OAKVILLE, ONT. -- The Canadian Auto Workers union has begun a major push to convince the Ontario and federal governments to provide Ford Motor Co. with the financial help it wants to build a leading-edge flexible assembly plant in Oakville, Ont., later in the decade.

"All governments are going to have to play a major role," Bob Van Cleef, president of CAW Local 707, which represents workers at the company's two current assembly plants in Oakville, said yesterday.

If they don't, the future is bleak for more than 4,000 auto workers, and a move by Ford to put the investment of more than $1-billion elsewhere will damage one of the most prosperous areas of the country, Mr. Van Cleef told a packed union meeting attended by Oakville MP Bonnie Brown, as well as members of the Ontario legislature from the region west of Toronto.

The meeting, which will be followed by a letter-writing campaign to key Ontario and federal cabinet ministers, centred on Ford's proposal to replace its Oakville Assembly Plant with a new factory in which workers would build several vehicle models off one or more platforms. (A platform is the basic underpinning of a vehicle.) Ford has said publicly that it is seeking about $200-million in government help for the plant, which would be similar to flexible operations it is building in Chicago and in Dearborn, Mich.

Constructing such a plant in Oakville would make the site a crown jewel in the Ford empire, union officials said yesterday, and would guarantee future investments well beyond this decade.

Workers vented their frustration with what they see as the two governments' lack of action in securing the new investment, as well as their failure to persuade Ford to keep open the Ontario Truck Plant, which is next door to the Oakville Assembly Plant. That plant is scheduled to close July 1, and the union and Ford Motor Co. of Canada Ltd. officials are negotiating the transfer of several hundred workers to the remaining plant, which assembles minivans.

Governments would be making an investment, not just a subsidy, if they deliver the money Ford wants, CAW economist Jim Stanford told about 1,000 CAW members.

In addition to the 4,000 direct jobs that would be secured, another 1,000 parts jobs would be created and there would be another 30,000 spinoff jobs, Mr. Stanford said. The flexible plant would generate $250-million annually in direct income, $1-billion in total income and $250-million in taxes every year.

Ford wants to build the plant here, he said, and it's an opportunity Canada must seize to make up for a long losing streak when it comes to new automotive investment -- just one new assembly plant of 18 built in North America since 1990 has come to Canada.

"If we drop this ball, we don't stand a chance," he said.