Ottawa, ON – After spending more than $15 billion in taxpayers’ money on a single factory that hired taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers instead of Canadians, the Trudeau Government is now trying to hide these contracts with the help of their NDP coverup coalition partners.

Yesterday, at committee, the NDP flip-flopped on the position they held a week ago, proposing that over $40 billion in EV battery manufacturing contracts should be covered up and never released. These contracts will cost every Canadian $3,000. Yet, despite this historic spending, these factories have employed taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers instead of Canadians. At the NextStar factory, Canadian workers have lost $300 million in wages to date, according to the leader of Canada’s Building Trades Unions. 

The NDP used to stand with working Canadians. Now, they abandon them as soon as Justin Trudeau asks them to. In just over a week, the NDP went from demanding the government release all manufacturing contracts to blocking the release of these contracts to protect their coverup coalition partners. Thanks to this coverup, Canadians will be kept in the dark over the hundreds of taxpayer-funded foreign replacement workers at the Northvolt plant, and whether they are being employed at the Volkswagen plant in Ontario. 

Now, the NDP are trying to censure the contracts, meaning Canadians will never be able to discover just how bad these contracts were for Canadian workers. Once again, the NDP has gone into full coverup mode, bailing out the desperate prime minister. The NDP must work with Conservatives to release the contracts now.

The NDP have abandoned workers and have abandoned the principles of openness and transparency that they once stood for. Parliament has a right to scrutinize how Canadian tax dollars are spent, and Conservatives will continue to push for the public release of all battery contracts. Only Conservatives will bring home powerful paycheques for Canadian workers.