The Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, maintains that it would have been superfluous for his government to force companies in the battery sector to obtain supplies from Quebec suppliers, because this is done naturally. “All the components that will make the cells, the cathodes, come from Quebec,” assured the minister at a press briefing recently.
The minister invites us to “understand how industrial projects work”. We understand very well that companies will take their material, energy and human resources where they will contribute to maximizing their profits. Decisions will be made through international agreements in a constantly evolving globalized economy. There is no guarantee that what may be advantageous now for a company established in Quebec will be advantageous in two, five or ten years. Examples of changing course abound everywhere.
He reveals to us the depths of his thoughts: “It is better to water a plant, so that it grows, than to pull on it. » In fact, the government has ruled out the idea of requiring a minimum of Quebec content from companies in the battery sector (Northvolt, GM and Ford) for fear of losing projects or hypothetical prosecutions under international trade laws. . This does not bode well for the realization of Hydro-Québec’s pharaonic development plan under the responsibility of the same minister, particularly in the development of wind energy.
Minister Fitzgibbon may not know it, but his joke about watering plants comes from Claude Morin, the father of etapism. We watered the plant of independence so well for 25 years that it was almost drowned, until a new leader emerged and decided to vigorously bring it back to the forefront.
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