It’s $43 billion. That is more auto investment landed in the province of Ontario than in any other jurisdiction, including every US state. That’s what’s happening. That is this powerhouse that is Ontario. The global automakers are choosing Ontario because we are at the centre. We are now the actual centre of the global electric vehicle revolution that is under way.

Speaker, I could continue to talk for quite a while about EVs, but I move that the question now be put.

Well, just think about where we were five years ago. We had an auto sector that was failing, no plans for EV production. But under the leadership of Premier Ford, we have a plan. It’s called Driving Prosperity, and it’s a plan to make Ontario the EV global centre. We started with all the current automakers—success. We then attracted two major battery manufacturers—success. Now, after $27 billion of investment, we’re working on all of the major supply chain. Umicore is the first of many component suppliers for our EV revolution.

Think of this, Speaker: We went from zero to $27 billion in three years—that’s why Bloomberg named Ontario as the number two in the global EV supply chain.

We are building things here in the province of Ontario, and we’re leading.

It was a thrill to hear Volkswagen announce their $7-billion investment for their first overseas EV battery manufacturing plant right here in Ontario. From our very first meeting in Toronto a year ago this month to the four meetings they had in Queen’s Park with Premier Ford, we knew that Ontario had everything VW was looking for.

As we talked about our EV ecosystem, from critical minerals in the north to the manufacturing might in the south, you could see VW being drawn into the Ontario story: clean, green electricity; coal-free, green steel; one of the largest automakers in North America; the only jurisdiction with five auto plants; 700 parts companies; 300 connected-and-autonomous-vehicle companies; 500 tool-and-die and mould makers. But what they really saw was that we already have the talent to turn out world-class, award-winning production.

We felt encouraged about where we were with the deal when Volkswagen effectively moved into our offices last January. And winning it, Speaker? There’s just no better feeling than that, so thank you, Premier Ford. It was the culmination of a lot of work, a lot of shoe leather, and a lot of sweat equity by a lot of partners.

Ontario now has $25 billion in new auto investment in two and a half years.

Firstly, thank you to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London for the integral role he played in landing Volkswagen into his riding in St. Thomas.

And the member is correct. We landed an historic investment from Europe’s largest automaker and it’s making headlines around the world: the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and, overseas, the Financial Times—all positive stories about Ontario’s skilled workforce, clean energy, our EV ecosystem, critical minerals, all the things we wrote in our Driving Prosperity plan when we began this monumental turnaround of our auto sector and our move to lead the EV revolution.

Speaker, the auto world now knows what Volkswagen saw, that Ontario has everything a company needs to be part of the EV future.

Thank you to the member from Elgin–Middlesex–London for his important role in bringing Volkswagen to his riding of St. Thomas. Rob, you did spectacular work.

Last week, we landed an historic investment from Europe’s largest automaker: This is Volkswagen’s first overseas EV battery manufacturing plant, right here in Ontario. Speaker, they had sites all over the globe to choose from, but they selected Ontario because they saw that we are transforming Ontario’s automotive supply chain to build the cars of the future. They saw that we lowered the cost of doing business in Ontario by $7 billion annually, and that brought $17 billion in auto investment. They saw that we’re building an EV auto sector, and they wanted to be an important part of that. This Legislature says, “Welcome, Volkswagen.”

Interjections.

From our talented workforce, our clean energy, to Ontario’s comprehensive EV ecosystem, our abundance of critical minerals, our message has been clear: Ontario has everything companies need to succeed.

Speaker, this investment is a major vote of confidence in Ontario’s position as the global EV supplier to the world.

That is applause-worthy. It really is.

The auto sector accounts for 100,000 jobs throughout the province, and for the very first time in the history of the auto sector, northern Ontario will now be included. The auto sector now, because of electric vehicles, takes in critical minerals, the processing of critical minerals, the production of the parts for batteries, batteries, the production of auto parts—we have 700 parts makers in Ontario, and 450 tool and die and mould makers in Ontario. We’ve got 300 companies that are in the connected and autonomous vehicle business.

Think about the very first electric vehicle in Canada that came off the assembly line only a month or so ago, GM’s BrightDrop. It’s basically a FedEx delivery vehicle, the very first electric vehicle rolled off the assembly line. It was designed and engineered in Markham, Ontario, by GM. Seven hundred employees are there.

Ford has 500 of these types of employees in Ottawa. BlackBerry QNX has about 500 in Ottawa as well.

In Windsor, Stellantis has about 800 employees. They’ve put in almost a billion dollars and have two—two—North American centres of excellence, research centres. It is their head location for battery design and battery research.

That’s what’s happening in Ontario, and it’s because we’re competitive that we have this edge. We have a talented workforce. We have state-of-the-art research and development. We have award-winning manufacturing.

