"The other thing that we need to think about is that we have become noncompetitive, now not by the labour force but by our energy costs, by our payroll taxes, by our regulations in Canada."
INGERSOLL/THAMESFORD - It has not been a good couple of months for the manufacturing industry in Oxford County.
Late last year the Maple Leaf Processing Plant in Thamesford announced it will be shutting down and then last week GM announced 600 layoffs at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll. MP for Oxford County Dave Mackenzie says first and foremost you have to think about the workers and their families.
"The first thing you have to think about are the families that are directly affected by both of those layoffs, it's not just a piece of paper that is a layoff notice but it is in fact a 1,000 plus families that are directly affected, many of them are the principle wage earners."
He thinks the government should be doing more to keep these jobs from moving south.
"The other thing that we need to think about is that we have become noncompetitive, now not by the labour force but by our energy costs, by our payroll taxes, by our regulations in Canada. That is what drives our businesses out of the country and we have more and more looking at the cost of doing business in this country created by governments at all levels and we need to find a fix for that."
Mackenzie points to things like cap and trade, hydro costs and other taxes that the government is creating that is causing these jobs to move to other countries.
"You can't keep adding payroll taxes, you can't keep adding energy costs, you can't keep putting regulatory rules in that cost money, our cap and trade system, gas tax or whatever you want to call it that has been pushed down from the Federal government to the Provinces, it all adds to the cost and when other countries don't have that cost, it makes it an easy decision for those corporations to move to other countries."
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