With the depletion of domestic manufacturing our communities are beginning to feel the pinch of lower wages, a drop in charity donations and a rise in demand on social services. According to a recent Statistics Canada study, 16 per cent of the over 3,000 manufacturers who responded to a survey were planning on reducing production over the following three months. Fifteen per cent expected to decrease employment in the second quarter of 2007. The bulk of the decrease was projected to occur in Ontario and Quebec, the traditional homes to Canada’s manufacturing industries. The auto industry is a prime example of where this job loss is happening. The North American automakers continue to lose market share and the public coffers continue to run dry, causing shortfalls in our ability to maintain the basic medical, educational and social services that our communities have come to expect our economy to support. According to St. Catharines, Ontario Mayor Bryan McMullan, “While statistics provide a quantitative indication of job losses in St. Catharines, they only touch on the severity of the issue. The true costs of manufacturing losses are best described through the stories told by members of our community whose quality of life is at risk.”

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The Ontario Governments announcement that they are putting up 650 million dollars towards investment in green technology in Ontario’s auto industry is exactly the kind of commitment the manufacturing sector in Canada needs in to bring them into the 21^st century market.

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      After a long hard pregnancy it seems Mother Nature has finally given birth to another environmentalist, albeit the runt of the litter. Prime Minister Steven Harper took his first baby steps while on a visit to Europe for the G8 meetings when he called climate change the biggest threat to the future of humanity.

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