The federal government has paid out at least $530 million in incentives to NextStar Energy, the company behind a major battery plant in Windsor, Ont., records show.
It’s a relatively small portion of the billion-dollar funding deals with NextStar, which is a joint venture between global automaker Stellantis and South Korean battery firm LG Energy Solution. The federal government is providing up to $10.5 billion, while the province has pledged up to $5.5 billion.
Still, the figure provides fresh insight into the financial and contractual relationships between the federal government and NextStar — relationships that have been the focus of intense scrutiny since Stellantis announced it’s moving production of a Jeep model from its Brampton facility to the U.S.
Federal officials have linked the NextStar deals to job guarantees at the Brampton assembly plant, and indicated that they could seek to recoup some of the tax dollars Stellantis has received over the years as part of the agreements.
The federal government has two funding agreements with NextStar directly. CBC Windsor revealed redacted copies of the multi-year contracts last month.
Both deals show NextStar — located in the city with Canada’s highest unemployment rate — has agreed to hire 2,500 full-time employees and to provide other economic benefits in exchange for the funding.
Now, an analysis of new public accounting documents shows how much the federal government has actually spent so far.
The first agreement, inked in 2022, is for up to $500 million through a federal program known as the Strategic Innovation Fund that’s administered by the industry department.
Earlier this month, the government released a yearly — and voluminous — accounting document known as the Public Accounts of Canada, which details federal spending over the past fiscal year.
That document, as well as the one for the year prior, show that federal authorities have dispersed at least $490 million of the $500 million pledged to NextStar — a number confirmed by the industry department.
The department previously said the SIF funding was for capital expenses related to the construction of the plant, so “a significant amount of Canada’s portion of that funding” had been spent.
NextStar broke ground on the project in 2022 and announced this past September that it had officially completed the construction phase.
Ontario’s government is also providing up to $500 million in capital investment to NextStar, but it’s unclear how much of that has been spent yet. A spokesperson for Premier Doug Ford previously declined to answer questions about how much the province has paid the company so far.
The second federal agreement, signed in 2023, is for up to $15 billion in production subsidies — with one third of that amount to be paid by the province.
That deal came after NextStar halted construction of the sprawling battery facility in Windsor’s east end in an effort to secure more public funding. The U.S. government, under former president Joe Biden, had started offering hefty incentives to manufacturers that set up electric vehicle operations south of the border.
In the fallout of the Brampton move, Conservatives have claimed the Liberal government “handed over” $15 billion in tax dollars to Stellantis while failing to secure job protections — something Industry Minister Mélanie Joly has disputed.
“The $15 billion was linked to the production and sale of batteries,” she told a parliamentary committee earlier this month. “The facility has been built, but the company’s still hiring and there’s not been any production and sale of batteries yet, so the government has not spent $15 billion.”
The sprawling plant in east Windsor has been producing battery modules — groupings of interconnected cells — since last year, and NextStar recently announced that it has started making cells. The facility, which was built to make batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), will prioritize making batteries for energy storage systems as demand for EVs weakens.
Under the contract, NextStar has to make quarterly claims for the federal funding, which the government disperses based on the plant’s output and sales.
A one-page document, released by Joly’s department in September under access to information law (ATIP), shows that up until mid-June, NextStar had filed five claims, and the federal government had issued cheques totalling $40,412,420.
CBC Windsor obtained the document by making an informal request for it. NextStar did not respond to a request for comment.
Joly’s department has previously refused to say how much it has paid NextStar in production subsidies, citing the “commercially confidential nature” of the numbers.
“Releasing funding amounts at the individual company level would pose a risk to Canada with regard to its contractual and commercial obligations, and at the same time, could prejudice the competitive position of the company,” a spokesperson for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) told CBC Windsor in July.
Asked more recently why the department released the figure in response to an access to information request, ISED claimed the figures listed in the document were “not exclusive” to NextStar.
“They are representative of spending disbursements for electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturers that are available publicly in the Public Accounts of Canada 2025 for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2025.”
But NextStar is the only manufacturer listed on the one-page document, which the department released in response to an ATIP request for numbers specific to the company. It’s also the only EV battery plant in Canada that has started production. Other projects have been paused or are still under construction.
And public accounts show ISED paid only one company — whose name is withheld — roughly $40 million as part of “contributions to electric vehicle battery manufacturers.”
Moreover, the number and dates of NextStar’s quarterly claims line up with those of claims recently revealed by the department in response to a written question in the House of Commons from Conservative MP Fraser Tolmie.
ISED told Tolmie that as of September, it had received six claims from NextStar “related to production support for battery modules.”
The department did not respond to questions asking it to explain why it claims the ATIP document didn’t contain NextStar-specific numbers.
But the $40 million figure, which has likely grown since the June cutoff date on the ATIP document, also roughly matches what a top official at the department told parliamentarians earlier this month. Senior Assistant Deputy Minister Charles Vincent said about $42 million had been spent so far on production subsidies.
The deal lasts until the end of 2032, so the overall amount of funding NextStar receives is set to jump over the next few years.
