Controversy has been swirling the past few days over reports of up to 1,600 temporary foreign workers (TFW) being brought to Windsor to help set up the NextStar EV battery plant.
Federal Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Tuesday he expects NextStar Energy Inc. to bring in "very few'' foreign workers to help transfer battery manufacturing technology as Canada establishes a new industry.
He says he spoke with the CEO of NextStar on Monday, along with the head of Stellantis that co-owns NextStar with LG Corp., and was reassured by their commitments to hire Canadians.
Only one TFW has been approved so far.
Politicians of all stripes have been asking questions and pointing fingers with Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre saying he's pushing for a full inquiry into the issue.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Unifor Local 444 President Dave Cassidy says this issue is nothing but political hay.
"The temperature has got to calm down. This is politics 101. This is terrible. We are not going to have temporary foreign workers coming and taking our jobs on a permanent basis."
Cassidy says when it comes to setting up a new technology, they have to have the right people.
"And no disrespect to our building trades, no disrespect to our trades because I am tradesperson myself, but when you get this new equipment in there, it always comes with you know somebody from the facility, somebody from who has built it to come in and work on the debugging of it. Make sure that it's going to be operational etc. Nothing new."
Windsor-Tecumseh MP Irek Kusmierczyk also joined AM800's The Morning Drive and says this is the most important investment in the history of our community.
"There will be two and a half thousand workers building batteries. Building two million batteries every single year. And these two and a half thousand workers will be local and they will be Canadian."
Kusmierczyk says once the plant is built, there will be Korean workers here to share their expertise.
"This is the first battery plant ever built in Canada. We don't have full expertise in building batteries, so of course we're going to lean on our partners, our Korean partners to share their expertise. They've been building batteries for thirty years. They literally have have 24,000 patents on building batteries. LG is the world leader."
Battery production at the plant is expected to begin in early 2025.
-With files from CTV News & The Canadian Press