> Ontario automotive manufacturing only exists because of corporate welfare, so in that sense I think draining our resources is not the path to being sovereign.

That "corporate welfare" helps employ 136,000 Ontarians as well as maintaining an robust industrial base that can expand into newer critical technologies such as Battery Tech (as is clearly seen in the article above).

"Corporate welfare" is nonsense. As opposed to what? A theoretical total free market? Western governments have tried that for the past few decades, and that's done nothing but hollow out blue collar jobs and produce instability along with deaths of despair and wealth inequality.

The libertarian "free market" myth is effectively dead -- welcome to the age of industrial policy.

It's actually the opposite. In many cases corporate welfare is simply relaxing government taxes.

Governments understand that their taxes are barriers to the jobs and goods they want so they are willing to selectively get out of the way.

It's not a free market, but libertarian treatment for specific companies that they want to succeed.

In this case, nobody wants to build batteries in Canada if the government takes 25% of any profits, so the government has to reduce their take if they want battery factories