Do you think maybe the unions had something to do with it.

thats ok Toyota will take it over

Greaser wrote:

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What's sad is Canada in the last 70+ years has never had a car company that was not a subsidiary

of a foreign car maker, or had a Canadian Automobile for Canadians, owned by Canadians.

Maybe Canadian investment will show up if and when the electric car becomes a reality.

We need to become less reliant  on foreigners to invest in Canada, and start investing in ourselves for the good of everyone in Canada.

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The Manic GT from 1969 through 1971. It was built in Quebec. It did use Renault R8 running gear though.

Around 1980 there was the Aurora, a turn-key replica of a 289 Cobra (o.k., not a Canadian design).

The Bricklin was built solely in Canada (Malcolm Bricklin is American though, as was his company).

The Bartlet was Canadian and waaaaay before our time.

Greaser, it looks like you are right.

There is so much i would love to say here to this topic but it would involve POLITICS. So i will bite my tongue, cringe and say nothing remotely political. I am just very surprised all this did not happen years ago. Soon the day will come when GM, Ford and Fiat/Chrysler have no manufacturing plants in Canada. Yes it is sad and very unfortunate but it makes sense, when you consider what is happening to all domestic car companies as a whole. These American car company's do not owe us any favors. After all they are American car company's, not Canadian car company's. American's have been suffering far more than we have in this regard over the years. This is just a major reality check and there are far more reality checks coming down the road. It is business, not charity. 

Around 2001 maybe 2002, i had the misfortune of meeting one of my sisters boyfriends at a family Christmas get together. I was appalled at this buffoon's constant crapping on and criticism of GM in Oshawa where he worked. He had been there at the time for a number of years and had nothing good to say about the company that afforded him a very good lifestyle. The only political comment i am going to make is that both this ass and my sister were and probably still are political lefty's. The words that came out of this guy's mouth almost put me over the edge at my family's get together because i know most folks are not as lucky as car company worker's. I made a comment at the time that there would be thousands of people lining around many blocks to take his job. I got a look of disgust from both him and my sister. To me that just speaks not a thousand words but a million words. Cheers.

cdnpont wrote:

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100% right on George.

I put in 38 years at Dofasco, and always felt blessed to have the excellent job that I did. And I can say that many times over the years I ended up working with exactly such ungrateful people as you describe. When I was forced to actually work for a long period, side by side with such people, in the most part I was able to make them see and appreciate what they had through many late night conversation. But some would never see that. Ever. We probably all have worked with the same in some form or another. The ones that think the company is screwing them and think it owes them a whole lot for little input.

But I still believe the majority of Blue Collar workers are great people, ones that actually see the value in what they have, are willing to sacrifice much of their life working shifts, and in that I say it's sad to see them loose these good paying jobs. I wish only good luck to those great folks.

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 Mark, i totally agree with you. I want to really belief that most folks have enough sense in that regard but sometimes you really have to wonder. Some times the whole union atmosphere in these company's create workers that are more inclined to be bad workers. I saw this for thirty years in my job as a on the road millwright. 

dualquadpete wrote:

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My experience with GM was not good!!! I drove transport truck [ tractor trailers] & delivered to GM on occasion for one company & then another company that "out sourced just in time delivery. First experience was on delivery of ? & had 22 more "drops to do on my run,forklift driver was on last skid & buzzer went off for break, he dropped skid 1/2 way out of trailer & said " be back in in 20 minutes" I asked him if he could just move it out of trailer as I had 22 more deliveries , answer was "tough for you" !!! when I started with out source company it was even worse, receivers found any excuse "not to accept" shipment" ie one part put on rack backwards !!!! Above them to just turn it around, send it back" They "hated" us!!!! They had "no idea" what it was like "outside" in the REAL WORLD thought everybody made $ 28 hr & had "BENEFITS" I ended up showing one worker my pay stub & he couldn't believe it was $ 14 hour & no benifits!!!!

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 Pete, you would have been having the same issues with Ford and Fiat/Chysler, after all they are all in the same UNION. I spent four months shy of working thirty years with a company that sent me out on the road doing millwrighting work. I worked all over Ontario and did much work for GM, Ford, Chrysler (at the time), Honda and Toyota. The sad disgusting things that i witnessed as well as had workers tell me about at these car plants would enrage most folks. I never saw any of this crap at Honda in Alliston or Toyota in Cambridge. I am not picking on all union workers, just the worthless ones. 

long stroke wrote:

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dualquadpete wrote:

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My experience with GM was not good!!! I drove transport truck [ tractor trailers] & delivered to GM on occasion for one company & then another company that "out sourced just in time delivery. First experience was on delivery of ? & had 22 more "drops to do on my run,forklift driver was on last skid & buzzer went off for break, he dropped skid 1/2 way out of trailer & said " be back in in 20 minutes" I asked him if he could just move it out of trailer as I had 22 more deliveries , answer was "tough for you" !!! when I started with out source company it was even worse, receivers found any excuse "not to accept" shipment" ie one part put on rack backwards !!!! Above them to just turn it around, send it back" They "hated" us!!!! They had "no idea" what it was like "outside" in the REAL WORLD thought everybody made $ 28 hr & had "BENEFITS" I ended up showing one worker my pay stub & he couldn't believe it was $ 14 hour & no benifits!!!!

