Singh calls on Trudeau to fund Toronto’s trains, support Thunder Bay jobs

THUNDER BAY, ON—NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh was at Alstom’s Thunder Bay plant Tuesday with Unifor Local 1075 President Justin Roberts to call on the federal government to flow funds urgently for the subway trains Toronto needs, securing the future for hundreds of Northern workers.

“Flowing federal funds for Toronto’s trains would offer hope and relief to hundreds of Thunder Bay workers and their families. Every one of them deserves to rest easy knowing their good mortgage-paying job is more secure,” said Singh. “And for Toronto’s commuters, who are crunched into aging subway cars, federal funds are fundamental to getting new, safe trains into service.

“Justin Trudeau’s weak indecision is hurting workers. By dragging their feet, Trudeau’s government is holding up the project and letting down working families in Thunder Bay and Toronto. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives aren’t the answer. They believe there should be no rules for corporations, making it easier for Canadian money and Canadian jobs to go to foreign conglomerates.”

The 55 trains Toronto needs for Line 2 will cost nearly $2.3 billion, and the city and province have already committed their shares of about $750 million each. But the federal government has been the stick in the mud, despite funding requests dating back to 2020. The new trains were included in the groundbreaking New Deal negotiated by Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, but the Ford government made the provincial funding contingent on the federal government holding up its end of the bargain. The feds barely showed up at the tri-partite negotiations and haven’t made any commitments to date.

Alstom’s Thunder Bay plant offers roughly 500 good mortgage-paying jobs, and has the capacity to expand.

In 2022, Thunder Bay’s Alstom workers faced layoffs—something Roberts said could be avoided if the Trudeau government comes to the table with funding right now.

“Thousands of workers here in Thunder Bay where the subway trains are made, are depending on the federal government funding its share of the project. This includes myself and the members of Unifor local 1075 who have a proud history of building great transit cars right here in Ontario,” said Roberts. “I happily join my voice to call on the federal government to offer us, workers in Thunder Bay, the certainty and stability we deserve. It’s time for the federal government to join us in securing the future for workers. Thank you to Jagmeet Singh and the NDP for amplifying our call today.”

To ensure we favour Canadian workers like those at Alstom, Singh said he supports pro-Canadian procurement, and urges the Toronto Transit Commission to include a 25 per cent Canadian content clause in the Request for Proposals, which is allowed under current international trade agreements. Without it, he said, the contract for the new trains could suffer the same fate at the multi-billion-dollar Ontario Line project, which was won by Hitachi so the trains and jobs will be created in Japan. Overall, Singh said, federal procurement policies need a fresh Pro-Canadian review.