Volkswagen AG caused a stir in March when it said it had chosen St. Thomas, Ont., as the location for its first battery plant outside Europe. Decades had passed since Canada had enticed a major new global automaker to build out manufacturing operations here.
But the revelations this week that the federal government had lured VW with subsidies that could reach $13 billion, possibly higher, cast the news in a different light. The subsidy package was carefully calibrated to match what Volkswagen would have received in the United States, but its sheer size has raised questions about the feasibility of building an electric vehicle supply chain in Canada.
