Ghiz let Pepsi workers down: Opposition

The P.E.I. government has let Islanders down by not protecting jobs at the Pepsi Bottling Plant in Charlottetown, says Conservative MLA Mike Currie.

On Wednesday, the Pepsi Bottling Group announced the plant would be converted to a satellite warehouse in the spring, following the end of the province's ban on canned pop. The company said it expects to retain or redeploy about 60 of the plant's 83 employees.

Currie said under the former Progressive Conservative government's plan for ending the can ban, the plant would have continued as a bottler.

"What we had proposed to do was bring in legislation that would allow 50/50 on the shelves of bottled pop and canned pop," said Currie.

"This would maintain the jobs. And also work with the company on other products that they have, that they would modernize or re-invest in the plant to not only secure but maybe even enhance the jobs at the Charlottetown plant."

Government will employ laid off workers

But Environment Minister George Webster told CBC News Thursday no one currently working at the bottling plant will be without a job or forced to move.

Webster said it is his understanding that the 60 employees Pepsi intends to retain will be reorganized within the Charlottetown facility. The employees who are being laid off will be found work within the government's new plans for recycling cans.

Pepsi has not confirmed that the 60 employees remaining will be offered work on P.E.I. In an e-mail to CBC News, it also said there has been no decision made yet about Seaman's beverages, the pop flavours it inherited when it bought the plant.

Before the Pepsi purchase, Seaman's was one of the last family-owned bottlers in Canada, with a history going back to 1939.

After months of delay, Webster also announced Thursday that cans will return to P.E.I. on May 1, roughly one year after the legislation was passed to end the ban that was put in place in 1984.