OTTAWA – The federal government is broadening the scope of its $1.26-billion fund to support innovation-related business investments to include companies from all industrial sectors.
Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains announced today at McMaster Innovation Park in Hamilton that Ottawa’s so-called strategic innovation fund will no longer be restricted to just a handful of sectors in Canada.
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The fund was announced in the federal budget and designed to allocate the money over five years to support research and development, the scale-up of high-potential companies and efforts to attract investment to Canada.
The budget described it as a consolidation of several “business innovation” programs, including existing funds to support the automotive, aerospace, space and defence sectors.
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The spring budget had also said companies from sectors such as clean technology and agri-food would be eligible.
The program will now offer a mixture of repayable contributions and non-repayable contributions to firms in all sectors.
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