The Legault government has granted almost $1 billion in subsidies to companies in the battery sector, but we must now slow down, the Minister of the Economy warned on Tuesday.
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“We will start, perhaps, to be more rigorous on financial support due to the fact that there are budgetary constraints and the fact that we have built our reputation. We are capable of being less generous, quote unquote,” declared Pierre Fitzgibbon in a parliamentary committee.
Avoid “putting everything in one area”
“Our ambitions must be controlled both in terms of money and megawatts. We need to diversify the economy, so putting everything in one sector would be problematic for the future of Quebec,” he added.
Pierre Fitzgibbon in parliamentary committee, Tuesday.
Screenshot of a video of the National Assembly
The government rolled out the red carpet to attract the battery manufacturer Northvolt to Montérégie: it granted it an advantageous loan of $365 million, subsidies of $436 million and an investment of $567 million which will give Quebec a stake of around 5% in the Swedish company.
This investment of $567 million in Northvolt “could technically bring in a lot of money, but hey, let’s not go there because it is not the goal of the Ministry of the Economy to make investments to make money “, argued Mr. Fitzgibbon.
“That’s a lot of money”
The minister agreed that $436 million in subsidies for Northvolt “is a lot of money. But on [un investissement total de] $7 billion, I think it’s reasonable.”
In total, for the various projects in the battery sector (Northvolt, GM, Ford, etc.), which represent investments of approximately $16 billion, Quebec has extended no less than $981 million in subsidies, indicated the minister. Other financial aid (loans and equity investments) must be added to this amount.
“I think we paid the price we had to pay” to attract international players who were able to give birth to the battery sector, argued Pierre Fitzgibbon.
He also admitted that the decision to grant large blocks of electricity to new factories, including around 360 megawatts to Northvolt, had forced the government to refuse decarbonization projects for existing installations.
“It doesn’t matter if we postpone decarbonization projects, it doesn’t matter at all,” he said, arguing that Quebec still had time to achieve its emissions reduction targets. of greenhouse gases.
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