It was a night of new beginnings at town and city halls across the region.
In Windsor, an inaugural meeting that saw seven returning councillors and four new city councillors take the oath of office.
When the ceremonial procedure wrapped, Mayor Drew Dilkens followed tradition and took the stage to deliver an inaugural address.
His speech touched on Windsor's past, present and future as a city of makers -- before launching into a rally cry to diversify the city's economy.
“Over the years, we’ve transformed metal into something meaningful and boy, have we transformed a lot of metal,” he said. “We’ve also filled a lot of bottles with liquid gold. Are we’ve put more salt on kitchen tables and winter roads than most care to think of.”
Mayor Dilkens indicated he had written a speech some time ago but had to start over when General Motors announced it would be closing the Oshawa assembly plant and four others stateside at the end of 2019.
Mayor Dilkens chose his words carefully when drawing parallels between Oshawa and Windsor.
“What if it happened here?” Dilkens pondered. He admitted that’s what keeps him up at night. “We need to be ready for a day when this scenario could happen.”
Noting it’s an uncomfortable subject, the reality, he states, is that product life-cycles last about 10 years. Windsor’s Chrysler Pacifica minivan launched on the line at Windsor Assembly Plant in 2015, meaning the product lifecycle could be over by 2025.
Dilkens said city leaders would be naive to assume Windsor is immune to such a fate as losing an employer like Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, which directly provides jobs for 6,000 people. Some estimate the Windsor Assembly Plant creates another 50,000 spin-off jobs in the surrounding communities.
“I want to be very clear,” he said sternly. “Let no one leave here thinking FCA has given any indication, signal, or message that out local operation is in jeopardy. They have not.”
“We are proud of this facility and we will continue to do everything we can to help our largest employer be successful,” Dilkens said.
But he urged the community – and the newly elected councillors to rally around a vision – to hope for the best, but plan for the worst.
“We need to start planning as if we've just been given notice that 2025 is the year this plant will close. We need to operate with a sense of urgency to re-shape and re-mold our local economy,” said Dilkens. “We need to triple our efforts in economic development to fast-track the diversification of our economy."
His speech struck a chord with his fellow councillors, who rose to applaud his rally cry, including rookie city coun. Kieran McKenzie.
“I think he’s on the money with respect to identifying the need for the City of Windsor to diversify its economy. That’s been a discussion happening for many, many years,” McKenzie said after the inaugural meeting.
McKenzie believes the manufacturing sector will still play a role in this community for a long time, but having so many people in a community of 218,000 employed in a single sector presents a certain amount of risk.
“The real meat of that speech was we’re in a strong position now from an economic standpoint,” said McKenzie. “Now is the time for us to fully leverage the opportunities that we’ve been able to create for ourselves with the sound fiscal management we’ve seen in this community over the last number of years.”
“Now it’s time to realize some of the objectives that discipline has given us the opportunity to have.”
Much like GM is pivoting its operations to focus on autonomous and electric technology in vehicles, Mayor Dilkens closed out his speech by saying Windsor needs to do the same.
“We pivot, we adapt, we adjust as needed – not without the pain of change but with the purpose of prosperity,” Dilkens said. “2025 is coming fast. It will be here before you know it. Tonight is the call for ‘all hands on deck.’”
Inaugural meetings of council were also held Monday night in Leamington, Essex, Kingsville, LaSalle, Lakeshore, Amherstburg and Chatham-Kent.