This session will investigate recent economic transformations across Ontario and beyond, exploring how emerging industries and localized entrepreneurship are reshaping geographies of production and place. Presenters will examine the rise of electric vehicle manufacturing and the location decisions that underpin it, the institutional innovation of Ontario’s craft brewing sector, and zoning’s influence on brewery landscapes. The session will also highlight new economic frontiers such as cryptocurrency mining in Upstate New York, revealing tensions between innovation, economic revitalization, and environmental sustainability.

• 8:30 AM
  Electric Vehicle Manufacturing in Ontario: Insights from media coverage
  Jesse Sutton, Western University

  8:45 AM
  The Locational Decisions of Electric Vehicle Companies in Ontario: Insight from Interviews
  Yuen Lam Cheng, Western University

  9:00 AM
  Institutional Work and Institutional Entrepreneurship in the Ontario Craft Beer Industry
  Kevin Roy, University of Toronto

  9:15 AM
  Learning from Economic Recovery: Decomposing Post-Crisis Trajectories of Regional Employment
  Pablo Mendez, Carleton University

  9:30 AM
  From Brownfields to Bitcoin Mines in Upstate New York
  Alex Quesnel, York University

  9:45 AM
  Bitter Harvest: Precarity, Solidarity, and the Closure of Del Monte’s Oshawa Plant
  Christopher Sorio, University of Ottawa