Doug Ford says Ontario will boost Stellantis subsidy to keep proposed battery plant in Windsor
The Ontario government will pay more to ensure that an electric vehicle battery plant is built in Windsor, Ont., Premier Doug Ford said on May 19.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government blamed Ontario, insisting that Ford was refusing to pay the province’s share of a subsidy package sufficiently large enough to compete with incentives from various U.S. states.
“I will confirm we are putting more money on the table there,” Ford said at a press conference.
“This is all about saving jobs and giving people the quality of life they deserve,” the premier added. “It’s about communicating, sitting across the table. Forget about political stripes … I can’t stand these political stripes.”
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Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne welcomed Ford’s comments and said he was confident of a deal with Stellantis, which makes cars and trucks under the Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat brands.
“The comments … of Premier Ford for me indicates progress,” said Champagne at a press conference after Ford’s announcement. “We need to come to a negotiated agreement quickly with all parties involved.”
Champagne also dismissed the notion that Stellantis’s decision was influenced by the rich deal that Canada made with Volkswagen Group – subsidies that Canada has offered Volkswagen to build a different battery plant could reach about $13 billion.
“I want to dismiss something that I have seen in the press,” said Champagne. “In March of last year we already had a deal with Stellantis … but obviously, when the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) came, they asked that we sit down to make sure that in the spirit of maintaining that activity, that we look at what we can do. So, we have been negotiating.”
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Passed in the United States in August, the Inflation Reduction Act is a law that provides enormous financial supports to companies that locate their production in the U.S. — from electric vehicle battery production, to hydrogen, to biofuels and beyond.
Champagne said that Stellantis’s decision to halt construction was just part of “normal negotiations” and asked Canadians not to be “too concerned over that.”
He added that he had a two-hour-long dinner with the president of LG Energy Solution Ltd., a company that has invested in the Windsor plant along with Stellantis, something which Champagne describes as a “good sign” with regards to the future battery plant in Windsor.
Last year, Stellantis and LG Energy Solution inked an agreement with Ottawa to invest more than $5 billion to build the Windsor battery factory that is expected to create 2,500 jobs.
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“I’m going to be sure that we are careful with how we spend our money, that we are getting fair value for the federal dollars that are invested and the other partners, in this case Stellantis and the province of Ontario, are making a fair contribution,” she said.
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