I understand Ontario has very high electrical rates and labor rates. There is also the issue of the Federal Governments new Cap and Trade policy although I don't know if GM received a waiver. Did these things maybe cause GM to close the plant?
Our Hydro prices are about middle-of-the-road in North America. We have a tiered-use system that sees prices as high as 13.2¢/kWh On-Peak (during the day) and 6.5¢/kWh Off-peak (at night), with an average around 8-9¢/kWh IIRC. Far from expensive, but when everyone compares our prices to Quebec (one of the cheapest in NA and is something around 4¢/kWh average IIRC) it seems astronomical.
Labour rates generally aren't too crazy either, we do have a relatively high minimum wage of $14/hr, but when unions start to run the show and wages become "competitive" it starts getting out of hand. Cami is in my hometown and IIRC the average employee takes home something around $35/hr. Toyota in Woodstock and Cambridge are over $35/hr at their highest rate, even though they aren't unionized, but they still have to pay competitive wages or they'd never have enough employees. A lot of the feeder plants (i.e. the places that make components; engines, doors, etc) are in the $20-25/hr range and they have an astronomically high turnover rate, nobody wants to do the work unless there's huge money involved. I'm wondering if this is the reason; why pay thousands of ungrateful employees >$30/hr for work that can be done for <$10/hr virtually anywhere else on the planet? Even by the time you factor in the costs of shipping vehicles it's gotta be thousands of dollars cheaper per-vehicle. It can't be easy to justify the cost to shareholders unless the (monetary) benefits massively outweigh the cons
Because if everyone does this, you wouldn't have any customers that can afford to buy your $35-$70,000 cars.
Maybe because Ontario has ridiculous housing costs?
Id be happy to work for $15/hr if I could get a decent 3 bedroom house for $70-80k.
I mean seriously mortgage costs + $11/hr on top and I would be happy.
Yet even somewhere like London it will cost 400k+ and just forget about Toronto.
These seem like unusual expectations.
Are there any decent areas anywhere in the country with these kinds of prices? That seems abnormally low. Also a $15 wage single income isn't supposed to support a 3bd house.
While that might not be completely true...gas prices are down. I'm talking $1.45 to $0.99 / L.
As someone who drives ~ 3 hrs a day (and all my friends do too) - We do appreciate the reduction in the gas price.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not sure, but looking at the average gas price in Ontario (no cap and trade), Quebec (cap and trade) and Canada on [1], the same kinda of savings existed all around, so we can't really credit the removal of the cap and trade. Overlaying the price of cure, it does seem to have had more to do with the massive price drop in crude.