Look at Toyota. Toyota won the J.D. Power award for the best production plant in the world. This isn’t the best Toyota plant; it’s the best auto plant in the world. And because of electric vehicles, we now have this critical mineral part of it that’s added.

But we’ve also got a clean energy advantage. Speaker, if you bought an electric vehicle in the United States, you would think you’ve made a contribution to society by buying an electric vehicle. But in the US it’s made, sadly, with energy that’s made from burning coal. So if you buy a car that has a battery made in Kentucky, you’ve got about 6% clean energy. If you buy a car that has a battery made in Indiana, you have about 7% clean energy. You’ve got assembly plants that are made without clean energy. You’ve got steel in the doors and the hoods that are made with coal-produced steel.

Shift to Ontario for a second. You’ve got a clean energy environment—94% clean energy is what we build our cars with. Our battery companies will be able to buy an equivalent of 100% clean energy. At Dofasco and at Algoma, they’re now making steel not from coal, but from an electric arc furnace, which means we have green steel building our cars, with clean energy building our cars. So when you buy an electric vehicle, as they start to come off the assembly lines in Brampton and in Oakville and in Windsor, you will have a car that you can be proud of because it is not just an electric vehicle, it is a zero-emission—a green—vehicle, which will be the envy of the EV sector. That is a very, very big component. Think about Dofasco alone. You’re talking about the equivalent of taking a million cars off the road a year just by that one conversion alone.

The critical minerals are something that I think will be the sleeper story this year. I think it was the Windsor Star that did an interview and they asked, “What is going to be the exciting news this year?” And I said, “You watch. The sleeper story will be a lithium hydroxide plant for northern Ontario.” I genuinely believe that. I don’t normally overpromise because we don’t like to ever underdeliver, but I can tell you I really believe that we are going to see lithium projects in northwestern Ontario start to happen, and they’re going to need a lithium hydroxide plant. You need that liquid to make a battery, and we believe that the minerals of northern Ontario should be processed here in northern Ontario and tie the auto sector into the north for the very, very first time.

We have a real competitive advantage. Ontario is one of the very few jurisdictions that has every mineral necessary to make a lithium ion battery. We’ve got great, great new nickel finds around Timmins, if you can imagine—a gold town like Timmins. South of Timmins they have a fabulous new nickel find. Just north of Timmins, Canada Nickel is there with a great new nickel find.

In Sudbury, where we’ve seen Onaping Depth go down—it’s an old mine that couldn’t get any deeper because of the technology. Well, today you can actually send electric vehicles down there. You don’t need to worry about ventilation anymore because you’ve got electric vehicles doing the heavy work. They’re going to go deep, as deep as they possibly can. That’s because of the electric vehicle revolution.

Then we look at the Ring of Fire. Initially, the play was all about the chromite that is there. I think you’ll actually see them move the chromite out of the way to get to the nickel that’s there.

That’s why we’ve got this road to prosperity that we’re building. We’ve got $1 billion committed. We hope our federal partners will commit their $1 billion into that plan.

Bloomberg has acknowledged everything I’ve just said here today. Bloomberg ranked Canada as second in their annual global battery supply chain report. Think of where we were three years ago. We had zero—zero—electric vehicle production. Some $300 billion was invested in North America in electric vehicle and battery announcements. We got zero of it under the previous government—zero. We were able, through our Driving Prosperity plan, to put a plan together—$17 billion. I’ll be very frank: We have at least that much in the pipeline. We won’t win it all, but we’ve got a big pipeline of projects lined up for Ontario over the next two years. Bloomberg moved us from nowhere in sight of anybody to second in their annual global battery supply chain report. We’re first in North America, ahead of the US, second globally. That confirms that we have indeed created the right conditions to attract investments, create jobs and remain competitive.

That brings us to the one missing piece: why we’re here today. We are in fierce competition right now for large investments. As I’ve said, we have a big pipeline filled with projects, but we just don’t have the land. We need to assemble, very quickly, large pieces of land for large potential investments. Close to 40 US jurisdictions offer a certified mega site program—key competitors, all through the States. They have shovel-ready sites and an expectation of an investor locating there. That’s why we are laser-focused right now on securing large anchor projects in the auto and in the EV space, but this critical factor will be having a suitable site.

Timing is known. Costs are known. Project timelines are out there. We know we needed this land, and that’s why, in November 2019, we launched the Job Site Challenge program. This is Canada’s first challenge that went out where municipalities, economic development agencies and industrial property owners can put forward large tracts of land—500 acres, 1,000 acres, 1,500 acres—so that we can use them to support large-scale manufacturing operations. Just think about it. For context, 500 acres—that’s almost 400 football fields. That’s what 500 acres looks like. And 1,500 acres obviously can support three times that.

