The Star has been providing excellent ongoing coverage of the eradication of good paying Canadian jobs by foreign owned corporations. That coverage, however, prompts one to question the competence, sincerity and integrity of Industry Canada for its failure to enforce the secret guarantees of net Canadian benefits it allegedly extracts from these foreign entities before permitting their purchases of domestic companies.

Consider the long strike that ensued in Sudbury when Vale Inco, owned by Brazil based Vale SA, made demands for substantial pension concessions after acquiring Inco. This was followed by an 11 month lockout, for much the same reason, not long after Industry Canada granted US Steel permission to purchase Stelco. The lockout occurred despite employment guarantees made by the company as a condition of purchase.

Now, American owned Caterpillar Inc, given the green light to purchase Electro Motive Canada in 2010, is following the same pattern, locking out its workers for refusing to allow their wages to be cut in half and accepting severely reduced benefits, a pattern well documented in Caterpillar's American operations.

And yet only a thundering silence is heard from both the Harper government in general and Industry Canada in particular over these instances of egregious corporate contempt for workers, their unions and the undertakings promised at the time of purchase.

Where is the outrage? Why is the taxpaying public told that takeover terms must be kept secret? Where are the leaders of the opposition parties who have thus far observed the same stony silence as the government? Who will speak up in defense of good paying Canadian jobs? I shudder to consider the answers.

(Sourced from www.thestar.com)