Quebec’s Northvolt project is officially dead, and the government says it is reducing its losses.
Christine Fréchette, Minister of Economy of Quebec, announced on Tuesday that the province will not invest more money in Northvolt’s batteries in North America.
“The failure of the company to present a satisfactory plan regarding Quebec’s interests has led us to affirm our rights to recover as many investments as possible,” said Fréchette in a statement. “This company was not successful, and we are obviously disappointed.”
The announcement means the end of the highly promoted, but controversial but controversial plant of $ 7 billion in Saint-Basile-Le-Grand and McMasterville in the Montérégie region. The Quebec government had supported the proposal and changed its own rules, allowing the project to omit an environmental review.
Quebec had invested $ 510 million in the project, saying that it would create 3,000 jobs in the area and make Quebec a battery producing power.
The investments included a guaranteed loan of $ 240 million and an investment of $ 270 million in the northvolt batteries northmerica matrix company North America.
Quebec officially lost that investment of $ 270 million, Fréchette said in a press release. Northvolt declared bankruptcy in Sweden in March.
However, Fréchette insisted that the province will recover the loan of $ 240 million.
Quebec had assigned 352 megawatts of power to the project, and Fréchette said that energy will now be assigned to other places.
The Government of the Coalition of Avenir Québec has promoted for a long time the Northvolt plant as part of its “Bisabra Filière” or the production of batteries, which intends to increase research, mineral development and the production of batteries in the province.
Fréchette said that the “Bango Filière” was still in good shape, with several battery companies that have already been established in the province.
Another failure of CAQ, opposition leaders say
Pablo Rodríguez, the Liberal Party leader of Quebec, said his party had been warning the government for more than a year to be careful with the way the Northvolt project was being developed.
“It’s a failure. It means we put all our eggs in a basket,” he said. “I think it is a failure in the level of planning and at the level of execution.”
Québec Solideo spokesman Ruba Ghazal questioned the government’s ability to recover the money he had lent.
“With Northvolt, François Legault promised us the project of the century. On the other hand, we face another Fiasco de Caq,” he wrote in a publication about X.
“After hundreds of millions of dollars wasted by the CAQ, is there really any hope that the Quebers will see that money again? This is unacceptable.”
Pari Québécois MNA Pascal Paradis described the Northvolt project as another example of Caq waste.
“What is shocking is that this took so long,” he said. “The sad thing, in the end, is that these are hundreds of millions of dollars of the money from the Quebecers that the Caq government wasted in this project that was poorly planned, poorly managed and poorly negotiated.”
