General Motors Canada is disputing some of the claims made in a call to have the federal government stop buying Mexican-made GM products.
The three local New Democrat MPs and representatives of Unifor held a news conference Monday making that call.
GM's Vice President of Corporate and Environmental Affairs told AM800 listeners to the Lynn Martin Show the claim of how many vehicles the government bought from GM is off.
David Paterson says the figure of $320-million over ten years used by the NDP would be an inflation of what GM sold.
"It's sort of expanded the volume of vehicles sold to the government by over about a factor of ten, and just ridiculously off," says Paterson. "In fact, if you did the calculations each one of the vehicles that we sold would have to have been worth over $500,000."
Paterson tells AM800 News the Oshawa manufacturing plant may be closing, but GM will remain in the city.
"The facts are we're not leaving Oshawa, we'll still be the largest private sector employer in Oshawa after that change, and we're hiring 1000 new technology workers in our Markham centre and we'll be opening up yet another new centre in downtown Toronto," adds Paterson.
General Motors world headquarters in Detroit, Michigan.(Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
Paterson notes the automaker has made a big investment in Canada, since the 2009 bailout.
"Since that time over the last ten years. General Motors has spent or invested or committed over $100-billion in Canada," claims Paterson.
Paterson repeated a statement from the GM website that no Canadian jobs are being moved to Mexico.
He pointed out the number of vehicles made at the Cami plant in Ingersol is about the same as the number of vehicles the company sells in Canada.
Paterson adds they sell 47 different vehicles in Canada and only three are made in Mexico.