In Toronto final August, a few hours after the federal authorities and Volkswagen Group signed a memorandum of understanding on important minerals, François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of innovation, science and business, sat alongside executives from the automaker to take questions from reporters.

The room was largely empty because the panel talked by the comparatively imprecise nonbinding deal.

It was a startlingly unassuming begin to what’s now being touted as the most important auto funding in Canadian historical past.

Volkswagen’s battery-cell plant in St. Thomas, Ont., which wouldn’t be introduced till March, was one thing simply in need of a fantasy. It had been about 35 years since Canada landed funding from a brand new automaker. The shortage of agency commitments within the preliminary VW pact gave little indication that was about to vary.

Inside a half-hour, the press convention broke up with little fanfare.

I ducked into the closest elevator, punched the button for the foyer after which scrambled to maintain the doorways from closing on Champagne and his press secretary as they piled in, speeding to their subsequent cease. We exchanged a number of pleasantries, although having already spoken with every of them twice that day concerning the deal, there was little left to say.

However earlier than the elevator doorways lurched open on the bottom ground, Champagne supplied up one thing novel.

“These guys are critical,” he stated with a assured nod.

Champagne had traveled to Germany and Japan earlier within the yr, assembly with a collection of automakers throughout every go to. His pitch for Canada had gone over effectively at each cease, he instructed me after the journeys, with a tinge of his regular salesmanship.

His Volkswagen remark took a extra earnest tone, although. One thing, it appeared, was completely different about this prospect.

In October, the automaker started holding common conferences with the Ontario authorities. These weekly check-ins continued into 2023, by which era VW had a small military of workers registered as lobbyists with each the provincial and federal governments.

Behind the scenes, Volkswagen and its battery subsidiary, PowerCo, visited the Ontario website they might finally select. The crew made its first journey to St. Thomas, halfway between Toronto and Windsor, in November.

Then Champagne was again in Germany in December. In Wolfsburg, prime VW brass named Canada as “one logical choice” for the corporate’s first North American battery-cell plant. They stopped in need of saying there have been different nations within the working, probably weighing how Canada may compete with massive incentives supplied by the US, which had been starting to draw battery funding.

The eventual announcement naming St. Thomas because the successful location got here on March 13. It was hardly a shock to Automotive Information Canada, though earlier than that morning, each ranges of presidency stated nothing was sure. Particulars concerning the multibillion-dollar venture are nonetheless excellent, with Volkswagen and the governments working to schedule an official occasion in St. Thomas. However whereas we’ve been left to take a position on the scale of funding and measurement of the plant, one factor has been made abundantly clear: These guys had been critical.