Federal, provincial politicians leave door open to foreign workers' involvement in Honda deal

Parties to the massive Honda EV investment deal reached this week have tacitly acknowledged that foreign workers will be involved in setting up the proposed auto plants, while attempting to downplay an issue already seized upon by the federal Conservatives.

In response to questions throughout the week, federal officials, their provincial counterparts and executives for the automaker have talked about "optimizing" or "maximizing" the number of Canadian jobs — leaving the door open for foreign workers to work on facilities resulting from the historic $15-billion deal.

In an interview on Rosemary Barton Live that aired Sunday, Ontario Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli was more direct, saying that there would be "short-term technical experts" brought in to install equipment and train Ontarians.

"You need the technical experts. They're going to come in — not only to help install, but train hundreds and then thousands of the employees on how to use the equipment — and then return," he told CBC chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton.

The practice of foreign workers coming in to work on auto plants — which have received tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer support over the past several years — erupted into a political issue last fall when it was revealed the NextStar battery plant in Windsor would employ a number of South Koreans. Canada's Building Trades Unions (CBTU) accused the company of sidelining local workers — which NextStar denies — and last week sent a letter asking the prime minister to intervene. 

Conservatives this week cited the NextStar case and argued the same thing could happen with Honda.

"We can't trust that his latest announcement of $5 billion in Canadian taxpayer money [to be split between the province and federal governments] to another large multinational corporation will be any different," said MP Rick Perkins, the Conservatives' innovation critic.

In a statement released Friday, the Conservatives said they would bring up the issue of foreign workers in a parliamentary committee meeting scheduled for Monday.

The NDP has said it wants to see assurances that jobs and projects will stay in Canada.

"We support investments, but we want to see iron-clad guarantees where there will be good jobs for Canadians, for Quebecers," NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in Montreal this week. "We want to see good jobs that are good-paying union jobs, and we want to see the investments stay in the country."

Jean Marc Leclerc, the head of Honda Canada, told Barton that he's reached out to the head of the CBTU to begin a discussion on jobs for Canadian workers and he hoped to reach a memorandum of understanding with them on the issue.

He told CBC Radio's The House that Honda faced a challenge in meeting production timelines given the current availability of tradespeople in Canada.

"The more we communicate with them to say, 'Here are the timelines, here are the number of people we need to make this happen,' we will get to a very good place, I'm very confident," he said.

In another interview on The House, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne downplayed the concerns about the NextStar plant, noting the foreign workers were just a small contingent of the thousands of workers to be employed there.