Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important issue.
This is a serious issue. This is such a serious issue for my community that, today, the president of Unifor Local 444 Dave Cassidy came to Ottawa to speak on it. He is the president of the local union that represents thousands of workers in my community—Stellantis workers at the Windsor assembly plant. When the battery plant is completed, he will represent 2,500 local, Canadian, full-time members, who will be building about two million batteries at that battery plant each and every year.
This is serious. Dave Cassidy and I had a chance to meet the Prime Minister today in his office. We sat down for an important conversation. This highlights how serious the situation is.
My colleague from Windsor talked about public confidence. What I have seen is a concerted effort, from the very beginning, to undermine public confidence not only in the battery plant in Windsor but also in the entire investment program this federal government has brought forward—$30 billion plus in investment in communities like Windsor. These are communities in Quebec and British Columbia. These are communities like St. Thomas. These are all communities that, historically and most recently, have been hit very hard economically and have experienced a lot of hard times. There is a lot on the line here. I said it in my original appearance. This is so important and serious that we need to speak in facts. We need to be honest and speak truthfully about this investment, because it means a great deal to communities like ours.
In that meeting with the Prime Minister and President Dave Cassidy.... By the way, I should say that he's also the Unifor chair of the National Skilled Trades Council. We had an opportunity, a couple of weeks ago, to meet members of the Unifor National Skilled Trades Council from across the country. It had a meeting in Windsor.
The meeting with the Prime Minister and Unifor Local 444 President Dave Cassidy was important. It reaffirmed the strong partnership our federal government has with labour and workers. That partnership delivered the Stellantis-LG battery plant in the first place. When we had the second round of very difficult negotiations, that partnership also saw us through. It's built on trust. That partnership between our federal government and Unifor is what delivered not only the battery plant but also 2,500 good-paying, permanent jobs for local Canadian workers in our community.
The workers who will be building those batteries will be Canadian. They will be local. They will be unionized, which is what Dave shared with us. Those are amazing jobs. They won't be here for five or 10 years. They will be here for generations. They will be the engine that drives my community. It positions my community. It positions Windsor as a thriving manufacturing community. It positions us at the forefront of the transition to zero-emission vehicles. Our community will lead that transition to zero-emission vehicles. It's incredible when you think about it.
On top of the 2,500 jobs from building batteries—and again, these will be local, Canadian unionized workers with good-paying jobs in our community—there will be, 2,300 construction jobs to be carried out by Canadian local workers in the trades, whether it's LiUNA, iron workers, millwrights, carpenters, sheet metal and roofers, IBEW—you name it—and they're all there already. There are literally 900 workers, as we speak, building the battery plant right now. They're all Canadian. They're all local. When all is said and done, there will be 2,300 Canadian local workers building the plant.
I encourage all of my colleagues to take a drive to the battery plant site at the corner of E.C. Row and Banwell. They will see that the job site is like a beehive. There are literally hundreds—900—workers building the battery plant as we speak.
In that meeting with the Prime Minister and Dave Cassidy, we talked about the fact that the major reason the battery plant is here in the first place is that we have the best workforce in the world here in Canada and in Windsor. That's why they selected Windsor as the location, because they know we have the absolute best workforce in the world. We know how to build things.
Dave Cassidy always says that if you want it built right, build it in Windsor-Essex—and it's true. That's exactly what our Korean partners decided when they selected Windsor as the site to build their $5 billion battery plant. They invested $5 billion in our community. It's never been done before. My community has never seen an investment that large.
In speaking with the Prime Minister and Dave Cassidy, we recognized that, in addition to having the best skilled workforce in the world, we have the best trades in the world. We have folks whose talents and skills are the best in the world and world-class trades in our community. We said that we want to work together to maximize Canadian workers, not just by constructing the battery plant and building the batteries but by installing the machinery and the equipment that will go into the battery plant.
There are 300 machines that will be installed in that battery plant and 9,000 shipping containers' worth of machinery and equipment—9,000. This is unprecedented in Canada. This is the first battery plant in Canada and the scale of it is unprecedented, and so we will require a partnership to get this battery plant off the ground and to get it up and running. We will require a partnership with partners that have 30 years' experience building batteries. The Korean company LG has 30 years' experience building batteries. They literally have 24,000 patents just on battery manufacturing alone—24,000. They know how to build batteries, and so we're partnering with them.
