Worried about foreign workers, Conservatives demand details of $15B Honda EV deal

Conservative MPs are pushing Ottawa to release details of its agreement with Honda Canada to build a sprawling electric vehicle operation in southern Ontario — disclosure they say is necessary to ensure Canadians get all the jobs in the multi-billion-dollar project.

The push for transparency comes after Canada's Building Trades Union (CBTU) wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this month asking him to intervene on another EV project, the NextStar plant in Windsor, Ont. that's backed by Chrysler parent company Stellantis and Korean firm LG.

The union said foreign workers are displacing Canadian labourers at the NextStar construction site while 180 local millwrights and ironworkers are unemployed and available to perform the necessary work.

«Canadian workers are now being replaced by international workers at an increasing pace, on work that was previously assigned to Canadian workers,» wrote Sean Strickland, CBTU's executive director, in an April 10 letter to Trudeau.

«Canadian workers are being sidelined without consequence. This is a slap in the face to Canadian workers and utterly unacceptable from LG and Stellantis, particularly when their shareholders stand to benefit from more than $15 billion in generous tax incentives from the Government of Canada.»

At the House of Commons' government operations committee Monday, Conservative MP Rick Perkins pounced on the union's letter, saying the federal government shouldn't allow taxpayer-subsidized projects to employ foreign nationals.

Perkins said that, after reviewing the NextStar contract, he found Ottawa did not secure enough protections for Canadian construction workers who will build the plant.

"'Hire Canadian workers'… It doesn't say that. It would have been pretty