Feds to widen scope of $1.26B business innovation fund to cover all sectors

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 will be in Hamilton later today to announce that Ottawa’s so-called strategic innovation fund will no longer be restricted to just a handful of sectors in Canada.

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.