In the news today: the Toyota USA Foundation has given over $317,000 to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania to support environmental literacy in U.S. schools.
Thus begins my rant for the day: the number of people who object to import automakers in North America because "they send all that money back to Japan."
I just got back from a tour of Subaru's plant in Lafayette, Indiana, which builds the Legacy, Outback, Tribeca and the Toyota Camry. The president of the company's American branch is very obviously from Japan. But when I went through the plant, I didn't see too many people who fit that bill. They all looked like local, corn-fed Indiana men and women to me. The parking lot was filled with vehicles they'd apparently bought with their Subaru wages (and they were overwhelmingly Chevrolet products, mostly trucks). At quitting time, they all got into those vehicles and seemed to be going home, presumably to houses bought or rented with money that I'm guessing is not going to Japan, but into their pockets.
Last week I drove out Ontario's Highway 401, past a giant new plant that Toyota is building in Woodstock. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm guessing that the hundreds of construction workers were not flown in from Japan. I'm also pretty sure that the mountains of building supplies didn't come from overseas, either. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the money to build this massive factory either came from Toyota's Canadian branch -- or hell, maybe some of it even came from Japan.
You can hate the import automakers if you like. For that matter, I think it's healthy to promote local industry -- heaven knows, Canada can use as many good-paying manufacturing jobs as it can get. But be honest about it. This crap about the money going "back to Japan" is just that -- crap. The automakers plow it back into Canadian wages, Canadian factories, and Canadian taxes.
And for that matter, what happens when you go down to your local GM or Chrysler or Ford store in Canada and buy a "domestic" car? Going by the "Japanese" argument, aren't those companies just sending your money back to Michigan -- back to a foreign country?
