Yes he had a choice but he does not have the courage to go that route.
Your argument that they can pull other business, well they are already eliminating Canadian businesses by including “Buy American” clause in stimulus package. Also, if history teaches us anything, they don’t care about Canadian interest e.g. lumber war, rejection of Canadian beef and so on… so we as Canadian need to stand up to safe guard our own interest. Question is, is it our interest to bailout GM?
Secondly, if other auto manufactures go for bankruptcies down the road, are we going to bail them out as well? E.g. Honda has a very big operation in Canada, if they go bankrupt and Japanese government decide to bail them out, are we going to chip in our share there as well just because of the fear that other Japanese companies can pull their operation out from Canada?
In capitalist economy businesses work to make money. If they are not making money, they simply vanish, GM is not going to be the first one. As long as it’s viable for Coca Cola or any other company per say to do manufacturing in Canada, no government can make them move their operations.
I think right now he is doing all it takes to please Obama administration, as conservative started with him on a bad note during the US democratic primaries where they leak some conversation to please Hilary. Now conservative government and Canadian taxpayers are paying the price for stupid move conservatives made not so long ago.