The federal and Ontario governments will provide the Canadian subsidiaries of General Motors and Chrysler with $3.29 billion in emergency loans, the prime minister said Saturday. The announcement follows a pledge Friday by President Bush to offer $17.4 billion in emergency loans to the two Detroit automakers. Ford has not sought the aid.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada's pledge, the equivalent of 20 percent of the U.S. aid package, will help keep the Canadian plants operating while they restructure their businesses to retain one of the country's most important sectors.
"We cannot afford, in the United States or Canada, the catastrophic short-term collapse of the Big Three automakers. The U.S. has signaled that they are not going to allow these companies to fail, and we will do our share of the North American package to see that this doesn't happen either," said Harper, speaking at a news conference in Toronto.
Canada's automotive industry represents 14 percent of the country's manufacturing output and 23 percent of manufactured exports, and directly employs more than 150,000 Canadians. It is the country's largest industry within the manufacturing sector.