GM investing $13 million in St Kitts powertrain plant

[projekktor id=’20358′]

General Motors is investing $13 million in the St. Catharines powertrain plant. The money will be used to offset the loss of engine production when the Camaro assembly line in Oshawa shuts down this fall.

With the GM president leading the applause, the newest model of the Chevy Camaro made it’s Canadian debut outside the St. Catharines powertrain plant.

A lot of GM workers in the crowd thought this was a slap in the face because the last Camaro will roll off the Oshawa assembly line in November and then the work is going to Michigan.

St. Catharines produces the engines for the Camaro and while it will keep making the V8 engine, it will lose the V6 contract, which could potentially lose a shift and cost them 120 jobs.

Today, General Motors announced a $13 million investment in St. Catharines, to enable the plant to produce an ever wider range of variance of 3.6 litre engines for the future.

They make V6 engines for about six different vehicles now, and they hope to expand that number.

What the money will do is hopefully secure jobs. General Motors has bled thousands of jobs of the past few years. St. Catharines used to have a workforce of about 10 000, today there are 1000 production workers and about 400 skilled trades.

Some people are speculating GM had been moving jobs to the US, because of the higher Canadian dollar which has since tumbled.