While Mauricie and Centre-du-Québec are developing the Energy Transition Valley, those involved in this decarbonization are holding their breath waiting to see who will lead the White House.
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“There is a lot of uncertainty these days,” says the president and CEO of Electric Mobility Canada, Daniel Breton.
“There are several manufacturers I speak to, several members of Electric Mobility Canada who say: to be able to know where we are going, we need to have a certain market predictability. And here, we are in an extremely unpredictable period because of the American election,” he explains.
Mr. Breton notes that under the Biden administration, several incentives have encouraged the energy transition: the Inflation Reduction Act, rebates on the purchase of electric vehicles and charging infrastructure deployment programs.
If the president of Electric Mobility Canada believes that a Harris administration would continue on the same path, the consequences of a possible election of Trump are less predictable.
“He talked a lot about tariffs on non-U.S. products. It can even be vehicles made in Canada. So it’s certain that this is a source of concern for the automobile industry, but also for Canadian trucks and buses,” underlines Daniel Breton.
A slowdown could therefore be felt for the battery industry factories in the Bécancour industrial park.
The general director of Innovation and Economic Development Trois-Rivières, Mario De Tilly, says he is following the elections with great attention, while 70% of exports from Trois-Rivières companies are destined for the American market.
“Let’s imagine one of the biggest players in the world of wind power, we can think of Marmen. Tomorrow morning will we stop building wind turbines on the American side because we will prefer fossil fuels? Hard to say. We should not jump to conclusions too quickly, but it is something that we will still observe very closely,” says Mr. De Tilly.
What is clear to these observers is that, regardless of the outcome of the vote, the effects of American protectionism are likely to be felt by businesses here.
“Whatever government is elected in the United States, we feel that there is clearly a more significant protectionist trend in recent years and even more in recent months than what we saw before,” indicates Daniel Breton.
“However, one is perhaps a little more aggressive than the other and particularly in sectors which are a little more sensitive for us. We must still remember that Mr. Trump spoke a lot about protecting the fossil energy sector and for us here in Quebec, we made a slightly different choice. So is this going to have an impact? It depends who will be elected this evening,” concludes Mario De Tilly.
