Ontario Premier Doug Ford joined the local chambers of commerce for a fireside chat at the Oakville Convention Centre this afternoon.
Ford touched on everything from trade with the U.S. and Mexico, to nuclear reactors, and the Utah Hockey Club getting stuck in traffic before puck drop with the Maple Leafs (last night). He spoke primarily about various forms of infrastructure and trade.
“We need more skilled trades right now as we’re really moving forward on infrastructure projects," Ford said. “We’re doing a feasibility study, the tunnel under the 400 series highways will be the largest infrastructure project in the world if we move forward with it.”
The premier continued that he drove past gridlock traffic at midnight on the 401 the other day, and it was unacceptable to hear the Utah team had to walk the final few minutes to the arena to play the Leafs on Sunday.
The investments his government is making in transit is the largest in North America, the premier said.
“We’re investing over $70 billion in the largest transit expansion in North America, including GO Train service expansion on the Lakeshore West and East lines,” Ford said. “We’re also making record investment to expand our energy grid. We’re leading the future. We’re one of the leaders in nuclear energy.”
Ford said there have been $100-million orders from Poland, among other countries, asking for small modular reactors, a type of nuclear reactor.
Businesses are seeing the benefit, Ford continued. The premier said the Ontario tech sector is competitive with many of the tech hubs in the U.S.
“All the young people used to leave Waterloo and hop on the plane to go to Silicon Valley to get a job,” he said. “We see that has halted. We are actually growing 365 per cent faster than Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.”
The Bay and Valley employ approximately 388,000 people in tech, while Ontario employs around 430,000.
A major selling point of the Ontario tech sector is AI, which Ford said was born in Toronto.
“We have some of the greatest people in the world when it comes to AI,” Ford said.
Ontario's future outside of the tech sector includes investments in electric vehicle production. Ford said he also expects President Trump to provide tax breaks in the U.S., which will stimulate the economy and make it the hottest market in the world for at least two years.
“Yes, there’s a little bit of inflation and yes, there’s debt going up, but for one reason they don’t worry about that,” Ford said. “It’s going to be the hottest market for the next two years, maybe three or four. And Ontario is going to be the benefactor because 80 per cent of our goods get shipped down to the U.S.”
