• group_hug@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    Federal government is spending 13 billion on a VW battery plant in St Thomas, Ontario

    That’s 13 billion dollars / 41.million Canadians = $317 per Canadian

    This is projected to employ 3000 people. Canada Post employs 62,300 people.

    Canada post employs 21 X as many people as the VW plant hopes too.

    CP could lose 1 billion a year for 273 years before it would cost the Canadian tax payer as much per job as the VW plant workers do. And that is if the VW plant stays on target and doesn’t end up like North Volt

    I don’t know what the path forward for Canada Post is but the government narrative is whack. If the government is trying to save money why are they spending so much for 3000 jobs and celebrating that as a huge win?

    It seems like they don’t value workers or Canadians just corporate profits at the Canadian tax payers expense.

    We should expect more from our government.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      The $13B was production based tax credits. No one explains how government funding works, or the milestones.

      • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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        4 days ago

        Maybe instead of giving away tax credits, they should use those taxes to improve Canada Post…

        • deltapi@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Tax credits are not the same thing as cash. You can’t “spend tax credits” on Canada post, the credits are there to bring the business in and give them credits based on the further income they bring to the country

          • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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            4 days ago

            If they didn’t give out tax credits then they would receive that amount in taxes. From the government’s point of view tax credits are a reduction in revenue.

            I don’t think 10% fewer tax credits would have made the difference of the factory being built or not. VW has plenty of money to pay taxes.

            • deltapi@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              The whole point of the tax credits was to convince them to bring the business here in the first place.
              Decrease the tax credits by 10%, sure. The business goes elsewhere to build their factory, what’s 10% of $0?

    • GodofLies@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      Exactly, we should all be outraged at the other expenditures that the federal government is pushing. What good does a VW battery plant do for us as Canadians as a whole when it’s for a private foreign company???

      I will also say, you can’t compare a battery plant to a postage service. The model to fund CP used to work until it didn’t.

      We should be asking what went wrong? Why is that so? Why aren’t their executives being fired and the board changed? Did they even ask their own union employees for real feedback on what can be changed other than the tidbits we hear in the news? Because it seems like these days a lot of upper to mid management seem to be trying real hard to justify their own existences - elected government officials included (which we should always keep them to the fire and expect a high level of competence for handling our taxpayer money and good governance for us all equally).