Protecting Nortel jobs must be federal and provincial priority
Earlier today I made the following statement to the media:
Yesterday Nortel announced that they are seeking bankruptcy protection as they seek to recover from the financial pressures they are under.
Nortel is an important employer in Ottawa and has played an important part in our city’s development as a high tech centre.
Tech jobs are as important to Ottawa as the auto industry is to communities like Oshawa and Windsor.
I am pleased to see the federal government has committed $30 million to assist Nortel and hope that the provincial government will provide additional support to protect these jobs.
Being from that industry, I am very aware of how important Nortel is to our community. Therefore I recently I sent a letter to the federal and provincial government reminding them about the economic importance of the knowledge based economy to the Ottawa area.
I asked them to appreciate how important technology jobs are to the Ontario economy today and in the future, and to ensure sufficient investment and direct support for the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry.
Information and Communication Technology is directly related to both our productivity and competitiveness – and, by extension, our wealth and prosperity.
It is widely acknowledged today that ICT as an enabler of broad economic development has surpassed that of the value of the sector itself. As such, ICT will be a competitive tool for growth in the local and Canadian economy for the next several decades.
Due to the current economic environment only the federal and provincial governments have the financial resources available to invest in economic stimulus and the City of Ottawa will continue to provide support to our government partners and the employees of Nortel as we work through this challenge.
January 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Sorry Mayor,
Continual government handouts (taxpayer $$$s) to businesses that cannot compete is not acceptable.
Think of all the Nortel investors that bought in when the stock was high and now are holding Penny Stocks.
My sympathy is with the employees but there comes a time!
January 17th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
A good way to help the economy is to end the bus strike. It’s done a lot of damage. Can’t anybody who works for the city see that?
January 18th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
What I would start doing with the transit employees - TAKE STUFF AWAY!!!
They will not be able to find anything else!!! Guarantee it.
If they can hold Ottawa hostage, then start holding them hostage.
Do like the feds. Claw back to 1% then in 2 weeks to .5%
There is no damn way in the world that those bus drivers should make more than 55k a year with minimal education.
I know phDs out of work making 25k a year at burger king!!!
anyhow, these unions have power no doubt. I take it they hold many many shares in bonds. Bonds control everything from housing to government.
Plus, they have the power of the people.
But, replace them!
I’d build a sky train like vancouver. Automate the hell out of it. Under a seperate employeer for sure!