What better way to showcase Canadian industry in a video than to let a U.S. company produce it?.That’s exactly what Canada’s Consul General in Detroit did when he awarded a sole-sourced contract to U.S. producers for YouTube videos celebrating Canadian industry. Consul Joe Comartin — who could not be reached for comment— is a former New Democrat MP, and was an outspoken critic of U.S. contracting that cost Canadian jobs, said Blacklock’s Reporter..The Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed he awarded the $19,847 contract for industrial videos. No Canadian company was asked to bid..“The Consulate General in Detroit contracted a local Michigan company to deliver four video presentations,” said John Babcock, spokesperson for the department. “It was to promote Canadian automotive industry capabilities.”.Babcock did not explain why no Canadian company could promote Canadian automotive industry capabilities. The Canadian Media Producers Association did not comment.. U.S. company contracted to produce videos lauding Canadian industry .The video contract was awarded to Blue Sky Productions of Farmington Hills, Michigan. The company carrying on business as Autoline thanked Canadian taxpayers in a Tweet..Comartin served five terms in the Commons as a New Democrat MP (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.). He retired in 2015 and was appointed to the $148,000-a year post as Consul General three years later..Comartin as MP frequently accused Liberal and Conservative cabinets of being “willing to give away the fort” on free trade, and complained of “gross errors we have made so many times” in trade pacts that cost Canadian jobs. Canadians were “crying for the government to do something,” he told the Commons in 2004. “I have no apologies to give as a member of the NDP on protecting jobs.”.“We have seen thousands of jobs in the auto sector lost to the United States,” said Comartin. “They are so ideologically hooked into free trade, ‘let the market decide everything,’ ‘globalization’ and all those terms we hear.”.“That of course ignores what happens when we go down that route, when the government does not play the role it should be playing to protect those jobs,” Comartin told the Commons in 2007. “Those jobs disappear..“Thousands of men, women and children in my constituency who are facing the negative consequences of the manufacturing crisis deserve more than the government’s empty rhetoric that blames the problem on sectoral adjustments or restructuring,” he said in 2008. “They deserve action now.”.“Well-paying manufacturing jobs have gone south to the United States,” he told the Commons in 2012. “The NDP has been saying this for months but the government refuses to listen. Does the government realize what is happening to the economy in Canada?”.Cabinet in 2018 increased the maximum amount federal agencies could spend on favoured suppliers without competitive bidding. The limit of $25,000 for sole-sourced contracts was raised to $40,000 under proposed amendments to Government Contracts Regulations. Data show more than $1.4 billion a year is spent on small-value contracts..Mike D’Amour is the British Columbia Bureau Chief for the Western Standard..,.mdamour@westernstandardonline.com
