The Canadian government has included Northern Ontario in a series of investments aimed at strengthening Canada through challenging.
Thunder Bay-Superior North MP Patty Hajdu, who is the minister responsible for the FedNor economic development agency for Northern Ontario, outlined investments to strengthen economic resilience across Northern Ontario which build on previously announced measures to help transform the Canadian steel and softwood lumber industries.
On Friday, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced of a suite of measures.
“We really are in a very strange time,” Hajdu said. “The prime minister called it a hinge moment in history, and he’s not exaggerating. When the prime minister of Canada is saying, this is a hinge time, it’s very clear and Canadians are feeling that.”
Hajdu called the new buy-Canadian policy a much needed transformational piece which she felt was the biggest part of Carney’s announcement.
“This will apply to all federal agencies, crown corporations, grants, contributions, loans and federal streams,” she said. “We anticipate that the buy-Canada effort will extend to an additional $70 billion of spending, and it’s really going to give our Canadian companies the leg up that they need.”
She said it will initially cover Canadian steel, lumber and other materials but adjustments will be made to make sure that everything is covered. If a choice is made in an area of a minister’s responsibility that isn’t allotting a Canadian company the award, they will have to explain why.
Hajdu says there were several measures in her portfolio from the Friday announcement that directly impact Northern Ontario. They include an additional $450 million for a reskilling package through labour market development agreements to support workers with modernized digital tools.
There will also be temporary employment insurance measures which include the waiving the one-week EI waiting period, and providing $1.6 billion over five years to temporarily give up to 20 extra weeks of income support for nearly 190,000 long-tenured workers.
