Navigating Ontario's Manufacturing Potential

in terms of say lithium uh my understanding is that lithium mining is very different from you know the large kind of uh base metal mining for example right you don't it's it's it's much there're much smaller Footprints and somewhat different requirements and I guess the question is you know as we're trying to move this because johar's going to need it fast um is is how how are we doing in terms of pace as we move yes we've got all these pieces that we have to put together but can we do it quickly enough to get the lithium out of the ground in a way that is you know going to supply the sector these things do take time I've always coins this not as a revolution but rather an evolution we're currently not in Supply deficit and we're working hard to make sure that we can deliver lithium chemicals for the industry here in Ontario by the end of the decade so um we're tracking well uh government support is wholeheartedly behind us so we're working hard to to deliver for for for yourselves and and the province as a whole I think I think the issue just out what you're saying is that we know the short term is not an issue the longer term from a procurement perspective I mean everything's about batteries you know you need to have enough that's the critical 40% of the value of the vehicle uh so it's really the long term and again uh you know like Trevor I I you know I attended a a mining conference not too long ago and of course I don't know a lot about mining but I've learned a lot in the space of an hour uh I was uh surprised to learn that it takes that long from like new discoveries to bring things because of all the the things that need to be done uh in Canada that perhaps in other jurisdiction they don't live up to the same standards uh perhaps that we have but of course if we want things to happen here we need to resolve those things and again if we have a government that is uh willing to uh invest the time have policies in place to accelerate I mean this uh this is music my ears I mean that's good to hear because again I mean I think one of

there is a lot of technology that goes into food and beverage I hope you're you're hearing that loud and clear so for example we're using digital platforms like crop track to help farmers and PepsiCo make better datadriven decisions around crops and planning farming around them there's real technology being leveraged there we're using drones to zero in on specific areas of field crops that need support and enhance farming practices and from a Manufacturing perspective we're using AI to help minimize product movement between production and trailers technology that's helping us improve our service and we're using predictive maintenance to help identify problems before they happen which is helping us reduce downtime helping us keep people safe on the job and then even sensors to monitor vibration temperature give us data that creates actionable insights directing detecting machine issues with 99% accuracy and then for our warehousing systems we're using cloud-based automated technology that supports our front line helping them to increase productivity and accuracy so why do I share those examples because the best part of all of this is not only are we getting the efficiency but we're getting what we call Stacked winds because when we take care of some of these burdens off of our people we create room for them to upskill and take on better more meaningful work

I do we need to kind of galvanize government to do a bit more to get this thing going yeah I think in in us it is being dealt at multiple levels if you look at chips act or IRA act I mean you're looking at DARPA and all of that you're almost looking at a trillion dollars of Investments and these Investments are bearing fruit they are going into competitiveness they're going into skill building they are also going into technology that means how you were building a plant 30 years 40 years ago versus how you building a new plant or even assembling a new line within a plant is completely changing the the the decisions to invest in Ai and in robotics and in Automation and all that are typically head office decisions and so when we talk about the US making these types of Investments um and US companies blah blah blah having a 70% whatever higher this that and the next thing it's those are head office mindsets making head office investments in their corporations to make them more competitive because that's where the competitiveness decision is being made