Conservatives Request Details of $15B Honda EV Deal
Recently, Honda Canada has announced plans to create a new electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plant in Ontario, with $15 billion in funding from the federal government. The rapid growth of Canada's EV industry sparked significant debate over the transparency of government funding and unionized Canadian worker related to the gigantic contract.
The concerns regarding EVs were first raised by Canada's Building Trades Union (CBTU). They wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier this month regarding another EV project, the NextStar plant in Windsor, Ontario. According to CBC News, the union claims that foreign workers are displacing Canadian labourers at the NextStar construction site and that 180 local millwrights/ironworkers are unemployed and available to perform the necessary work.
At a House of Commons committee meeting last Monday, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Science, and Industry Rick Perkins criticized the federal government's handling of the NextStar contract for not prioritizing Canadian workers and argued that, given the significant government incentives, there should be clearer protections for Canadian workers in these high-value projects.
The Liberal government has defended the contract, saying that releasing details of the contract with Honda could prevent Canada from attracting other EV investments. Irek Kusmierczyk, an MP representing Windsor, acknowledged the need to prioritize Canadian workers but also pointed out that some specialized tasks required experienced foreign workers from Korea, especially in the early stages of construction. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assured the CBTU that his government is committed to maximizing Canadian job opportunities, and reiterated his support for ensuring that construction, installation, and maintenance work is conducted by Canadians as much as possible at a recent CBTU conference.
The NextStar battery plant (above) is under construction in Windsor, ON
Despite these assurances, CBTU's executive director, Sean Strickland, still expressed concerns about the lack of Canadian workers at the NextStar site. He states, in a recent CBC News article, that "Canadian workers are being sidelined without consequence. This is a slap in the face to Canadian workers and utterly unacceptable from LG and Stellantis, particularly when their shareholders stand to benefit from more than $15 billion in generous tax incentives from the Government of Canada."
While Conservative MPs push for transparency and explicit rules that include Canadian workers, the Liberal government argues that flexibility is necessary for such a large project. The Conservatives argue that public funding for these projects should explicitly depend on whether Canadian workers will benefit from the resulting jobs.
References/Further Reading:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ev-plants-foreign-workers-1.7188338
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/tories-ev-project-details-demand-1.7188222
