“There’s a little bit little bit of Canada in each single new car GM is constructing.”

That’s what GM Canada President Marissa West instructed me on the Sept. 30 episode of the Automotive Information Canada Podcast.

Was it merely spontaneous dialog? A advertising ploy? A intelligent — however maybe contrived — remark, deliberate particularly for a podcast West knew can be heard by suppliers, sellers and advertisers?

We’ll by no means actually know the genesis of her quip, but it surely made my ears perk up. It’s a traditional sound chew made for immediately’s 280-character, sound chew world. However it made others in my journalistic circle roll their eyes.

Nevertheless you hear the phrases, they ring true. Extra so now than virtually ever.

Let’s simply take a look at latest historical past. Because the flip of the century, GM has closed its one remaining Quebec meeting plant in St. Therese in 2022; shuttered — and finally razed — its transmission plant in Windsor, Ont., in 2010; and closed its Oshawa meeting plant in 2019.

However, since then, it has reopened Oshawa, which is now constructing pickups on three shifts. In March, GM introduced it’s returning to Quebec with a plant in Bécancour that may course of lively electric-vehicle battery supplies. It’s additionally retooling the CAMI meeting plant in Ingersoll, Ont., to construct electrical business vans.

The Detroit-based automaker additionally operates the GM Technical Centre in Markham, Ont., the place practically 1,200 engineers work on car software program and check the expertise on the brand new CTC McLaughlin Superior Know-how Observe in Oshawa, which opened in 2021.

In a matter of three years, Normal Motors went from villain to saviour.

At one time, Unifor, which represents hourly employees on the automaker, was calling for a boycott, shopping for full-page adverts in U.S. newspapers to disgrace GM.

In the present day, the automaker is crammed to the brim with unionized employees in Oshawa. And the hiring of 1,200 engineers West talked about on the podcast exceeds early GM estimates starting from 700 to 1,000.

“We’ve definitely made a dedication to Canada, and we’ve been working in live performance with the federal government on these investments. I feel it’s protected to say we’re right here to remain.”

That’s one thing that couldn’t be mentioned again in 2019.

So even when West’s remark about “a little bit little bit of Canada” being in each GM car got here from somebody the likes of TV’s Don Draper (“Mad Males”), I feel it’s earned. And true. And that makes it simply nice by me.