The world literally wants to partner with Canada to build batteries and electric vehicles, and that's a good thing. The world wants to not only partner with Canada to build batteries but they want to build batteries here in Canada. They want to transfer their knowledge to Canadians. They want to get us up to speed and they want us to be the best battery manufacturers in the world—and we will be because we have a track record of it.
I had a chance to meet the CEO of NextStar on Friday. I flew home specifically because I wanted to meet the CEO of NextStar, Mr. Danies Lee. We had about a two-hour conversation. Afterwards, I was given a chance to tour the job site, and it's incredible. It is absolutely incredible. It is beyond anything anyone has ever seen before.
He laid the plan out for me. It is a plan that is going to benefit our community. The economic impact for Windsor is something we have never, ever seen before in our community—ever.
It's not just the 2,500 full-time, well-paying union jobs that will be created in my community. That's never been done before in a single investment like this. We're going to have thousands more construction workers, and hundreds more folks installing machinery and equipment on a temporary basis, but it's more than that. It's all of the spinoff jobs.
Everybody in the business knows that for every automotive job, there are six or seven spinoff jobs. Can you imagine six or seven spinoff jobs for the 2,500 we just mentioned? These will be good-paying jobs. These are jobs that we can build futures around. These are jobs that you can raise families on—here, in Windsor and Essex. The spillover to restaurants, retailers and businesses in our community is going to lift our entire community. This is why this is so serious.
I've spoken with the trades. I've spoken with IBEW. I've spoken with ironworkers. I've spoken with millwrights and sheet metal roofers. I've spoken with them. I know their concerns. I know they want to maximize work for their members, and I do too, because they are the best workers in the world, and they are incredibly proud of what they do. They are so proud of what they do because they're so good, and I understand it.
I met with Mr. Danies Lee, the CEO of NextStar and I had a long conversation with him. In my message to him, I delivered a number of key messages that I heard from the ironworkers, the millwrights and the trades. I told him that we want to see Canadian workers maximized at every opportunity for the installation of machinery and equipment. I told him to lean on us. We have the talent and we have the skills. Maximize as much as possible. I told him, as well, that this is a huge opportunity for a real partnership.
We also spoke about the fact that there is a need for greater communication between NextStar and the trades. I encouraged Mr. Lee to meet with the trades in Windsor, sit down, share the plan that he shared with me, have that conversation, reassure our local workforce and come up with a plan that maximizes local input. Absolutely.
I also said to Mr. Lee that our skilled workers in Windsor—our trades—are incredibly proud of what they do. They're incredibly proud workers. They're incredibly skilled and incredibly proud. This is the largest investment in the history of our community, and they want to be a part of it because they're proud. They want to be a part of it.
Again, I encouraged Mr. Lee at NextStar to meet with the local trades and maximize Canadian workers as much as possible.
After the meeting with the Prime Minister, Dave held a national press conference. It was quite a day for our Unifor Local 444 president. He comes to Ottawa, comes to Parliament Hill, meets with the Prime Minister and then holds a national press conference.
He wanted to deliver a message to all of us around this table. He wanted to deliver a message to all members of Parliament, and he wanted to deliver a message specifically, I believe, to the Conservatives and to Mr. Pierre Poilievre.
Let me read you that message. Dave Cassidy says:
Well, my message is pretty simple. This has turned into nothing but political hay and the facts in the matter are if we're not part of these investments on a global scale then we're out of the game.
He continues:
Windsor used to be the automotive capital of Canada and then we had some downturns in the economy and everything seemed to stop in London. But I can tell you we bargained these new investments we continue to see as the battery electric vehicle goes and moves forward.
Windsor is now the gateway to manufacturing in Canada. That's where manufacturing starts.
Then he goes on to say that a lot is being said:
They don't talk about the 600 jobs that we have that's going to be in engineering alone and when we have at the research and development that they're putting them jobs in there.
We're building in addition to a battery plant, then. A lot of folks may not be familiar with the fact or understand that, in addition to the battery plant jobs, we're actually building—and right now, as we speak, it's rising from the ground—a research and development centre, with 600 engineering jobs in our community. He goes on:
They don't talk about the 2,500 members from my local—going to be my local when it's up and rolling that are going to build these millions of batteries.
It's going to be Dave's members. It's going to be Unifor 444 members, with 2,500 who are going to be building batteries. Then he says:
And this has turned into nothing but political hay and it's driving me crazy because we have more investments coming to Windsor.
This is important. He continues:
We have another company that's going to invest $3 billion with one company and they have a decision if they're going to come to Windsor or they're going to go to Mexico.