We need to immediately build an inventory of what we call mega sites. These are sites that are investment-ready. These are sites that would be owned, contiguous pieces of property, either serviced or ready to be serviced. We’ve seen the successes of LG Energy in Windsor. We’ve seen the success of Umicore in Loyalist township. There is a significant demand for shovel-ready sites.

Again, I’ve said we have a big amount in our pipeline. We’ve secured $17 billion, with several more announcements coming. We have about that much in our pipeline. But what we need is to give the investors and those potential companies the confidence in the future of Ontario—that we have land available for them.

This particular site in St. Thomas that we’re speaking about, and in Elgin county, is considered a highly attractive mega site. It has been identified as one of the very few potential mega sites in the province. It has a vast amount of acreage. It has close proximity to the major routes. It’s fully serviceable for electric, gas, water, waste water. And it has a high probability that it could be sold to one of these investors.

The site, as you’ve heard from Minister Clark, straddles two municipalities: the city of St. Thomas and the municipality of Central Elgin, which is in Elgin county. These two municipalities have very different steps in permitting requirements. They have different timelines for permitting. It creates confusion and complexity. You could imagine an investor who wants to buy a big hunk of land but has two municipalities with different rules and guidelines—a building that could potentially straddle two municipalities. We need to take the piece of one and join it to the other. There’s a lot of red tape that could come. There’s a lot of delay in meeting timelines.

Speaker, we need to unlock the full potential of this site, and that’s why the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has introduced legislation that would change the municipal boundary so that site would be completely located in St. Thomas. It would reduce red tape. It would ensure that the St. Thomas site is truly shovel-ready in a very near term for a potential investment. This legislation would allow the city and the province to proceed quickly with permitting, proceed quickly in preparing the site to meet any potential investor timelines. It’s going to allow Ontario to remain competitive. It will allow us to position the province as an attractive place to invest and to grow.

These proposed changes have the potential to bring significant economic benefits to the people of St. Thomas, to the people of Central Elgin and all of the surrounding communities. We’re going to work very closely with the affected municipalities with respect to proposed legislative changes. We’re going to continue to consult with Indigenous communities about the St. Thomas industrial site.

And we will continue to work very, very hard to identify large-scale industrial sites throughout Ontario, where we know that we have so many prospects and so little assembled land.

We continue to say that Ontario is the ideal destination for manufacturers. We have a world-class auto supply base, we have a growing EV and battery-supply-chain footprint, we have reliable clean energy, we have northern Ontario’s critical mineral resources—we have an ecosystem in Ontario.

Certainly, we have one of the greatest auto ecosystems. We’re the only jurisdiction in North America with five different auto manufacturing companies. That’s unique in all of North America. We are the number two automaker in North America.

Speaker, we’re also the number two tech cluster in all of North America. When you look at the cars of the future, it’s basically going to be a computer on wheels. Well, as the number two tech cluster in North America, we have that tech ability, and as the number two automaker, we know how to attach them to wheels. That’s our expertise. We have absolutely great and spectacular days ahead of us in Ontario in the auto, in the EV sector.

But these mega sites can be for all kinds of projects, whether it’s in the tech field, whether it’s in the life sciences field, whether it’s in the aerospace sector, whether it’s in the chemicals sector. We have so much potential in Ontario, and I won’t say it’s untapped potential, because look at what we have achieved: 600,000 men and women went to work today in a facility in Ontario that they did not work at only four and a half years ago. This is a monumental shift in what was happening.

We saw the decline of Ontario’s manufacturing—the former government that threw the towel in and, in writing, gave up on the manufacturing sector.

Premier Ford came along, and Driving Prosperity was written. It was our blueprint for success. That’s why we have 600,000 men and women working today who weren’t working.

The Premier and our team spent considerable time with US lawmakers, and we made a very solid case for what we call a buy-North America stance. And this ended with a personal visit to Washington to visit with Canada’s ambassador, Kirsten Hillman. Now we can proudly say that our team efforts paid off, as the US-only EV program is now the North American vehicle credit.

This is yet another reason that automakers and those in the supply chain will continue to invest billions of dollars in Ontario’s emerging world-class EV sector. By reversing the damage the Liberals and the NDP caused over more than a decade, we’ve reduced the cost of doing business in Ontario by $7 billion annually. And Speaker, it’s no wonder that we’ve already attracted $16 billion in EV investments and thousands of jobs over the last 20 months.

Ontario’s automotive sector is in a stronger position today than it ever was under the previous government; $16 billion in transformative EV investments in 20 months did not happen by accident. This is a new era for the province and our autoworkers. We’re bringing jobs back. We’re bringing investments to communities the Liberals neglected, like Loyalist in the east, Cobalt in the north and Windsor in the west. That’s how we’re driving prosperity. Ontario’s auto is back.