To bailout or not to bailout? It shouldn’t even be a question.

Canada’s federal government is considering financial aid to the country’s auto sector. Centered mainly in Ontario, the industry is linked to one in six jobs in the province and generates $28 billion of annual economic activity.

But continuing to prop up a commercial enterprise dedicated to building vehicles and car parts that are major contributors to climate change makes neither economic nor environmental sense.

There is no question that the stakes are high, jobs are at risk and there is a need for economic recovery. With so much riding on the right decision, it is most prudent to think long-term instead of short-term. With only so much money to go around, it’s important to spend it in the most appropriate place.

According to Kevin Gaudet, Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the Ontario government has given $352 million in loans to the Big Three automakers in the past five years, along with $430 million from the federal government, and since then the companies have laid off 6,000 Ontarians.

Last month’s U.S. car sales figures revealed that GM sales were down 45 percent, while Chrysler’s fell 34.9 percent and Ford’s dropped 30.2 percent. In Canada, by contrast, there was actually a slight increase in purchases of new vehicles compared to last year.

Once a titan of industry, General Motors has said it might not survive through year’s end without a government cash infusion. Chrysler has been seeking a merger partner for months and is rumored to be facing bankruptcy. Only Ford has said it feels it can weather the current economic turndown.

With empty pockets in their slick suits, the Big Three’s CEOs are asking for more ˆ from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, from federal Industry Minister Tony Clement, and the U.S. Congress.

But the industry made a number of poor decisions well before the credit crunch that led to their current position. Detroit’s dependence on big, non-fuel-efficient vehicles was its own doing. Their strategy ˆ not shared by rivals such as Toyota ˆ was focused on trucks, SUVs and minivans; it was profitable like the goose that laid the golden egg, but it proved costly.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has signaled to the automakers and the unions that his support for short-term aid now, and long-term assistance once he takes office, is contingent on their willingness to agree to transform their industry to make cleaner, more energy-efficient vehicles.

The Big Three auto makers are American. Yes they have factories in Canada, but 90 percent of what is assembled here is exported to our neighbour to the south.

It is time to worry more about how to protect Canadian manufacturing jobs than how to protect an ailing, ancient American industry. Canadian auto factories and workers should be used to convert our manufacturing centres into clean technology leaders.

We can do it with policy, instead of payola. We can do it by taking a page from Obama’s New Energy for America playbook. We need a Canadian industrial policy to build a green economy with investments in basic research, technology demonstration, commercial market deployment, and job training targeting renewable energy like wind and solar, energy efficiency, advanced electric vehicles and biofuels, and a smart electric grid.

The President-elect has proposed creating five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next 10 years to jump start private efforts to build a clean energy future.

Obama’s vision is shared by many others. Former Vice-President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore has challenged the U.S. to commit to producing 100 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable energy and carbon-free sources within 10 years, saying the goal will both revitalize the economy and save the planet.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt unveiled his Clean Energy 2030 plan last month which aims to wean the United States from its dependence on fossil fuels within 22 years. Schmidt said the plan requires $4.5 trillion in spending to pull it off, but it’ll pay for itself with $5.5 trillion in savings.

For its part, Google has invested $10 million in geothermal energy and another $10 million in wind technologies.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) last month requested international support of a „Global Green New Deal,‰ a proposal similar to the Depression-era policies of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. If green jobs take off worldwide, the concurrent crises of global energy shortages and climate change could also be alleviated, said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

The UNEP report ‘Green Jobs: Towards decent work in a sustainable, low-carbon world,’ says: „Given rapidly rising interest in energy alternatives, future years may well see worldwide employment soar ˆ possibly as high as 2.1 million in wind energy and 6.3 million in solar photovoltaics (PV) by 2030 and on the order of 12 million jobs in biofuels-related agriculture and industry. Projections for individual countries all indicate strong potential for large job creation in coming years and decades. Installations and maintenance of solar PV and solar thermal systems in particular offer tremendous job growth.‰

Renewable energy and supplier industries have created an estimated 2.3 million jobs worldwide, and more are expected as wind, solar, and geothermal power sources expand across the globe, according to the Worldwatch Institute.

Energy efficiency has long been touted as a policy option for economic growth. In California, efficiency mandates implemented in the 1970s saved residents $56 billion between 1972 and 2006, while creating about 1.5 million jobs, according to a recently released University of California at Berkeley study.

According to architect Edward Mazria, investing about $20 billion in building energy efficiency would save consumers $8.46 billion in energy bills annually (a less than three-year payback) reducing annual CO2 emissions by the equivalent of taking almost 16 million cars of the road for a year and create more than 200,000 new jobs.

The most impressive building project to date is the German Alliance for Work and the Environment, a retrofitting program serving 342,000 appartments as of March 2006. From 2001 to 2004, this project was responsible for creating 25,000 jobs and saving an existing 116,000. In 2006, an estimated 145,000 full-time equivalent jobs were attributed to this building retrofit program as a result of increased levels of public-private spending.

In Canada, it is estimated that a national retrofit program focusing only on municipal buildings would create 5,600 to 7,840 full-time equivalent jobs.

Our way forward to a sustainable lifestyle lies in overcoming mental and political status quo barriers. It’s time to forge a new path. Combining job creation and energy policy into one economic stimulus plan is worth supporting.

Canada has the opportunity to make the right decisions to escape from our current crisis. Why not use the money we have to solve the issues we’re debating ˆ energy security and a lack of manufacturing jobs.

The age of oil dependency is nearing an end. Compared to fossil-fuel power plants, renewable energy generates more jobs per unit of installed capacity, per unit of power generated and per dollar invested.

Using our former auto workers and their factories, we can build our own energy future, or like our automobiles, buy our wind turbines and solar panels from someone else.