— but it must act now: report

Canada needs a strategy quickly in order to capitalize on payoffs in jobs and economic growth

A lone Tesla charges up in Terrace Bay, Ont., on the north shore of Lake Superior. With all the key minerals for EVs and an existing automotive industry, Canada could become a vital link in the battery material supply chain.(Don Pittis/CBC)

As climate change shows its growing destructive power in floods and droughts worldwide, even strong advocates for the transition from using fossil fuels to battery-powered electric vehicles know EVs won’t be enough to fix the problem.

But as the North American auto show opens to glitz and fanfare, a new report from two reputable Canadian research groups says that Canada has a brief window to be a major player in transforming an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually into something more climate friendly — and to make money doing it.

Not only that, but the report suggests Canada has a chance to break a long tradition of exporting minerals and raw materials for others to turn into high-value goods. Instead, by building a homegrown electric vehicle supply chain, the country has the opportunity to get in at the bottom and create a large and lucrative domestic industry.

All the ingredients

“Canada has all the right ingredients to be a battery powerhouse,” said Evan Pivnick, from Clean Energy Canada, one of the authors of the new report. “But it’s vital that Canada acts swiftly and decisively, or it risks squandering thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.”

Pivnick’s group, an energy and economic think-tank based at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, partnered with the Ontario-based Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing to create the report, titled Canada’s New Economic Engine.

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