Hampton questions provincial buying practises

News Release
Howard Hampton, MPP

Queen’s Park: NDP Economic Development and Trade critic Howard Hampton wants to know what Premier Dalton McGuinty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have offered to the US in an attempt to bypass “Buy American” restrictions and whether Ontario’s own procurement policies are now on the chopping block.
“Buy Ontario policies have helped create good green jobs building public transit and green technology. If Dalton McGuinty’s offering to scrap those plans he can’t do it in secret,” Hampton said. “Ontarians have a legal right to determine how their public tax dollars are being spent – and we shouldn’t give that away without a debate.”

Hampton was referring to a Harper government proposal backed by the McGuinty government to effectively bind Canadian provinces and municipalities to the public purchasing rules as established under North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in return for possible Canadian exemptions from U.S. ‘Buy American’ policies.
“I worry that if Dalton McGuinty has his way we won’t be able to say that future subway cars and streetcars should be made in Thunder Bay,” he said.
Hampton also said that the NDP believes that governments have a duty to use public procurement as a tool for long-term economic development, environmental protection and job creation and that provincial Buy Ontario/Canada provisions should be expanded in scope, not reduced.

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