Unifor's national president will be heading up a new group aimed at combating protectionist measures being debated by the U.S. government.
The Ontario government has announced the creation of the Premier's Council on U.S. Trade and Industry Competitiveness, which will have Unifor National President Jerry Dias as the chair.
The Council will provide advice and recommendations on the government's ongoing efforts to protect Ontario's rights under trade agreements.
Unifor National President Jerry Dias tells AM800 News that the reality is we're under attack in Canada as the Biden Administration is pushing a Buy American strategy.
"We need to have a coordinated strategy between governments, corporations and labour to fight back because this is going to be a major play by the U.S. to steal from jobs Canada and take them to the United States, and it's going to be very harmful to the people of Ontario."
Dias says that you can't build a car in Canada without U.S. parts.
"If you take a look at the Windsor Assembly Plant for example, 85 per cent of the parts that go into that vehicle come from the United States - the engines, the transmissions, the skins. For the U.S. to put into place an economic situation that hurts our industry, quite frankly, it's going to hurt theirs as well."
He says it has to be a coordinated effort.
"We understand that this could be Armageddon, there's so much at stake for the Ontario economy. So that's why you have all the stakeholders saying 'hold on, this isn't play time anymore.' This is about a heck of a lot of jobs, this is about some actual stability with the economy here in the province of Ontario."
Currently, the U.S. Congress is debating measures that would threaten industries across Ontario, including auto, lumber, steel, agriculture and more. A release from the province states "these measures would impact auto agreements that began in 1965 with the Auto Pact, were solidified in 1994 by NAFTA and re-affirmed in 2020 with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement."
Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and Dias will work together in the coming days to appoint additional membership to the Council.