Doug Ford’s Ontario government and Justin Trudeau’s federal government are two very different approaches to subsiding Honda. True to form, Doug Ford, who is big on infrastructure projects, for the most part, is providing infrastructure upgrades such as new roads and sewers for the Honda EV plant, just Trudeau on the on the flip side, is taking the Environmental, social, and governance(ESG) approach making sure that he’ll make the EV project MORE EXPENSIVE than it needs to be for Honda.
Trudeau’s spending on Honda will depend on how much Honda spends in Canada, which you’d assume is smart on the surface but has excessive regulations written all over it. With that said, if I were Honda, I’d be banking on Trudeau being voted out in 2025, which is likely the conversation Doug Ford had with Honda’s CEO, as it appears that it was Ontario’s CORPORATE welfare that sealed the deal.
If you look at the deal, Trudeau isn’t offering anything except ESG tax credits. If you’re unaware of how ESG works, it’s basically corporate welfare if your company PURCHASES ESG-friendly “investments.” ESG is actually the root cause of inflation, as ESG has nothing to do with EFFICIENCY and everything to do with VIRTUE signaling and corporate welfare.
Trudeau has announced capital gains taxes, in which he claims he will tax the rich; everyone knows this FEDERAL capital gains tax rate will accelerate the BRAIN DRAIN. This is not the 1980s anymore. Skilled labor is in high demand ALL OVER the world, and skilled Labour can now work on their OWN TERMS in many parts of the world because there’s a GLOBAL Labour shortage.
Governments all over the western world, are basically having BIDDING wars for the best and the brightest. The Uber rich, don’t pay taxes, when you’re uber rich every entity on earth wants to LEND you money, or give you free stuff, so uber rich people are usually swamped with people Pitching their idea’s to them. Trudeau’s an idiot; everyone knows it, so nobody isn’t even paying attention to his tax hikes.
Basically, everyone is looking forward to 2025 when Trudeau’s gone. When has raising taxes ever helped a politician? I get it that the media is trying to frame this as Trudeau is taxing the rich, but if POOR people can live off of DEBT, what makes you think rich people can’t do the same thing?
The actual reason I believe Doug Ford has to offer tax credits has more to do with the MUNICIPALITIES; if you’re in real estate or know anything about building things in Canada, you’d know that it’s LOCAL governments that create the most problems. When you’re talking about sewers, roads, and construction, you’re talking about LABOUR UNIONS, permits, regulations, taxes, and all sorts of local government-related price control mechanisms that exist to BLEED the private sector of every last penny it has; this is what increases the cost of building and maintaining infrastructure.
It’s still corporate welfare, but because financial education is not a topic of interest, these things go unnoticed. With Trudeau, his “matching” of Doug Ford’s investment, which, in actuality, ONTARIO taxpayers should be upset about, revolves around TAXING Honda if it doesn’t do business in the manner Trudeau demands.
But if you look at the breakdown of what happened, my guess is that Honda is anticipating that Justin Trudeau will be gone in 2025, and therefore, Trudeau’s $2.5 billion is viewed more like icing on the cake, because what’s actually happening here is that Honda will be getting FREE LABOR. 1,000 more jobs for $5 Billion dollars, that’s the deal, Canadians are getting for this disaster.
With that said, to be fair, automakers also attract other businesses, HOWEVER, what’s being ignored in all of this UNIFOR which represents Honda employees. UNIFOR is one of the most DESTRUCTIVE Labour unions in Canada, so they’re the WILD card in all of this, and this is one of the reasons why Doug Ford had to guarantee all of the tax credits because Ontario has a lot of labor unions, who DRIVE UP costs.
Obviously, the destination for these EV batteries is the United States; a lower Loonie, along with the New NAFTA deal, gives Honda a competitive advantage in Canada. Even if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, the max he can serve is 4 years, so it’s fair to say that Honda, sees a clear path forward, even if things don’t go as planned in Canada, they won’t be out much money.
My thoughts on this is, until Canadians except AUSTERITY as the only path forward, this madness, will continue, there are so many different price control mechanism in the Canadian economy, that we have to offer credits to attract capital. This ends when Canadians vote for politicians who are NOT afraid to shrink government.
This shrinking government process won’t happen over night, but it has to become ACCEPTED by the masses if things are expected to change.
Interesting times ahead!