Prime Minister Mark Carney is rejecting suggestions that Ottawa’s billion-dollar auto subsidies leave taxpayers vulnerable when automakers shift production plans or demand more money.
Answering a question by iPolitics in Toronto this Thursday, Carney rejected the notion that the Stellantis-LG Energy Solution deal — which underpins the $15-billion NextStar battery plant in Windsor — is a weakly binding agreement that the automaker could abandon without consequences.
Although the company recently announced it will shift production of the Jeep Compass — and more than 3,000 associated jobs — from Ontario to Illinois, Carney said that the federal government’s contract with the automaker includes binding undertakings that extend beyond that project to the idled Brampton assembly plant.