DET, Mich. — Canada’s investment in U.S. automaker General Motors has saved more than 9,000 jobs in Ontario, provincial officials said.

To keep those jobs, Canada made loans of $9.5 billion to GM, becoming the first foreign government to hold a seat on the board of directors of the iconic American company, The Detroit News reported Friday.

The provincial Ontario government put in about a third of that money, getting 3.8 percent of Canada’s 11.7 percent stake in GM, the newspaper said.

Before its June bankruptcy, GM had threatened to pull its business and 9,000 jobs out of Canada, most of them in Ontario.

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said losing GM’s business in Ontario would have crippled the province’s economy.

The cost of losing GM jobs in Ontario “would have been so much greater than the cost of the loans and equity,” he said.

Bartamaha News Desk.

Source: UPI

Comments

comments