“If I look at the investments we’ve done in the auto sector, I knew instinctively that if we did not land them now, we could miss out for 30 years,” Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said at the Public Policy Forum’s Canada Growth Summit on Thursday. “If you do a battery plant of $5 billion, you’re not going to do another one in three years.” (The Logic)

Talking point: The federal government and some provinces have offered significant subsidies to get car makers, battery manufacturers and materials vendors to set up electric-vehicle and parts plants in Canada, as well as inputs further up the supply chain like steel and aluminum. Champagne cites it all when he’s selling the strategy to the public, and to firms he’s courting for foreign direct investments. On Thursday, he said he’d most recently been in discussions with a German giant. “I wish all of you would have been in the meeting that I had with Volkswagen, their North American board, and really going through the exercise of saying why [Canada],” he said. The Logic would happily sit in on any such meeting. Minister, you know how to reach us.