrastructure money, and she placed the responsibility for the 550 layoffs squarely on the Ontario premier’s shoulders.

On Wednesday morning from Saskatoon — where Ford is attending the annual summer gathering of provincial and territorial leaders — the premier accused the federal government of “playing politics” and dragging its heels on approving funding for the province’s $28.5 billion transit plan.

“I’ve not seen hide nor hair of the federal government. All of a sudden they come out with a comment” criticizing the Ontario government for not acting to protect Bombardier jobs, he told reporters.

“They want to play politics. I’m not here to play politics with the federal government. I’m here to protect the workers in Thunder Bay and I think we’ve proved that.”

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However, Hajdu shot back at Ford in an interview with the Star.

“We’re not the ones responsible for submitting an application, are we? We’re the ones with the billion dollars on the table. So you know what? He (Ford) should get back to work. He decided to hold off on returning to work until after the federal election, for god’s sake. How about he get back to work and solve this problem for the workers of Thunder Bay!”

Hajdu — and Unifor President Jerry Dias — said in separate interviews the Thunder Bay Bombardier plant’s struggles were known for more than a year as contracts were coming to an end and no new work orders were in the offing.

Hajdu said Greg Rickford, Ford’s minister of energy, northern development and mines and a former federal minister, last month promised a new Metrolinx contract for 36 more rail cars would be coming for Bombardier — an order that never materialized.

Dias says even if the 36 railcars were immediately ordered, it would merely help in the interim.

Dias said Bombardier and the 560 workers who will be laid off starting in November need more certainty about future railcar orders, something he said all levels of government — Toronto, the province and Ottawa — agree is needed. But Dias says the company can’t wait for two or three more years until longer-term contracts are signed. By that time the skilled workforce will no longer be around to build the cars, said Dias.

In Dias’ view, “there’s more than enough blame to go around.”

Hajdu agreed it would just be an interim solution. However, she said the “federal government isn’t in the business of direct purchase” and it must insist that the Ford government, like any other community or organization applying for federal funds, provide details on how the money will be spent.

Under a federal-provincial agreement, Ottawa set aside a 10-year public transit allocation of $8.3 billion, of which $4.9 billion is allocated to Toronto and $593 million to Metrolinx.

Hajdu said that with the election of the Ford government “a state of chaos ensued” around transit projects.

Ford decided to have the province take over Toronto’s transit system and redraw the GTA’s transit map, “but there’s no concrete plan about what they’re proposing,” she said.

The office of the federal minister of infrastructure, François-Philippe Champagne, released seven letters he and his deputy wrote to the Ford government since February.

The letters repeatedly request that Ontario submit its plans for infrastructure spending, urging it to apply to several streams of funding and not just focus on a fund for rural and northern communities assistance. Champagne’s office outlines in detail the questions the province needs to answer to make a business case for the funds, or to get preliminary approvals going in time for the current construction season, and repeatedly offers to have federal officials work with the province to put forward and fast-track proposals.

But it received no such plan from Ford’s ministers, says Hajdu.

She rejected suggestions that Ottawa was itself stalling or making overly bureaucratic demands on the province.

“In order to get the cheque from the federal government, a submission has to be received by the federal government. We have not yet received a detailed application that specifies how they propose to use that money.”

“Without a detailed application there’s no certainty that the projects will even get built, so in fact this is about due diligence,” she said.

Instead, said the labour minister, Ford made “empty promises” and is letting “critical investments lapse.”

“Instead of acting with federal support to save these jobs, they decided to play partisan games with workers’ livelihoods,” said Hadju, whose riding is next-door to the riding where the Bombardier plant is located.

She said it’s even more baffling because ministers like Rickford are former federal MPs who would know how the process to get federal infrastructure funding works.

“I think what taxpayers expect is accountability for the dollars that are distributed,” said Hajdu.

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath slammed both levels of government, saying Ford and the feds should not be “bickering … when there are so many jobs at stake.”

The leader of the opposition said that “instead of trying to score political points, Doug Ford needs to go to bat for the workers of Thunder Bay.”

Meanwhile, Toronto Mayor John Tory pressed the provincial and federal governments to help fund the TTC’s next purchase of streetcars. The transit agency is in the midst of taking delivery of 204 of the vehicles from Bombardier, which after years of struggling to meet deadlines now says it’s on track to finish supplying the order by the end of this year as scheduled.

According to a report that went to the transit agency’s board last year, once the 204 cars are delivered the TTC will immediately need at least 60 additional vehicles to meet demand until 2023. The report said Bombardier could start delivering the extra cars by mid-2020, while finding a new supplier could mean waiting until 2024.

“We need transit vehicles, people in Thunder Bay need jobs, the other two governments have money to help us buy the transit vehicles, and surely we can all sit down together and see if we can work out something that allows us to get the transit vehicles we need,” Tory told reporters at an unrelated news conference Wednesday morning.

