The federal government is rolling out a series of fresh relief measures worth $1.5 billion for Canada’s tariff-hit steel, aluminum and copper tariffs, ministers Melanie Joly and Evan Solomon said on Monday.
The U.S. currently imposes a 50 per cent tariff on Canadian steel and aluminum, along with a 50 per cent tariff on certain copper products from Canada.
“We’re in a trade war, we’re on the front lines and the goal is to protect workers and actually keep companies,” Industry Minister Joly said.
Monday’s relief package will be broken up into two parts, the first one being $1 billion in loans by the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC).
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The loans will range anywhere between $2 million and $50 million, Joly said.
The first year of the loan has an interest rate of zero, followed by “very low” interest rates for the second and third years, she added.
“There will be no repayment for the entire three years, only actually interest to be paid on these loans. And at the end of the three years, repayment will be asked,” Joly said.
The second part of Monday’s package will be an additional $500 million in funding through the Regional Tariff Response Initiative, AI and Digital Innovation Minister Solomon said.
The funding is intended to encourage small and medium enterprises “to make strategic pivots, improve productivity, diversify markets and stay competitive,” Solomon said.
The Regional Tariff Response Initiative is a Canadian government fund launched to shelter Canadian businesses from the worst impacts of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Another taxpayer funded boondoggle. The only thing the Liberals can do is spend taxpayer money chasing businesses that cannot succed. They have not created one good paying job in 15 years but lots of skip the dishes, uber, and door dash driver jobs. Wake up Canada and kick these aristocrates down the road.
She’s pretty but dumb, sounds a lot like Kamala Harris.
and what about forestry????
Ontario and Qubek. Nothing again for the BC forest industry, thousand and thousands out of work…
Canada is where its at because of these Liberals. END OF STORY! The regime has flatlined everything about Canada! And now, more corporate welfare to offset the trade boondoggle.
Councils and plans and advisory groups…what a big pile of FU to Canada from these Liberal wastes
So another FU to the tax payer, if you can’t make your company model work with or with out tariffs then it should go belly up. Not for the tax payer to pay for it to keep you afloat hoping for better days. All this does is hurt the average person with higher costs of living thanks to giving out money we don’t even have and need to borrow.
The Liberal answer to Trump’s illegal tariffs… pay the amount of the tariff, so the US companies do not feel the pain. Why do the Liberals want to hurt Canadian taxpayers? – Make the US pay their tariffs, or get rid of Trump.
This is not ‘dealing with Trump’. It is pandering to him, and giving him money…
Why negotiate when you can instead hand out aid packages to the hurting industry, I guess.
Carney was elected on the promise of being able to quickly and effectively negotiate a trade deal, something it’s become clear he has no interest in doing.
Most of the countries in the world are jealous of Canada’s position next to the world’s largest consume economy, but some Canadians and the Liberal government act as if its a curse instead of a blessing.
Canada is a big country, it shud build strategic oil reserves on it’s own land for other countries who dont have space to build their own. And charge rent and maintenance at commercial rates. When an oil crisis arises these countries can ship out it’s own oil from canada. This can bring big revenue for canada and guaranteed oil revenue for decades