Justin Trudeau announces federal investment in Automotive Centre of Excellence

During a time of uncertainty, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a promise Friday to strengthen Canada’s automotive industry.

He toured University of Ontario Institute of Technology ‘s Automotive Centre of Excellence, familiarizing himself with some new technology that his government has vowed to expand.

The climatic wind tunnel can replicate any and all weather scenarios.

Friday was Trudeau’s first visit to the Automotive Centre where he was given a crash course in the technology.

The PM was led to see some of the inner workings beneath the wind tunnel and ultimately where construction will start on installing a Moving Ground Plane — a moving belt that acts like a road – and other state-of-the-art aerodynamic and aero-acoustic enhancements, which will help researchers create cleaner, safer and more reliable vehicles.

It’s also where his federal government will be allocating a significant chunk of money.

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“Everything from cars to bikes to drones are tested here, developing the best quality and performance possible and our government is committed to supporting work like this that creates economic growth and produces real results. That’s why today we’re announcing that the federal government is investing nearly $9.5 million to support innovation and training here at the centre,” said Trudeau.

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The PM says the funding will also create more full-time jobs, generate new training opportunities, and promote research and development.

“The research in teaching for the next generation — it’s simply more than a wind tunnel that’s used with industry — this helps to school the next generation to be literate in all things green and how to make more things productive,” said Dr. Steven Murphy, UOIT president.

“Everything we do here, seven years ago was leaving Canada and we’re reversing that flow, in fact, all that work now is coming back to Canada,” said John Komar, UOIT ACE director of engineering and operations.

Construction will start on the ACE enhancement project in the next few weeks. It’s expected to be completed in the spring of 2020.