Romina Maurino And Kristine Owram, THE CANADIAN PRESS

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TORONTO - As the prospects for a U.S. auto bailout package seemingly change by the hour, one thing is certain: Canada will have to wait for the outcome of the political wrangling south of the border before it can act on its own rescue plans for the Ontario-based subsidiaries of the Detroit Three carmakers.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday that General Motors, Ford and Chrysler must go public with their aid requests in this country if they want taxpayers to support a financial package like the one being finalized in the United States.

"Ontarians are people of goodwill and they do want to lend a hand to families in a time of challenge, but don't try to pull the wool over our eyes," McGuinty said.

"We're on a two-way street here."

But if a deal to spend US$14 billion on emergency loans for struggling U.S. automakers - which could be enacted by the end of the week if everything goes according to plan - comes to fruition, Canada will have to act quickly to protect the auto industry here.

Any plan that is passed by the U.S. Congress will force the recipients of any aid into a dramatic restructuring that will inevitably result in plant closures and thousands of layoffs.

GM, Ford and Chrysler have big assembly plants in Oshawa, Ont., Oakville and Brampton in the Toronto area and St. Thomas and Windsor in southwestern Ontario as well as parts operations in Windsor, Toronto, St. Catharines and elsewhere.

The companies have already cut output and thousands of jobsin Ontario, but more could be on the line through another round of Detroit Three streamlining in North America.

If Canada wants to ensure it doesn't end up shouldering a disproportionate amount of the pain, it will have to follow in the footsteps of the U.S., regardless of its inclinations, said Tony Faria, an auto industry specialist at the University of Windsor.

"I do fully believe Canada has to come to the table," Faria said.

"Primarily it's a defensive measure to make sure Canada doesn't suffer the brunt of plant closures and job eliminations across the Detroit Three."

The US$14-billion package of emergency loan making its way through the U.S. political system is far less than the US$34 billion the automakers said they needed to survive the next few months.

But Faria said it's likely Congress simply wants to give the struggling automakers - particularly Chrysler and GM, which have both warned they're on the verge of bankruptcy - enough to survive until Barack Obama becomes president on Jan. 20. At that point, Congress will probably fork over the additional US$20 billion requested by the manufacturers.

"There is no question, if this stop-gap measure is passed, that once the new president is inaugurated on Jan. 20 and the new U.S. Senate and House are seated, one of the first orders of business they will put into place will be the rest of these companies' bridge financing requests," Faria said.

This means the federal and Ontario governments will have no choice but to give the Detroit Three's Canadian counterparts most, if not all, of the proportional $6.8 billion in aid they've requested.

McGuinty said Wednesday that, if the government is going to hand over money, it will first want to know how many jobs will be lost and what the companies will do to turn their operations around.

"Ontarians are, at a minimum, entitled to know by way of information, the kind of information they've already made public in the United States," he said.

But it won't matter how much information taxpayers have if the U.S. passes its aid package and Canada wants to protect itself from disproportionate job losses, Faria said.

"(Canada needs) to ensure the $6 billion is being spent in Canada and ensure that the companies are moving towards a situation where, while they do have to eliminate some future plant capacity and do have to eliminate some jobs, Canada is not being hit disproportionately hard," he said.

Faria added that Canada will also want to ensure that the Detroit Three consider Canada as a place to manufacture new products, including hybrid vehicles. If the auto companies don't. he warned that plants - including the Ford plant in St. Thomas, Ont., which is only slated to manufacture vehicles until 2012 - will close.

Sources have confirmed to The Canadian Press that Chrysler, Ford and General Motors are seeking a total of $6.8 billion in loans and credit lines from Ottawa and Ontario, but the only company that has made its request public is Ford.

Chrysler is reportedly also threatening to shut down two plants in the province if it doesn't get the funding it wants. The company operates assembly plants in Windsor and the Toronto area and a parts plant in Toronto.

GM spokesman Stew Low said Wednesday the company always expected to make its submissions public and plans to release details by the end of the week after meeting with government officials.

"We are trying to follow the process where government has access to the information they need but the competitive data is kept secure," Low said in an email.

"The submission has not been released yet as the Canadian government had asked for a bit of time to review the submission before it went public."

Ontario Economic Development Minister Michael Bryant said a decision on the aid package could come from Ottawa and Ontario as early as Friday.

On Wednesday, Congressional Democratic leaders and the White House apparently reached a deal to spend US$14 billion on emergency loans for struggling U.S. automakers before it seemed to hit a Republican road block.

Senator George Voinovich, a Republican from Ohio and a leading supporter of the emergency measure, said Wednesday afternoon it didn't have the necessary Republican votes to pass Congress.

The Canadian and Ontario governments have been watching the negotiations in Washington closely and are under pressure to provide assistance to the Detroit automakers as well.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has acknowledged that Canada may have to act before the Jan. 27 budget to help bail out the teetering auto sector, but added Ottawa is not prepared to write a blank cheque to the Detroit Three.