A Disappearing Way of Life

When a city is hugely dependent on a single industry and has been for almost a century, it is a hard blow when that industry decamps. Even though symptoms have been widely available and acknowledged of that very withdrawal. The Detroit-Windsor joint reliance on vehicle manufacturing by the Big Three of the North American automotive industry had a good, long run. It made for reliable employment on both sides of the Canada-U.S. divide.

When the automotive monopoly of North-American built vehicles came to a shuddering halt after the introduction of foreign imports whose quality was far superior to that of the North American models and the purchasing public lost its loyalty to the North American brand, and the foreign-owned competitors began opening manufacturing plants and employing North American workers, the writing was on the wall.

Add to that sorry little tale the complication of an industry hit with the double-whammy of consumer disinterest and a failing economy worldwide, and the recipe for disaster ensued. And then, both the United States and Canada stepped up to the plate to rescue companies whose importance to the economy was too great to allow them to flounder. Investing billions of tax dollars to keep General Motors and Chrysler afloat.

What an immense relief; valuable jobs in a still-viable, albeit friable industry, saved. And then, a year later, the rescue package gone slightly stale, even while the company is on the road to recovery, General Motors closes down its Canadian branch operations. Windsor now has another shuttered factory, this one laying off 500 dedicated workers at its transmission factory. Sad faces; some early retirements, far more unemployed.

A day later a beaming Barack Obama announces his administration's pleasure, from Detroit, at General Motors' commitment to re-building its traditional presence in the city. Bringing back employment to a depressed sector of the economy. All those billions that the U.S. Treasury committed to rescuing General Motors paying off quite handsomely.

How utterly irksome.