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Ontario Economy

Ambassador Bridge blockade could have ‘enormous’ impact on Canadian trade, experts say – by Pete Evans (CBC News Windsor – February 9, 2022)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/

Goods worth $300M pass over bridge every day, about one-quarter of Canadian trade with U.S.

The Ambassador Bridge that connects Windsor, Ont., with the United States is a crucial trade link between the two countries, so its blockade has the potential to affect businesses and consumers across the country, experts say.

The bridge sees about one-quarter of all the goods that go between the two countries every day, according to Statistics Canada, with roughly $300 million worth of goods passing over it under normal circumstances.

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Premier Doug Ford pitching Ontario as electric vehicle leader, but not reintroducing rebates – by Allison Jones (Canadian Press/Global News – December 13, 2021)

https://globalnews.ca/

TORONTO — Doug Ford is pitching Ontario as the next electric vehicle manufacturing powerhouse, seemingly a far cry from the premier who three years ago cancelled incentives for people to buy them.

Where some see contradiction, others see calculated election strategy. Shortly after coming to power in 2018, Ford’s government scrapped Ontario’s cap-and-trade system, and with it the electric vehicle rebates funded by that program.

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Canada must once again grab its share of the auto industry, despite U.S. protectionism – by Dimitry Anastakis (The Conversation – December 2, 2021)

https://theconversation.com/

Dimitry Anastakis is Professor and LR Wilson/RJ Currie Chair in Canadian Business History, University of Toronto.

The news that Tesla recently reached the extraordinary valuation of US$1 trillion shows yet again that the automobile industry remains a huge economic force shaping the planet.

Tesla’s growth also reflects how the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) marks the fifth great wave of automotive investment since 1900. Despite not owning any car companies, Canada has benefited immensely from every previous wave thanks to shrewd policy-makers who used every tool possible to gain a fair share of the auto market.

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‘Certainly better than nothing’: lukewarm reaction from northern Ontario leaders to new revenue sharing plan – by Erik White (CBC News Sudbury – November 25, 2021)

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

Premier Doug Ford promised resource revenue sharing during 2018 election campaign

The Ontario government has fulfilled a campaign promise by returning some mining and forest revenue to towns and cities in the north, but some municipal leaders say it isn’t enough.

The new Northern Ontario Resource Development Support Fund will split $15 million among the 144 cities and towns and townships of the north every year for the next five years.

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Trends troubling for north’s economic future (Kirkland Lake Northern News – November 24, 2021)

https://www.northernnews.ca/

For report: https://bit.ly/3l6vkNO

Northern College has released an in-depth economic study outlining key barriers to economic expansion and recovery in Northern Ontario following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 24-page study, entitled Coming Back From Covid: A Plan to Rebuild Northern Ontario, was created in partnership with The StrategyCorp Institute of Public Policy and Economy, and was designed to provide an overview of past, current and future economic issues being faced by Ontario’s north.

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Trudeau and Biden double down on efforts to destroy our economy – by Rex Murphy (National Post – November 23, 2021)

https://nationalpost.com/

Here is a perfect symmetry. Trudeau wants to kill the oil and gas industry. Biden wants to kill our auto industry. Simpatico. They are twins

The Three Amigos? I beg your pardon. Is that an appropriate nomenclature for a conclave of the three finest minds in the statesmanship of our present-day world? What ugly slur next — the Sombrero Summit? Enough of these careless and undignified representations.

Surely a meeting between leaders of the intellectual stamina of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and particularly that giant of international understanding and competence — a Churchill for our time — U.S. President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., calls for a more dignified, respectful designation than a play on some fifth-rate movie. Shame on the news wires and networks.

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Northern Ontario plays integral part in auto supply chain – Fedeli – by Jennifer Hamilton-McCharles (North Bay Nugget – November 19, 2021)

https://www.nugget.ca/

Northern Ontario has become an integral part of the auto supply chain, says Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli. The industry, mostly centralized in southern Ontario, is moving north thanks to the increase in production of electric cars.

The provincial government released the next phase of its auto strategy Wednesday that is expected to secure production mandates for hybrid and electric vehicles, to create a domestic battery ecosystem, and position Ontario as a North American automotive innovation hub.

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Ontario EV plan aims for more production, battery plants – by Jeff Gray and Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – November 18, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has unveiled an electric vehicle strategy that aims to have the province produce 400,000 electric cars and trucks a year by 2030 and attract two or three battery plants.

The plan, released on Wednesday at a campaign-style event at auto parts maker Linamar in Guelph, Ont., about 100 kilometres west of Toronto, says the province will partner with the industry to prepare it to make the “car of the future” and “establish and support a battery chain ecosystem” using the mineral wealth in Northern Ontario.

