Toyota Building New Factory in Canada, Declares Americans Too Stupid Options

[Benevolence]

Toyota to build 100,000 vehicles per year in Woodstock, Ont., starting 2008

02:00 AM EDT Jul 06
STEVE ERWIN

WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained.

That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant.

Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient to train workers when the new Woodstock plant opens in 2008, 40 kilometres away from its skilled workforce in Cambridge.

"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States ," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.

Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by announcing plans to build a 1,300-worker factory in the southwestern Ontario city.

"Welcome to Woodstock - that's something I've been waiting a long time to say," Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, told hundreds gathered at a high school gymnasium.

The plant will produce the RAV-4, dubbed by some as a "mini sport-utility vehicle" that Toyota currently makes only in Japan. It plans to build 100,000 vehicles annually.

The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover research, training and infrastructure costs.

Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.

In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.

"Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage," he said.

Tanguay said Toyota's decision on where to build its seventh North American plant was "not only about money."

"It's about being in the right place," he said, noting the company can rely on the expertise of experienced Cambridge workers to help get Woodstock up and running.

Premier Dalton McGuinty said the money the province and Ottawa are pledging for the project is well-spent. His government has committed $400 million, including the latest Toyota package, to the province's auto sector, which helped finance $5-billion worth of industry projects.

"I think that's a great investment that will more than pay for itself in terms of new jobs and new economic returns," McGuinty said.

The provincial funds for the auto sector were drawn from a fund set up to attract investments specifically in that industry. McGuinty said no similar industry funds are being planned for other sectors, but added the province wants to attract biotechnology companies - those working on multibillion-dollar advanced medical research.

"What we have done for auto we would like to be able to do for biotech," he said. "That's where we're lending some real focus to at the present time."

Similarly, Emmerson said Ottawa is looking to help out industries that create "clusters" of jobs around them - such as in aerospace, shipbuilding, telecommunications and forestry - where supply bases build around a large manufacturer.

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/business/050630/b0630102.html

[darksecret]

I know a big problem in NC school systems is the quility of education varies so much based on the average income of the surronuding area, see I went to two high schools, one that was filled with snotty rich brats and the other was for kids who bought their lunch with food stamps (j/k, they would if they could though), the main reason I went to the rich school being low class was that my dad ended up married to a rich woman, I don't know how public schools are suppose to be set up but the statistics prove that the more wealthy children in schools the better the teachers and education are, the rich school made had an average that 75% of all grads would go to a college or university, 15% would go to a community college, 7% would work labor jobs, and 3% etc., the other school was more along the lines that 20% went to college, 15% community college, 60% unskilled labor, 5% etc. these aren't completely accurate but i'm basing off memory here, point is make public schools alike and you'll solve the southern education problem. Besides to defend the south (which I almost never do) the original article states the entire US not just the south and last time I checked both BMW and Honda have factories in South Carolina about an hour away from me.