The Ontario government is starting a funding program to support small and medium businesses in the manufacturing industry.
“We want them to invest in equipment, advanced technologies and a skilled workforce,” said Vic Fedeli, the minister of Economic Development, Job Creation, and Trade. “All of that is to improve our competitiveness and growth in material.”
The Advanced Manufacturing and Competitiveness Stream (AMIC) is a two-year program that will disperse $40 million among eligible applications.
The program is part of the Regional Development Program (RDP) that originally consisted of the Eastern Ontario Development fund and the Southwestern Development Fund, which only served those sectors. The AMIC stream will support the manufacturing industry in all parts of the province.
The applications are open from Jan. 17 to Feb. 10, 2022.
The RDP was created in 2019 to support projects by funding a percentage of their costs through grants and loans. So far in the first seven application periods, there have been 165 applications. Sixty-one projects — which were required to prove viability and already have heavy investment built in for approval — were funded with a total of $60 million so far.
Fedeli said the new AMIC will work the same way as the rest of the RDP, which will continue to take applications. The criteria for the funding are for viable projects that add innovation or increase local industry.
The AMIC will focus on manufacturing but the RDP funded businesses, towns, and economic organizations.
“The applications were all merit-based. They were vetted by the experts at the ministry staff,” Fedeli said of the RDP.
Sarnia received $1.5 million to build an oversized load corridor to the Port of Sarnia as one of first RDP grants in 2020. The 26.7-kilometre corridor is a protected route created to move industrial materials to the port for shipping. The entire project cost $16.9 million.
“The process went through an evaluation, a committee based on the merits of the project and economic value of what the project was going to bring to the area,” said Lyle Johnson, the project manager for the oversized load corridor.
The RDP funding was essential for Tillsonburg to build an industrial area called the Van Norman Innovation Park. The industrial park was budgeted for $4.5 million, which was a lot for a small town, said Cephus Panschow, the town’s development commissioner.
“That’s a huge help to a community our size,” Panschow said. “That grant program was instrumental in us being able to move forward and in a timely fashion.”
An auto parts manufacturer in Tillsonburg also received $1 million in 2021 for a new plant. The latest business to be funded is GreenCentre Canada which was granted $543,300 to help create a sustainable chemical industry.
The province projects the RDP to invest up to $100 million by 2023.