Zero “high value added” jobs. Five years after the public announcement of the arrival of the Japanese auto parts giant Denso with the political elite, the company welcomed with open arms by our leaders has no R&D lab or employee with us.
In 2019, a press conference by the Prime Minister of Quebec, François Legault, the mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, and the then federal Minister of Infrastructure, François-Philippe Champagne, publicly welcomed the arrival of this big player in inviting the media.
The press release with photo at the time mentioned that “this new initiative will create high value-added jobs in the mobility sector in Greater Montreal”.
Provided by Denso
Gold, The newspaper found that not only does Denso have no employees in Quebec today, but that it does not have the slightest laboratories on Quebec soil.
“Denso currently does not have any employees based in Quebec, since we no longer operate in our former laboratory in Montreal,” confirmed to Newspaper the Japanese multinational, which reaped profits of $3 billion last year.
“We paused our physical operations in space during the pandemic in order to manage R&D resources responsibly and flexibly, but we continue to collaborate remotely with universities and consortia in the region on advanced technologies like artificial intelligence,” she continued.
Five years ago, the vice president of Denso’s North American Research and Engineering Center, Pat Bassett, told Newspaper that he planned to hire five workers. However, neither the Ministry of the Economy nor Investissement Québec had granted any money to Denso.
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He refuses $1 million
Two months later, an artificial intelligence professor from Polytechnique Montréal explained to Newspaper that he had just refused, on principle, a salary of $1M per year to run the Denso laboratory, which he considered to be a controversial company.
Upon his return from Japan, Polytechnique Montréal professor Samuel Bassetto sent a letter to his colleagues and to the management of the School to tell them about his experience with Denso. He is photographed here in his office at Polytechnique.
Photo Francis Halin
Remember that Denso has already had problems with the American justice system. In March 2012, she pleaded guilty in a price-fixing case and was ordered to pay a fine of $105 million, according to FBI documents seen by The newspaper.