Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday a suite of new measures to support sectors of the economy hit hardest by U.S. tariffs.
The announcement includes $5 billion for a fund to help companies pivot to new products and markets and keep skills and production in Canada, and to make them more competitive globally.
At a press conference at an aerospace plant in Mississauga, Ont. Friday morning, Carney said that the fund would be open to "all sectors, given the fact that the tariff impacts are wide-ranging across Canadian industries." He said that heavily affected sectors like steel, automobile, lumber and aluminum would have priority.
Carney also announced a “Buy Canadian” policy for the federal government.
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A government backgrounder document said the policy would require that materials for some defence and construction procurements come from Canadian companies. It said the policy would "initially cover Canadian steel and softwood lumber" but would allow the government to later include additional materials.
The Canadian Steel Producers Association praised the move Friday, saying in a press release that Canadian steel producers could replace more than 80 per cent of imported steel consumed in Canada.
The Forest Products Association of Canada said the measures Carney announced, “if well executed, can provide hope for the future for one of Canada’s forest sector and its 200,000 employees.”
Carney's government is also introducing new supports for the canola sector — including a new $370 million production incentive — and a one-year delay to the electric vehicle sales mandate.
It also plans to expand support and loans for small and medium businesses. That includes increasing the maximum loan size through the Business Development Bank of Canada from $2 million to $5 million.
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, said the ability to access new government funds will be crucial for small- and medium-sized auto-parts suppliers that are being denied new loans by private lenders.
"It's important that there's new operating liquidity coming from Canada, where you don't have to go to the bank and beg at a moment when you did nothing wrong as a manufacturer — you're just subject to the whims of the White House," Volpe said in a scrum on the factory floor at the announcement.
The Liberal government's plan also includes more than $2 billion for employment insurance measures. The government will spend $842 million to extend two temporary measures to allow workers to keep severance payments while receiving EI and waive the one-week waiting period to receive benefits.
The government also plans to spend $1.6 billion over five years to give "long-tenured workers" an 20 extra weeks of EI support, a measure it expects to benefit about 190,000 workers.
The National Council of Unemployed Workers said in a press release that limiting those extra weeks of support to long-tenured workers "leaves thousands of others behind." The group said that approach creates an "artificial and unfair division" among workers.
The Carney government also announced $450 million for agreements with the provinces and territories to retrain up to 50,000 workers. The government says it will also spend an additional $550 million to roughly double its regional tariff response initiative, which supports small and medium enterprises affected by U.S. tariffs.
The government says it has earmarked $382 million for "workforce alliances," which the background document said will "bring together employers, unions and industry groups to work on ways to help businesses and workers succeed in the changing labour market."
Interim NDP Leader Don Davies said in a press release that while "announcing measures to protect our current industries is a good step, we need to take more action to create more jobs and to lower our unemployment rate."
At his press conference Friday, Carney said tariff-exposed sectors like steel, lumber, aluminum and copper will be "central to our future competitiveness in a world of major infrastructure investment, defence and security, and that unprecedented acceleration in home building."
Carney said Canada can’t rely on trade with the U.S. as it did in the past, and his government’s new industrial strategy will build an economy that is more resilient to global shocks.
The Liberal government is in the midst of trade talks with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has imposed tariffs on much of the world.
— With files from Kyle Duggan in Mississauga, Ont.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 5, 2024.
