Honda Canada says it is investing approximately $15 billion to create Canada’s first comprehensive electric vehicle supply chain, according to an announcement made this morning at the Japanese automotive giant's Alliston plant.
According to The Canadian Press, this is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier Doug Ford were on hand for the company's "milestone investment."
"This large-scale project will see four new manufacturing plants in Ontario," states a provincial news release. "Honda will build an innovative and world-class electric vehicle assembly plant — the first of its kind for Honda Motor Co. Ltd. — as well as a new stand-alone battery manufacturing plant at Honda’s facilities in Alliston."
To complete the supply chain, the province says Honda will also build a cathode active material and precursor (CAM/pCAM) processing plant through a joint venture partnership with POSCO Future M Co., Ltd. and a separator plant through a joint venture partnership with Asahi Kasei Corporation.
Once fully operational in 2028, the new assembly plant is expected to produce up to 240,000 vehicles per year.
In the last four years, the province says automotive and battery makers have announced more than $31 billion in investments in electric vehicle manufacturing across Canada.
"Honda’s investments in an electric vehicle assembly plant and a battery manufacturing plant in Alliston will create over 1,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs in Ontario, with the CAM/pCAM processing plant and separator plant helping to create thousands of additional direct and indirect jobs in Ontario and across Canada, including during the construction phase and across Ontario’s leading auto parts supplier and research and development ecosystems," states the news release.
Rick Perkins, a Nova Scotia MP who serves as the Conservative Party's shadow minister for innovation, science and industry, and Caledon-Dufferin MP Kyle Seeback, the Conservatives' shadow minister for international trade and acting shadow minister of labour, released a joint statement about today's announcement.
“We have seen before where Justin Trudeau announces massive subsidies that are supposed to create Canadian jobs, only to see him turn around and let those jobs be filled by foreign replacement workers," the statement read.
BarrieToday will have more on this developing story.
