Buzz Hargrove, Canadian Auto Workers, Whining Again About the Poor North American Car Companies

I did not like it the first time Buzz Hargrove complained in the press about how doing something about car emissions or fuel economy would hurt the car companies and result in worker layoffs.
Now he is whining about how unfair it is to the poor North American car companies to have rebates on cars with good fuel economy and penalty fees for the cars that are gas guzzlers. (Are you dropping the Liberals, Mr. Hargrove, and supporting the Conservatives?)

The problem I have with both of these statements is that it is not the fault of Canadian citizens that the North American car companies sat on their duffs all these years while Toyota designed and built and started selling more and more hybrid cars. They knew or should have known that the environment was becoming very important to Canadians and been proactive and adapted their products accordingly.

GM used to huff and haw about when they would ever get a hybrid car up and running. Oh, well, maybe in four years, but only if.... Then GM drops from the number #1 car company in the world down to #2 behing Toyota. All of a sudden GM announces that it is going to have several new designs in no time flat.

Mr. Hargrove, greening a business does not equal losing money and laying off workers. At the 2007 Energy and Environment Conference June 18-20 in Toronto, I heard many company CEOs or managing directors talk about how they had greened their businesses, registered hundreds and hundreds of new patents or designed innovative new products and have made a pile of money in the process. (GM's electric prototype, the Volt, was at the conference, too, along with a Toyota Prius and a Mercedez-Bentz Smart Car.) So I believe North American car companies are fully capable of adapting themselves if they set their minds to it.

During World War II, some car companies in North America were asked to retool their plants to manufacture airplanes or other military items. It did not take them ten or twenty years to think about doing it first. One plant was retooled and in production within a year; another was ready in 18 months.

Should I sympathize with badly managed dinosaur companies who should have acted for the common good years ago and started building hybrids and cars with better fuel economy, instead of flogging the hugely polluting SUVs; the same car companies that were happy to continue polluting the air our children breathe and to continue contributing to global warming despite the fact they knew or should have known this is the most serious dilemma the world is facing.

At one time in the past, corporations were directed by their values and their morals. Now corporations are selfish and greedy and profiteering, like pirates, unconcerned what reprehensible things they must do to society and the environment in the process.

So I am not going to worry about North American car companies who have only been concerned about themselves and shareholders (if they have them).

I worry about my children and the other children in Canada, and what kind of earth will be left for them as adults with children of their own. I worry about how much time is left for us to stop global warming before it is too late.