Former prime minister Paul Martin’s government spent $200 million of taxpayers money on General Motors (GM) in 2005, which was an “investment” to help make Canada a major player in the auto industry..The government said it would help the economy, improve the industry, create many “new jobs,” and lead to more spin-off “employment opportunities.”.Almost 20 years later, the government has not shown that even one job was created. .Also, only 2% of the money lent has been paid back, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) Access to Information requests..“How can the government claim its corporate welfare is a success when it doesn’t even know if it created jobs?” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of CTF. .“The receipts show only 2% of the money was repaid; what about the other 98%?”.By January 9 2023, 18 years later, the government cannot prove if spending $200 million in taxpayers’ money on a private business created even one job..The reason is, the government did not ask GM if they made any jobs..“The estimated jobs fields are not mandatory data fields in the corporate database,” a federal bureaucrat wrote in response to an Access to Information request. .“Recipients were not required to report on the number of jobs.” .“Taxpayers have some questions: why promise jobs if you’re not monitoring the numbers and why include jobs estimates on the forms if they don’t need to be filled out?” Terrazzano said. .“Every field is mandatory when we pay our taxes, but bureaucrats seem a lot less diligent when they’re giving away our money.”.What's even more troubling to the CTF is the money given to GM was called a "repayable contribution,” which means it was a loan..But, nearly 20 years later, government records show that only 2%, which is $4.6 million, has been paid back.. Not a single job created in $200 million General Motors subsidy TABLE .“When a normal Canadian forgets to carry the two on their tax return, the feds send the hounds after us, but they can’t be bothered to collect $195 million outstanding on a loan to a huge corporation,” Terrazzano said. .“The government needs to get taxpayers’ money back.” .For decades, the federal government has given hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money to GM and other big car companies..In the 1980s, GM got four big corporate welfare deals from the government, adding up to $270 million..In 2009, the federal government helped the Canadian car industry by spending taxpayers’ money on an auto industry bailout. GM got about $10.5 billion of that taxpayers' money..In 2022, the federal and Ontario governments together gave GM another big corporate welfare cheque for $518 million..In May 2023, the federal and Quebec governments gave GM and POSCO Chemical $220 million of taxpayers' money to help build an EV battery factory..“Why are the feds giving GM more money when government records show only a fraction of an older loan has been repaid?” Terrazzano said. .“Two decades later and the feds are still giving buckets of cash to car companies. Does this government expect taxpayers to subsidize automakers forever?”.This year, the government gave $28 billion to big car companies, Volkswagen and Stellantis, to help them build EV battery factories in Ontario..A report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) on September 12, 2023, said that it would take four times longer than expected to generate enough revenue to cover the expense of these corporate welfare subsidies. .“The break-even timeline for the $28.2 billion in production subsidies announced for Stellantis-LGES and Volkswagen is estimated to be 20 years, significantly longer than the government’s estimate of a payback within five years for Volkswagen,” the PBO said. .“This debacle provides another painful lesson for taxpayers: don’t believe the hype when politicians cut corporate welfare cheques,” Terrazzano said. .“Instead of giving taxpayer money to hand-picked corporations, the feds should cut taxes and red tape for all businesses.”
