The Globe and Mail - Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada Inc. confirmed Tuesday it will join with the Ontario and federal governments to invest $545-million to upgrade the auto maker’s Cambridge and Woodstock facilities.
The two levels of government will invest $70-million each as part of a green initiative.
The government financing represents the first major financial contribution they have made to an auto maker since they spent about $13-billion to help bail out Chrysler LLC and General Motors Corp. during the recession that led to the auto industry crisis in 2008-09.
Project Greenlight will include a major upgrade of the paint shop at the auto maker's Cambridge, Ont., plant , Toyota Canada chairman Ray Tanguay said.
Federal Science Minister Gary Goodyear said the projects could lead to the creation of an additional 500 jobs at Toyota's two Ontario plants.
Mr. Tanguay said however, that Toyota is making a commitment to maintaining the existing 6,500 jobs it has in Ontario. It had previously agreed to maintain 5,000 jobs as part of a deal it made with the governments when it built the Woodstock, Ont., plant, which opened in 2008.
The Toyota funding is a response to the first of what is expected to be a new round of requests from auto makers seeking financial help to upgrade their Canadian plants as product mandates now held by those plants expire and as the companies seek ways to offset the billions of dollars they are spending to meet new fuel economy regulations.
The announcement comes as Toyota struggles to get the two Canadian plants back to full production following the March earthquake in Japan, which severely disrupted the operations of parts suppliers there.
The Cambridge facility is the only Toyota plant outside Japan that assembles vehicles for the company’s luxury Lexus franchise.
It is one of the three plants that tied in the annual J.D. Power and Associates annual survey of initial quality. The Cambridge plant shared the platinum award with a Lexus plant in Japan and a Honda Motor Co. Ltd. plant in Greensburg, Ind., which turned out vehicles with the fewest defects and malfunctions.
