Biggest construction project in Sault’s history is now underway – by David Helwig (Northern Ontario Business – August 8, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Algoma Steel has already sunk $103 million into its $703-million electric-arc furnace facility. New buildings will start to rise either late next month or in October

Algoma Steel Inc. has already spent more than $100 million on a two-year, game-changing technology upgrade that local building officials say will be the most expensive construction job in Sault Ste. Marie’s history.

The massive project, expected to cost $703 million, will replace Algoma’s existing blast furnace and basic oxygen steelmaking processes with two new electric arc furnaces (EAFs), allowing 3.7 million tons in annual raw steel production with something like a 70 per cent reduction in annual carbon dioxide emissions.

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Science North selects a Thunder Bay waterfront site for regional expansion – by Staff (Northern Ontario Business – August 5, 2022)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Former grain elevator site is the ‘preferred’ location for science attraction

A Thunder Bay waterfront location is the “preferred” spot for a permanent home for Science North’s expansion into northwestern Ontario. In a news release, the Sudbury-based science centre announced that the Pool 6 site in the city’s harbour will be the location to build its 34,000-square-foot attraction.

The property is the former site of the Pool 6 grain elevator, which was demolished and the land repurposed as part of the Marina Park redevelopment years ago. The site also hosts Great Lakes cruise ships.

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Elon Musk Suggests Tesla’s Next Gigafactory Might Be In Canada – by Dan Mihalascu (Inside EVs – August 5, 2022)

https://insideevs.com/

This is the second time Canada is mentioned as a potential location for the next Gigafactory; official announcement to come this year.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on August 4 that an announcement regarding the next Gigafactory could be made later this year.

During a speech at the Gigafactory Texas meeting dubbed Cyber Roundup, the executive talked in detail about Tesla’s vehicle assembly plants. He noted that Tesla opened two new factories this year—Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg and Gigafactory Texas—that are both building the Model Y, with the latter being the only Tesla facility that makes Model Ys powered by 4680 battery cells laid out in structural packs.

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Threat to Canadian electric vehicle industry dissipates with U.S. Senate deal – by Steven Chase (Globe and Mail – July 18, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A deal struck among Democrats in the U.S. Senate appears to have eliminated a threat hanging over the nascent electric vehicle manufacturing industry in Canada. An agreement announced late Wednesday between Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia gives the Democrats the votes they need to pass a key plank of U.S. President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.

The deal would amend Mr. Biden’s climate and health bill and change the terms of tax credits for electric vehicles that as previously written would have only applied to autos assembled in the United States.

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Umicore metals refiner to build $1.5-billion Ontario factory for EV battery components – by Andrew Willis (Globe and Mail – July 13, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Belgian metals refiner Umicore SA is building a $1.5-billion factory near Kingston, Ont. to produce components for electric vehicle batteries, the latest in a series of Canadian investments by automotive manufacturers.

Once operational, Umicore’s facility will see approximately 700 employees transform raw materials, including nickel, cobalt and lithium, into battery parts, creating what Federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry François-Philippe Champagne described in an interview as a “supply chain ecosystem for electric vehicle manufacturing.”

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Does Canada have what it takes to become a global EV innovation hub? – by Tony LaMantia (Automotive World – July 1, 2022)

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Tony LaMantia argues the case in favour of turning Canada into an EV mobility hub

The news that Stellantis and LG Energy Solutions are partnering on a Canadian electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing facility was transformative for the automotive industry in Canada.

It’s a CA$5bn (US$4.1bn) investment—the biggest single automotive investment in Canadian history. It will have an annual production capacity of 45 gigawatt hours and will create 2,500 jobs. It’s a pillar for the foundation of Canada’s EV ecosystem, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

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Forget inflation: Stagflation, the ugly reality where both prices and job loss are on the rise, is our bigger threat – by Armine Yalnizyan (Toronto Star – June 1, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

You thought inflation was bad? Buckle up. This ride is about to get bumpier. With every passing month, inflation — seen in higher food, gas and housing costs — is squeezing your budget harder, with no end in sight.

We all want someone to do something, but the “cure” for inflation — rate hikes to cool higher prices — is almost guaranteed to be worse than the disease. Rising prices and rising joblessness is the new fear, now that it’s clear inflation isn’t a passing problem, due to wave after wave of shocks to the global economy.

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Ontario car plants get $1B boost to build electric vehicles – by Rob Ferguson (Toronto Star – May 2, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

On the eve of Ontario’s June 2 election call, Chrysler and Dodge factories in Brampton and Windsor are getting a $1-billion infusion from the federal and provincial governments to build the next generation of hybrid and electric vehicles.

