Today, we’re here for another generational investment that we’re announcing. The Japanese company, Asahi Kasei, will invest $1.6 billion to build a battery separator plant here in Port Colborne, Ontario.

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Today, we’re announcing that the Japanese company, Asahi Kasei, will invest $1.6 billion to build a battery separator plant in Port Colborne, Ontario.

Separators are essential components of electric vehicles, and this plant will be the first large-scale separator plant in the country, making our EV supply chain even stronger here in Canada. This is what fairness looks like for every generation, with good jobs and good careers for generations to come. Here, the Niagara trade corridor is one of North America’s most important trade corridors. This is one of Canada’s great advantages. We have great access to markets through more free trade agreements than our peers. We’re, in fact, the only G7 country with a free trade deal with every other G7 country. We have extraordinary natural resources from one end of the country to the other. We have clean energy and we take climate action seriously. We have stable democratic institutions and strong communities, and all those things are what the international community investors look for when they come. But the number one thing they look for, the number one thing that is our competitive advantage as a country, is Canadian workers themselves. The folks behind me, the folks around today.

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You, you are Canada’s great advantage. I know we have some high school students here as well, already getting involved in supporting their communities and creating solutions for people. These are the things that really show Canada as an extraordinary place to invest. The fact that we have the best educated workforce in the OECD, people who are strong, capable, ambitious, forward-thinking, hard-working, this in a growing population, is exactly what investors from around the world are looking for, and it’s Canadians who are making this happen with their excellence, with their dedication. 

Today’s announcement follows other generational investments in electric vehicles and batteries by companies like Honda, Stellantis, North volts, and Volkswagen. I was in St. Thomas, Ontario, just yesterday to talk about our investments all across the country to create more child care spaces. It’s in St. Thomas that Volkswagen is building a new battery plant that will create good jobs in the region. 

It’s also going from a child care announcement just down the road in St. Thomas to an EV supply chain announcement here, is not too far a jump, because part of what the advantage that companies are looking for when they invest in Canada is knowing that people are part of strong communities with the supports—whether it’s child care or health care or vibrant communities—that they need to be successful for decades to come in their businesses. So whether it’s St. Thomas or here in Port Colborne, these major manufacturing investments will create and secure jobs for generations to come. Of course, it’s more than just jobs: it’s revenue for family-owned businesses; it’s sponsors for kids’ hockey teams; it’s healthy communities where everyone has a fair chance to succeed. 

See, after decades of decline in our manufacturing communities and in an uncertain world where we’re facing a lot of new challenges, we have a plan to meet this moment, a plan to secure the future for our families, to breathe life into our main streets, and to position Canada as the most reliable supplier in a net zero world. Since 2015, we’ve been deliberately and in a focused way, building a clean tech ecosystem. Great international companies like Asahi Kasei, Stellantis, North volts, Volkswagen, and Honda are seeing the ecosystem that we’re building here. They want to be part of it. They’re investing billions of dollars and we’re happy to be working in partnership with them, because the choices that our government has made and the investments that our government has made has led to Canada now coming in first, globally, in Bloomberg’s ranking of lithium ion battery supply chains.

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And that didn’t happen by accident. It was deliberate choices by Canadian government and partners like the Government of Ontario to draw in investments in a growing sector where great manufacturing jobs will be available for communities like here in Port Colborne and right across the country, where industries that will be relevant for decades to come, even as the world is in transformation. These were choices we made to create these investments, to draw in these investors, and they’re choices that have left Canada on a stronger footing into the future.

But it’s not stopping there. Companies around the world are looking to Canada. Last year, Canada attracted the highest per capita foreign direct investment in the G7 among advanced industrialized economies, and we were the third in most total foreign direct investment in the world, after only the U.S. and Brazil. The world is noticing what Canada is doing.

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That is why we will continue working to create even more jobs that will allow us to keep our economy strong for generations to come. So, thank you everyone for being here.