Swedish company Northvolt will formalize its plans to build a battery-cell manufacturing plant in Montrgie on Thursday in the company of federal and provincial elected officials.
With its plant, the company would fill the missing link in the battery industry in Quebec. Various reports have cited an investment of $7 billion and the creation of 4,000 jobs. The chosen plot would be 100 hectares, or more than 75 football fields.
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The project is the worst-kept secret in the Quebec economic world. Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon has regularly alluded to it in recent weeks and numerous reports have discussed parts of it.
The announcement is already raising fears in the region related to noise and pollution from the plant. A petition with 700 signatures has been submitted to the McMasterville municipal council to block the project.
Fitzgibbon believes it should be given a chance.
“What is important is that, when a project is announced, no matter which one, the company can explain to citizens what the nature of the project will be, how the company will respect the issues, which are legitimate noise and visibility issues. Let’s give the company (the opportunity) to be able to explain to citizens.”
Fitzgibbon believes it’s normal for people to oppose an economic project as “the history of Quebec is such that a project is never 100 per cent accepted,” he said.
Thursday’s event will add to a series of recent announcements in the battery ecosystem in Quebec. Ottawa and Quebec have granted $640 million for the Ford plant in Bcancour. That of GM-Posco, for its part, benefited from nearly $300 million from both levels of government.
The amounts allocated to the battery sector have, however, been the subject of criticism. The president and CEO of the National Bank, Laurent Ferreira, last week criticized government subsidies paid to foreign companies to develop the battery sector.
“My point on this is that when we give subsidies to foreign companies, they go directly into the pockets of foreign shareholders who are mainly not Canadian,” Ferreira said in an interview. “I doubt this model, in the longer term, for the creation of wealth.”
In response, Fitzgibbon defended the subsidies during a press scrum on Friday.
“If there were no government subsidies, there would be zero battery sector in Canada. It would be in the United States.”
He suggested he would provide data to demonstrate the benefits of government investments during Thursday’s announcement.
“I will come back with figures to show what the impact of this sector is,” Fitzgibbon said.