OTTAWA–Finance Minister Jim Flaherty should be fired in the wake of General Motors saying it is closing its Oshawa truck plant, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says.

GM’s announcement that it will shut the plant in 2009, throwing 2,000 people out of work, caused an uproar in both the House of Commons and the Ontario Legislature yesterday.

“The finance minister told the world not to invest in Ontario,” Dion said in the Commons.

“Unfortunately, General Motors took his advice and the workers and their families are paying the price. Any finance minister who discourages investment and job growth is not fit to be finance minister.”

Harper shrugged off the planned layoffs, saying it was the result of “a couple of one-time events” in an otherwise healthy economy.

You know, it’s not necessary to call for a Minister to resign every single time something goes wrong. Yet, we seem to get at least a dozen demands along those lines every year. Radwanski had a good take on this feigned fury earlier this spring (the point stands even though the post was about Bernier).

Back to Flaherty. Yes, his “last place to invest” comments were stupid. But does anyone really think that was the reason GM closed up shop?

What is interesting amid these calls for Flaherty’s resignation is that the Tories aren’t trotting out the “blame Dalton” talking points on this one, preferring instead to downplay the seriousness of the economic slump.