With just days to go before the federal budget is tabled, Canada’s industry minister seems to be running out of patience with the automakers.

Ottawa and Ontario have agreed to provide $3 billion to General Motors and $1 billion to Chrysler as part of a bailout. The Canadian subsidiaries have until Feb. 20 to provide the governments with a restructuring plan.

"I'm signalling to them, let's get a move on, let's finish our discussions and our dialogue, and if you need the money, let's flow the money,” Tony Clement said on Jan. 19. “If you don't need the money, that's fine, too. We understand that."

But the fact is, the car companies have bigger fish to fry. They’re working out the conditions of a much bigger $17.4 billion rescue package with the U.S. government. And they’re doing it as they continue to watch their industry crumple like a slow-motion car wreck.

Since 1931, General Motors has been able to call itself the world’s biggest carmaker.

No longer.

'Canadian auto manufacturers remain caught in a maelstrom of industry changes, a trend that is unlikely to improve until at least 2010'—Sabrina Browarski, Conference Board of Canada

It says it sold 8.35 million vehicles in 2008, about 620,000 fewer than Toyota’s 8.97 million. GM’s sales were down 11 per cent from 2007. It hasn’t turned a profit since 2004.

The company’s chief operating officer, Fritz Henderson, said on Jan. 21 that GM will run out of cash long before the end of the first quarter if it doesn't get the second installment of U.S. government loan money, soon.

He attributed the delay of the $5.4 billion US to the U.S. Treasury Department's workload and the change in administrations.

So while Canada’s Finance Minister may be fed up waiting for the car companies to restructure, it sometimes seems as if they’ve done little else.

Here's a rundown on what they've been up to:

General Motors

In July 2008, GM cut its white-collar workforce and sped up production cuts. The previous month, it announced it was closing a truck plant in Oshawa, Ont., affecting approximately 2,500 workers. Three other truck plants in North America would also be shut. The news came just weeks after the closure of a transmission plant in Windsor, Ont., affecting 1400 workers.

In December, GM said it was idling about 30 per cent of its North American assembly capacity during the first quarter of 2009. Production cuts hit 20 assembly plants and, combined with earlier cuts, will result in 250,000 fewer vehicles being produced during the first quarter of this year.

Another 700 jobs at its Oshawa, Ontario plant are scheduled to be cut by February 2009.

GM employs about 20,000 at Canadian plants.

About 90 per cent of its assembled cars are shipped to the U.S. market.

Chrysler

Chrysler has long been in the worst shape of the Detroit Three. Its German partner Daimler AG saw the writing on the wall in 2007 and sold its stake to Cerberus Capital Management, a New York-based private investment firm.

In February of that year, Chrysler announced 13,000 job cuts — 2,000 in Canada — along with the closure of two U.S. facilities and shift reductions at two others.

By fall, Chrysler had cut another 1,800 positions and was looking to reduce 5,000 more positions throughout the buyout route.

Chrysler idled all of its North American manufacturing operations for at least 30 days in December, and some remain closed.

The company may have been given a lifeline in January when Fiat made a deal to form a strategic alliance that would give the Italian auto company a 35-per cent stake in the automaker and potentially take full control of Chrysler.

Chrysler would have access to new markets and cheaper, more environmentally friendly technologies, while Fiat would gain a foothold in the huge U.S. market.

Chrysler employs about 9,800 people in Canada.

Ford

Ford lost a startling $12.7 billion US in fiscal 2006 and was $2.7 billion in the red for 2007. The company said it would cut 15 per cent of its salaried workforce costs, or around 2,000 employees, by August 2008. It also said it was cutting back on truck and SUV production. The restructuring followed a January 2006 announcement of as many as 30,000 job cuts and the closure of 14 plants, including the Windsor casting plant.

Ford extended the traditional holiday shutdown at 10 of its North American assembly plants for an extra week in January due to the slumping U.S. auto market. In 2008, U.S. car and light truck sales plunged 18 per cent to 13.24 million vehicles, the worst year for sales since 1992

While Ford’s house may not be exactly in order, alone of the Detroit Three, it did not ask for emergency government loans. It did, however, ask for standby line of credit.

It expects to be back to profitability by 2010.

Ford Canada employs about 10,000 people

Market share skids to 47%

As recently as 1998, the combined market share of the Big Three in Canada and the U.S. was 70 per cent. Just 10 years later, that share had skidded to 47 per cent in both countries.

The Conference Board of Canada believes Canadian car manufacturers will lose $1.4 billion this year, a result of crashing consumer confidence and plummeting auto sales.

"Canadian auto manufacturers remain caught in a maelstrom of cyclical and structural industry changes, a trend that is unlikely to improve until at least 2010," said Sabrina Browarski, an economist with the Conference Board.

Browarski thinks that economic storm could translate into another 15,000 job cuts in the assembly sector this year. And other spinoffs industries will chop their workforces as less manufacturing translates into lower demand for parts and car services.

Detroit has a lot of problems, but analysts say they really come down to two things: labour costs and product.

Electric cars and hybrids dominate the Detroit auto show A look around at this year Detroit auto show in January shows an industry trying to change. The shiny models include hybrids, extended-range electrics and other advanced high-mileage cars. Ford did not show the newest model of its Explorer, because, it told Bloomberg, it wasn’t ready. What a change from the 1990s, when the newest Explorer sport-utility vehicle got the company’s top billing at the show.

Cutting the gas-guzzlers won’t be easy, but what may be even more painful, is cutting costs.

One of the terms of the Canadians loans to GM and Chrysler is that they are required to make their labour costs competitive with the U.S. operations of Japan-based auto makers.

Canadian Auto Workers president Ken Lewenza, however, doesn’t believe wages and benefits are the root of the problems plaguing automakers. The union represents 27,800 active GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. workers in Canada.

"Concentrating on the compensation paid to workers, which in Canada is seven per cent of the total cost of an assembled vehicle, is just being totally dishonest with the challenges we have in the auto industry," says Lewenza.

"Until this global financial crisis and credit freeze is corrected, auto workers are going to continue to face significant layoffs, significant insecurities, regardless of how much we make."

While there is no shortage of opinions on whether the bailouts should go ahead, it’s very clear an automaker bankruptcy would have immediate effect. Oshawa Mayor John Gray says governments must to do whatever it takes to save the struggling industry.

"GM pays about $20 million in property taxes … how do you make up that difference? You have to have massive tax shifts, and the lion's share of that burden would be borne by the residential sector,” he said.

Linda Hasenfratz, the CEO of parts maker Linamar of Guelph, Ont., says auto parts suppliers are facing liquidation and bankruptcy this month unless they, too, can get a bailout. She suggested they could tap into Washington’s $700 billion Wall Street rescue fund.

Without government help, the companies don’t believe they’ll survive, throwing thousands out of work, bringing down the supply chain, and starving communities of tax revenue.

Even with government help, there are no guarantees. The loans may be paid back, or bankruptcy may happen regardless.

Since Canadians will be putting up the money for the loans, as well as paying the costs of failure, we all have a stake in this.