2022 Canadians to Watch

CHOSEN BECAUSE:

Sarah Houde, 41, leads Montreal-based Propulsion Quebec, an industrial cluster that brings stakeholders together to create infrastructure for building electric vehicles. Her team’s efforts led to two battery cathode plants that will be built in the province by 2025.

She’s working on an industrial policy “road map” of 225 initiatives, ranging from engineering education through to the supply chain, that need to be in place for local EV production. Her planned online resources for governments, universities, private funding and other partners will help them create the framework needed for automakers to build their EVs in Quebec.

IN HER OWN WORDS:

“If we’re not ready to grow our manufacturing, if we don’t have the strategic elements in the supply chain, we will be importing vehicles in 2030 and not exporting them. We have the R&D, the manufacturing capacity from the auto industry, the minerals for batteries, and we need a structured plan. This is an ecosystem from the bottom up.”