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 Pete, you would have been having the same issues with Ford and Fiat/Chysler, after all they are all in the same UNION. I spent four months shy of working thirty years with a company that sent me out on the road doing millwrighting work. I worked all over Ontario and did much work for GM, Ford, Chrysler (at the time), Honda and Toyota. The sad disgusting things that i witnessed as well as had workers tell me about at these car plants would enrage most folks. I never saw any of this crap at Honda in Alliston or Toyota in Cambridge. I am not picking on all union workers, just the worthless ones. 

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Interesting, George.  Can you relate any of the stories to us?

It's sad to hear about Oshawa closing, but just as sad to hear that things were not being well-managed.

MC wrote:

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long stroke wrote:

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dualquadpete wrote:

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My experience with GM was not good!!! I drove transport truck [ tractor trailers] & delivered to GM on occasion for one company & then another company that "out sourced just in time delivery. First experience was on delivery of ? & had 22 more "drops to do on my run,forklift driver was on last skid & buzzer went off for break, he dropped skid 1/2 way out of trailer & said " be back in in 20 minutes" I asked him if he could just move it out of trailer as I had 22 more deliveries , answer was "tough for you" !!! when I started with out source company it was even worse, receivers found any excuse "not to accept" shipment" ie one part put on rack backwards !!!! Above them to just turn it around, send it back" They "hated" us!!!! They had "no idea" what it was like "outside" in the REAL WORLD thought everybody made $ 28 hr & had "BENEFITS" I ended up showing one worker my pay stub & he couldn't believe it was $ 14 hour & no benifits!!!!

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 Pete, you would have been having the same issues with Ford and Fiat/Chysler, after all they are all in the same UNION. I spent four months shy of working thirty years with a company that sent me out on the road doing millwrighting work. I worked all over Ontario and did much work for GM, Ford, Chrysler (at the time), Honda and Toyota. The sad disgusting things that i witnessed as well as had workers tell me about at these car plants would enrage most folks. I never saw any of this crap at Honda in Alliston or Toyota in Cambridge. I am not picking on all union workers, just the worthless ones. 

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Interesting, George.  Can you relate any of the stories to us?

It's sad to hear about Oshawa closing, but just as sad to hear that things were not being well-managed.

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 I have so many sad stories about stuff i saw and heard about that i could almost fill a book. In the mid 90's at the Bramalea Chrysler plant, when it was Daimler/Chrysler. There was a fire that was deliberately set on one of the body plants main dust collectors. The very expensive dust collector burnt down but luckily the fire was put out before the other four collectors caught fire. It was about a week before they were planning on striking and this was a message. It was so obvious that it was intentional because one of the intakes had a grill that was torn back and that is where someone put something that was on fire to start a fire in the collector. I was part of a crew that worked countless hours getting the system back up and running because it was costing Daimler/Chrysler millions of dollars with the production being down. At the same plant i got to know a plant electrician that i befriended and he would tell me mind numbing stuff about what when on there. A number of times workers would jam the body trolley lines by jamming a steel rod in the track. This would damage the system at that point which forced the line to a halt. It would generally take one hour for the millwrights to repair the damage. During that hour the workers would be sitting on their collective butts having that extra break. That cost Daimler/Chrysler because the line was stopped during that time. Back in the early to mid 80's at one of the GM Oshawa plants, i regularly saw countless empty and broken beer bottles on top of much the equipment i worked on. I mentioned this to a contact person there and they just shrugged, saying there is nothing we can do about. On a regular bases i had to clean up after these butt heads to work on the equipment i was working on. Many of these beer bottles were broken and it was a hazard to me. I operated a pallet truck (tow motor) to be able to do certain aspects of my job. On two different occasions at the Daimler/Chrysler plant i was hassled by some union goofs about being on the tow motor, why you may ask was i hassled. I was hassled because they knew i was not any kind of union member. The one time a grievance was actually put in. It would be impossible to get a Chrysler worker to help me with a tow motor, so i had to do it. They just wanted to be goofs and make a non union workers life a little harder. 

Apparently the last body and engine off the line.

But I'm confused...they still built truck there?