On Tuesday, Ottawa announced during the presentation of its annual budget a tax credit of 30% for the manufacture of clean technologies and the extraction, transformation or recycling of critical minerals.
A way for Canada to accentuate a shift that is already well underway. In two years, the country has recorded more than 18 billion dollars of investment in the electric battery sector, giving a boost to the country’s automotive industry, devastated since the departure in recent decades of many factories to Mexico , cheaper.
The latest announcement came from Volkswagen, which will build its first battery plant outside Europe in the province of Ontario, becoming the first new manufacturer to set up shop in Canada in 35 years.
“It’s not just a new chapter. It’s almost a new book we’re writing on the automotive sector in Canada,” Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said following the announcement in early March. .
Several other heavyweights in the sector have also chosen Canada to establish themselves in the North American market, such as the manufacturer Stellantis, associated with the Korean LG, the French tire manufacturer Michelin, the American General Motors. .
“Canada has gone from fifth to second in the world for our battery supply chain,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau boasted recently, referring to the latest ranking by the research firm BloombergNEF, which places Ottawa just behind Beijing.
The country owes this position to its “significant raw material resources” and green supply chain, the report says.
“Making the greenest vehicle in the world is really our intention to attract more investment,” said Minister François-Philippe Champagne, at a time when many countries want to emancipate themselves from China’s stranglehold. which produces 75% of the world’s lithium batteries.
– The advantage of critical minerals –
For specialist Sarah Houde of Propulsion Québec, a company that supports players in the sector, Canada’s main argument is that it is “one of the only countries in the world that has all the minerals necessary for the production of batteries”.
According to the International Energy Agency, demand for essential minerals might quadruple or even increase sixfold by 2040.
“Being close to the main market but also to the source of supply is essential for us”, explains Brett Lynch, CEO of the Australian mining company Sayona, which has just set up in Quebec to develop one of the first extraction projects there. of lithium.
Another reason, and “probably the most important”, lies in Quebec hydroelectricity, adds the leader.
“Nowhere else on this planet can we find such generous, profitable and low-polluting green energy,” he says. According to data from the province, 99% of the energy produced in Quebec is clean.
– A circular economy –
The government is also investing in the recycling of electric batteries in order to develop a circular production chain.
Several factories are already in place in Canada and make it possible to recycle 95% of the strategic metals present in a battery while using “97% less water than extraction and refining per ton of battery material” and polluting less, says Louie Diaz of recycling company Li-Cycle.
The other asset of Canadian industry is its access to the billions announced by Washington for electric vehicles, batteries and renewable energy projects.
Li-Cycle thus benefited in February from a conditional investment from the Pentagon of 375 million US dollars (346 million euros).
But these American investments are also a reminder of the extent to which Canada, whose financial impact is much less than its neighbour, will have to maintain a “sustained, accelerated pace”, argues specialist Sarah Houde, if it does not want to “be made taken aback by other countries”.