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Climate protesters actually demanding global blackouts – by Lorrie Goldstein (Toronto Sun – November 6, 2021)

https://torontosun.com/

Let’s examine how Canada’s most successful project to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would never have happened if the climate protesters marching on the streets at the UN climate summit in Glasgow had their way.

Between 2003 and 2014, the Liberal government of Ontario under premier Dalton McGuinty eliminated the use of coal to produce 25% of its electricity. As the Liberals noted, this was single largest reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in North America at the time.

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Ford government pushes back against Biden’s protectionist stance on auto manufacturing – by Brian Lilley (Toronto Sun – October 28, 2021)

https://torontosun.com/

The Ford government is reaching out to top American politicians in the hopes of thwarting the latest protectionist measure coming from Washington. A proposed tax rebate on electric cars currently before the U.S. Congress could have a devastating impact on the future of Ontario’s auto industry.

The rebate, part of the Build Back Better budget bill, would offer American consumers a rebate of up to $12,500 for purchasing an electric vehicle but only if the car is assembled in the United States with 50% American parts and an American made battery.

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Biden’s budget puts Canada’s auto sector in peril – by Brian Lilley (Sudbury Star – October 18, 2021)

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Joe Biden’s pledge to support all things made in America could end up costing thousands of Canadian jobs in the auto industry. Budget legislation moving through the American Congress contains tax breaks for electric cars that could pretty much rule out future investments by automakers in Canada and cost tens of thousands of jobs.

The legislation would increase the incentive for buying an electric vehicle to $12,500 but only if the vehicle, and the battery that is in the vehicle, are both made in the United States.

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Risk of blackouts, higher bills if Ontario sets 2030 target to phase out natural gas, report says – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – October 8, 2021)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Phasing out Ontario’s natural gas power plants by the end of this decade is not feasible and would lead to rolling blackouts and soaring electricity bills, the body in charge of planning and operating the province’s power system said Thursday in a report that gas opponents have criticized as too pessimistic.

In the report, which responds to demands from municipalities to phase out natural gas by 2030, the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) estimates it would cost $27-billion to build alternative generating facilities and transmission lines, plus additional operating costs of $5.7-billion a year, causing a typical homeowner’s monthly bill to skyrocket by an average of $100, or 60 per cent.

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Ford Government eyes auto sector as key to economy – by Andrew Autio (Timmins Daily Press – October 5, 2021)

https://www.timminspress.com/

Ford emphasized that mining in Northern Ontario will be continue to be,
and perhaps even more so, absolutely crucial to the province’s economy
in the coming years. “We will be the No. 1 manufacturer of battery operated
cars and electric vehicles in all of North America,” he said. “We have the cobalt, have the lithium, we have the nickel, all up in the North.”

On Monday morning, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was at Queen’s Park in Toronto for the reading of his throne speech which laid out the provincial government’s objectives moving forward as an election looms in eight months, while his afternoon was spent in the city of Timmins.

Ford, along with a slew of his cabinet ministers, toured the city to get back in touch with the people of the north, and to take questions from reporters in a late afternoon press conference held at Timmins and District Hospital.

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Ontario’s pandemic is getting better. Its other big economic problems aren’t – by Randall Denley (National Post – October 1, 2021)

https://nationalpost.com/

The Ontario government, media and the public have paid attention to little else but COVID-19 for the last year and a half; now that the province is making real progress on the virus, it’s time to switch focus to Ontario’s significant and fundamental economic problems.

While there are disturbing increases in case numbers elsewhere in the country, Ontario continues its gentle downward curve. Hospitalization numbers are stable and death numbers are low.

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Ontario government has made COVID economic pain even worse – by Livio Di Matteo (Fraser Institute Blog – July 13, 2021)

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/

With much of the economic attention in Ontario focused on reopening in the pandemic’s wake, it’s easy to lose sight of the long-term picture. While the pandemic was an unforeseen shock to provincial employment and income, it remains that Ontario has seen weak employment and income growth for much of the 21st century with the decline in growth rates settling in after 2005.

Consider this. From 1990 to 2005, total employment in Ontario grew 23 per cent and real per capita GDP grew by 17 per cent. However, even omitting the COVID year, going from 2005 to 2019, Ontario’s total employment grew only 15 per cent while real per capita GDP grew by 8 per cent.

In the case of employment, this pattern of slowing growth repeats itself across Ontario’s economic regions with a range that is alarming. Indeed, all Ontario economic regions saw lower employment growth from 2005 to 2019.

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