Basics Editorial
Dalton McGuinty must have been eating his ‘Wheaties’ this past month, as his government decided to give $9.7-million to Kellogg’s for their new plant in the Quinte region, which will produce ‘Mini-Wheats’ cereal. The amount represents 10% of the costs of the $97-million plant, which began construction in October 2006.
Kellogg’s is far from your small business operation that needs government money in order to keep going. The company is on the New York Stock exchange and had Revenues of $10.906 Billion in 2006.
This isn’t the first time that McGuinty has engaged in corporate welfarism. In 2007 McGuinty gave Ford Motor Company of Canada $55,061,011, despite Ford’s cutting of shifts in St. Thomas. McGuinty also loaned $29,096,192 to General Motors (GM) of Canada while they cut shifts in Oshawa. The chocolate maker Ferrero Rocher, received a $5.5 million interest free loan, while other firms like car parts manufacturer MAGNA received millions of dollars, while the big bosses took home millions in their own pockets.
McGuinty says that this blatant subsidizing of the rich is to improve the province’s manufacturing industry, which has been decimated since the Conservatives and the Liberals signed Canada into and implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in the early 1990’s.
McGuinty does this with no acknowledgement of two facts: 1 – the Liberals are hypocrits for giving millions to millionaires, while denying people on social assistance any meaningful increases; and 2 – manufacturing jobs will only be brought back through public investments that generate jobs and revenue for the people. Our tax dollars should be used to build things that we need, including factories that are owned by the people and not some rich jokers.
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