City officials and labour leaders are reacting to the news yesterday that Canada Bread will be laying off 62 workers and closing the North Bay facility in August.
Mayor Al McDonald says his thoughts go out to the workers and their families that will lose their jobs.
“I have reached out to Canada Bread, I have spoken to two individuals, one in Toronto and one here in North Bay. They have explained their rationale, obviously we are very disappointed. I’ve conveyed that our economic development department will assist the workers if that’s what they want so there are communications going forward on that,” said McDonald at a press conference at City Hall Thursday morning.
Henri Giroux, the North Bay and District Labour Council President can’t understand why North Bay is losing more decent jobs.
“It’s an absolute shame that Canada Bread has decided to shut down operations in North Bay,” said Henri Giroux in a Labour Council press release.
“We know that corporate CEO packages have sky-rocketed in two decades, compared to workers’ wages, and workers like those at Canada Bread continue to pay the price through the loss of their jobs.
“North Bay is bleeding quality employment, and so far we’re not seeing very many stable, decent paying jobs replacing these huge loses either.
“Where will the 62 workers find comparable work? Many have been working for Canada Bread all their working lives, own homes and have real bills like college tuition for their kids, real investments in the community made of relationships and family ties.”
The news has left the Mayor frustrated but not discouraged.
“I will be honest, we are getting five jobs here and 10 jobs there, we are building a $25 million hotel and the next thing you know we lose a business that employs 62 people, that’s frustrating but we realize that’s happening all over the world right now, we can’t stop we have to keep moving forward so that’s what we are trying to do here is always move forward,” McDonald added.
