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Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says he is worried that U.S. president-elect Barack Obama will force the Detroit Three auto makers to repatriate jobs by pulling production out of Canada and Mexico in return for financial aid.

“My concern is that what a Democratic administration says is, ‘We've got more money, but here are the terms. …We insist that those cars be produced in the United States,'” Mr. McGuinty told reporters last night.

He expressed hope it won't come to that, but said that is a good reason for the Canadian government to extract conditions from the domestic auto makers “sooner rather than later.”

The Harper government is coming under mounting pressure to provide financial support to the Canadian auto sector, because every other region that produces cars and trucks, including the United States, the European Union and Australia, is putting up billions of dollars to get the industry back on a sound footing.

NDP Leader Jack Layton yesterday called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to include help for the auto sector in next week's Speech from the Throne. If Canada simply sits back and does nothing, this country would sacrifice its traditional role as the producer of a proportion of the cars made in North America, Mr. Layton told reporters.

“That would be a disaster for the economy,” he said after his first meeting with Mr. Harper since the election.

Mr. Layton and Mr. Harper met on the same day that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced three aggressive measures to help shore up Canada's credit markets. He said the government would add $50-billion to its mortgage-purchase program and slash the price the government is charging to Canadian banks to insure their wholesale lending.

Mr. Layton said the federal government has come to the aid of the banks, while doing nothing for the auto sector, which has also been sideswiped by the global economic crisis.

“The contrast is rather stark,” he said.

Mr. McGuinty made much the same point.

“We need to see the auto sector somewhat in the same light,” he said. “There's no magical difference between banks and the auto industry. They are both indispensable to the generation of wealth and support they provide to our quality of life, including our public services.”

Mr. McGuinty plans to meet Friday with the presidents of all five Canadian units of the Detroit Three and Japanese auto makers to discuss the crisis.

He said he needs to hear directly from the executives why they are seeking help from the federal and Ontario governments and plans to ask the following questions: “Why exactly should we do this, what are we going to get out of this, and why is this a good thing for the public to do?”

His government needs assurances regarding the long-term viability of the auto makers' Canadian operations, Mr. McGuinty said. The Honda Civic, the No. 1-selling car in Canada, is produced in Ontario, he said, and he wants other vehicles that are in high demand made here.

“I'd like to get a Ford Civic equivalent and a GM Civic equivalent and a Chrysler equivalent,” he said.

The stakes are enormous for Ontario. The auto sector accounts for 5 per cent of the provincial economy, is the major employer in a dozen communities and employs 400,000 people.

Chrysler Canada, Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. and General Motors of Canada Ltd. have asked for loan guarantees or other financial support to ensure what they have called the survival of the auto industry in Canada amid the credit crisis and a collapse in the U.S. vehicle market.

The plunge in sales in the U.S. market affects Canadian assembly plants because about 85 per cent of the vehicles made here are exported to the United States, Reid Bigland, president of Chrysler Canada Inc., told reporters yesterday.

Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement suggested that the Canadian Auto Workers union may have to help the domestic units of the Detroit Three weather the crisis.

“I'm posing the question: How can the CAW be helpful?” Mr. Clement told reporters yesterday after a closed-door speech to a conference in Toronto.

He said he's also examining what the federal and Ontario governments can do to assist the Detroit Three.

“We've all got to dip our oars in the water and start rowing in the same direction,” Mr. Clement said.

He made his comments just hours after his colleague, Mr. Flaherty, said some people in his own Ontario riding – a key centre of automobile assembly – do not want the car companies to be bailed out.

“There are many people saying we should do something with respect to the auto sector,” Mr. Flaherty told the conference in a session that was open to the media. But even in Whitby-Oshawa, which is the home of GM Canada, “there are lots of people who say: ‘Don't do anything; don't use my tax money to bail out an enterprise that may not survive.'”

The people who have told him this are not rich, he said, but “people on the street.”

With a report from The Canadian Press