The TTC has estimated the 60 additional cars would cost at least $360 million. There is currently no money for the purchase in the TTC’s budget.

Toronto’s Deputy Mayor and TTC board member Denzil Minnan-Wong said he felt badly for families in Thunder Bay affected by the layoffs, but suggested it’s not up to Toronto’s transit agency to protect Bombardier jobs.

“Bombardier has always unfairly, I think, taken advantage of their Canadian roots, notwithstanding that they seem to like to build most of their product overseas or in Mexico,” he said.

“Our obligations as a commission are to purchase the best vehicle that can be delivered on time for the transit riders in the city of Toronto, full stop.”

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Minnan-Wong (Ward 16, Don Valley East) said he didn’t know whether Bombardier was best placed to supply additional cars, but he noted that the TTC performed a market sounding exercise for its next streetcar purchase and found “there were other interested parties that could build that vehicle.”

“Our obligations are to the transit riders to find the best vehicles for our transit riders, that we can find at the best price, from a reliable vendor.”

Bombardier would have to bid on any future contract under the province’s transit plan, and there is no guarantee they would win.

Dominic Pasqualino has worked at the Bombardier plant since 1987, and has been the local union president for the past eight years. He said he’s been laid off and rehired twice over his career, and that the news that half the workforce is slated to lose their jobs didn’t come as surprise.

Contracts to build railcars for Metrolinx and the Toronto Transit Commission will be fulfilled by the end of the year, and without significant work to replace them, Pasqaulino predicted further job cuts may be waiting around the corner.

He said it’s “frustrating” to see the federal and provincial governments unable to find a way to move forward with Ontario’s $28.5 billion transit plan.

“We’ve been lobbying the government for a long time,” he said, recalling meetings last year with the previous Ontario Liberal government and with the Ford government after they took power.

“They said they love Thunder Bay, but I mean, I need a contract signed. I don’t need you tell me how great you love Thunder Bay and how you love our product,” he said.

“At the end of the day we all need to eat, right? So we’re going to do whatever we can to feed our families.”

Ford said Wednesday that if Bombardier were to win the bid for the province’s transit plan — for which the Ontario Line would open the earliest, and not until 2027 in the best-case scenario — workers could be rehired. The proposed Ontario Line would go through central Toronto and is one of four projects the Ontario government has pitched as part of a $28.5-billion expansion of the GTA’s rail network.

“People want certainty and the federal government is not giving us certainty,” Ford also said. “We’ve given certainty. We’ve signed the cheque; we have our share … put your money where your mouth is federal government.”

Liberal MPP Michael Gravelle (Thunder Bay-Superior North) called news of the job losses “devastating” to the community he represents.

“The province has a huge role to play in making this happen. With a commitment to make unprecedented investments in public transit in Ontario, the Ford government can ensure that this happens by working directly with Metrolinx and the TTC, by extending the contracts presently in place, and by increasing the Canadian content requirements for Ontario financed transit projects. The province can play a significant role in dealing with this crisis situation at the Thunder Bay plant.”

The Ford government was heavily criticized by the opposition last year for giving up the fight to keep the General Motors plant operating in Oshawa after the company announced plans to shut it down. It was Dias, in fact, who brokered a deal to salvage some jobs.

On Wednesday, Ford said after hearing from Bombardier and Dias weeks ago, the province pledged $130 million to purchase vehicles.

Ford also said the CEO of Bombardier told him “Buy America” policies in the United States are “killing us right now. Absolutely killing us right now. We need the federal government to continue to negotiate with the U.S. government … we have to change the Buy America” provisions.

Ford noted that Ontario conducts more than $390 billion in two-way trade with the United States, and is the top trading partner with 19 states.

In Saskatoon, the 13 premiers and territorial leaders are set to discuss not only concerns about international trade, but also how to break down interprovincial trade barriers.

Ford said he had dinner with Quebec Premier François Legault Tuesday night, and “we share the same values … I look forward to building a strong relationship with Quebec and the other premiers.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, kicking off a full day of meetings on Wednesday, said the annual Council of the Federation summer meeting is a chance to “explore meaningful solutions to the challenges we face together across this nation.”

Wednesday, “our focus will be on economic growth and the competitiveness of our jurisdictions,” Moe said, including trade, and “strategic infrastructure that will enhance that competitiveness.”

The leaders will also talk about “how we might strengthen international trade relations at this time of uncertainty and also continue the effort to reduce the barriers within our nation, between our jurisdictions.”

On Thursday, they plan to discuss health-care funding and “the fact that the federal government is shouldering a declining share of health-care costs in this country.”

Ford met with Legault again Wednesday morning, and was to sit down with Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister in the afternoon, and New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs Thursday morning.

With files from Alex Ballingall

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

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