The Ontario government has led to a manufacturing renaissance in Ontario. Announced this week, Ontario is welcoming a historic investment from Volkswagen to build its first overseas battery cell plant in St. Thomas, Ontario. This game-changing investment is a testament to Ontario’s strong and growing battery ecosystem and competitive business environment.
Our province is poised to become a major player in the electric vehicle industry, creating thousands of new jobs and helping to build a cleaner, more sustainable future. With a highly skilled workforce, clean energy, an abundance of critical minerals, access to markets, and a flourishing automotive and battery sector, we are an attractive investment destination with everything companies need to grow.
In October 2020, MPP Crawford joined the Premier to announce a $295 million investment with Ford Motor Company of Canada to make their Oakville Assembly Complex a global hub for battery electric vehicle (BEV) production by 2025. (Bloomberg recently ranked Canada second in their annual global battery supply chain report.)
These investments from foreign car manufacturers reflect a growing confidence in the growth of Ontario’s economy and confirm the province’s position as a global leader in the electric vehicle supply chain.
Recent job numbers show that the Ontario government’s plan to build Ontario’s economy is working. There are over 600,000 new jobs since the government took office in June 2018.
Amid global uncertainty, this government will continue to work around the clock to create the right conditions for workers and businesses to succeed. By keeping taxes low, reducing electricity costs cutting red tape, and training a world-class, skilled workforce, we are doing all that we can to compete for and win global investments. Over the last two and a half years, Ontario has attracted $17 billion in investments from global automakers and suppliers of electric vehicle batteries and battery materials and $3 billion in investments from global life sciences companies.
Our government continues to demonstrate strong leadership by ensuring that our energy system is sound, reliable, affordable, and environmentally clean. We should all be proud of the fact that our electricity grid is over 90% emissions-free.
This government is making the largest transit expansion plan investment in this country’s history: $61 billion over the next 10 years to connect the grid, a spider web of transit routes across the entire province. This includes GO rail’s expansion program to bring two-way, all-day frequent service to communities, including Oakville, in core parts of the GO rail network, with trains as often as every 15 minutes. Electrification is a key part of that process to reduce emissions, and our public transit system is an important part of that.
These low-carbon transportation investments demonstrate our government’s laser-focus on reaching its goal of reducing Ontario’s emissions by 30% by 2030. Our government will continue to be a leader when it comes to building on this success by growing our EV ecosystem and supporting clean technology to create well-paying jobs and spur economic growth and prosperity for future generations.