On the eve of Ontario’s June 2 election call, Chrysler and Dodge factories in Brampton and Windsor are getting a $1-billion infusion from the federal and provincial governments to build the next generation of hybrid and electric vehicles.

The money for the automakers’ parent company, Stellantis, goes toward flexible vehicle assembly lines as the 3,000-employee Brampton plant was preparing to lose production of muscle cars like the V-8 Dodge Challenger to a factory in Illinois, where new electric versions will be made.

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Would Doug Ford actually move jobs out of Toronto? – by Steve Paikin (TV Ontario – April 28, 2022)

https://www.tvo.org/

The 2022 budget promises to move provincial agencies to smaller cities. But I’ve seen this movie before

When Labour Minister Monte McNaughton went to London earlier this week, he came bearing not much hard information but word of hundreds, if not thousands, of potential jobs.

The minister announced that the province would try to sell the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board’s downtown Toronto headquarters and then re-establish the agency at a new location in the Forest City. If all goes well, the Toronto headquarters could fetch as much as $600 million for the province’s coffers.

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Ontario budget promises billions for infrastructure, critical minerals; could eliminate deficit sooner than expected – by Barbara Shecter (Financial Post – April 28, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

Doug Ford’s government said the economic recovery plan could eliminate Ontario’s deficit two years earlier than projected

In a budget delivered just over a month before voters head to the polls, in what amounts to an election platform, the Ontario government is promising to invest billions of dollars during the next three to five years to shore up infrastructure, boost the supply of critical minerals and commercialize promising technologies.

Despite the spending, the government said the economic recovery plan laid out Thursday could eliminate Ontario’s deficit two years earlier than projected in the 2021 budget.

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Canadian manufacturers hope for exemptions from latest Buy American provisions – by Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press/Yahoo Finance – April 19, 2022)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

Canadian manufacturers are once again facing the risk of being hit by U.S. protectionism and the need to fight for crucial exemptions.

The challenge comes after the Biden administration announced new procurement guidanceMonday that requires the construction material purchased for federally-funded infrastructure projects to be produced in the U.S.

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‘Here for the long term’: Feds, Ontario announce more than $500 million for GM – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – April 5, 2022)

https://financialpost.com/

The federal government and the province of Ontario on Monday announced they would each contribute $259 million to General Motors Co. as it moves to revitalize its auto manufacturing operations in Canada.

GM said it is investing more than $2 billion in its operations and the federal and provincial money will support its assembly plant in Ingersoll, in southwest Ontario, where later this year it will start producing electric commercial vans, known as the BrightDrop.

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OPINION: With a giant new investment, Canada’s auto sector has proved it can survive the EV transition. The question now is whether it can thrive – by Adam Radnowski (Globe and Mail – March 23, 2022)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada’s automotive industry is no longer facing an existential threat from the transition to electric vehicles, as it was just a year or two ago. Wednesday’s announcement that the automaker Stellantis NV will partner with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution to build a $5-billion EV battery-assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., is proof enough of the sector’s resilience.

Billed as the single largest investment in Canadian automaking since the 1980s, if not ever, it should not only provide an estimated 2,500 jobs at that new facility but help protect many existing ones, including in parts manufacturing and at Stellantis’s existing vehicle-assembly plants in Ontario.

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Ford government eyes ‘green steel’ as way to catch up on cutting carbon emissions – by Mike Crawley (CBC News Toronto – February 17,2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/

Ontario’s steel industry is aiming for a dramatic reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions, a move that will help Premier Doug Ford’s government get closer to achieving its climate-change targets.

The three biggest industrial emitters of CO2 in Ontario are all steel plants. Steel production alone accounts for more than 40 per cent of all industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the province, more than the refinery, forestry, mining and chemical sectors combined.

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If Canada is not a safe harbour for goods and trade, good luck finding one elsewhere – by David Olive (Toronto Star – February 17, 2022)

https://www.thestar.com/

The recent blockades of Canada-U.S. border crossings by radical libertarians, in support of fellow travellers who occupied Ottawa, are thought by many Canadian business leaders and economists to have caused permanent damage to our economy. A Canada heavily reliant on trade now suffers the reputation of being an unreliable supplier, they say.

That isn’t true.

There is no denying that the brief disruption in the daily $1.7-billion worth of trade by truck between Canada and the U.S. was alarming. And that it is cause for a rethink of how to better ensure uninterrupted safe passage of people and goods between our two countries.

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