FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Federal supports announced amid economic uncertainty
Guelph, ON — September 5, 2025
A turbulent global trade landscape is having significant effects on Canadian workers, supply chains and investments. Despite having the best deal of any U.S. trading partner, we can no longer rely on our most important trade relationship.
Today the government of Canada announced the most comprehensive suite of trade resilience measures in Canadian history to shore up our strength from within and support our local business community as we navigate the uncertainty and orient ourselves to a new industrial strategy.
Dominique O’Rourke, Member of Parliament for Guelph, Chair of the Liberal Auto Caucus and member of the Industry and Technology Committee welcomed the announcement. “This suite of programs from financing to reskilling support small, medium and large businesses in Guelph and across the country and they are a signal that we will support and stabilize our supply chains, the manufacturing and agricultural sector, and the workers in Guelph.”
Guelph’s local economy is dependant on the vitality of the auto sector and while this announcement provides support to a broad range of sectors, the measures announced will help Canadian businesses weather the uncertainty and come out stronger.
The measures, announced by Prime Minister Mark Carney today, build on previously announced measures to help transform the Canadian steel and softwood lumber industries, and include:
- Reskilling package: for up to 50,000 workers, to make Employment Insurance more flexible and with extended benefits and launch a new digital jobs and training platform with private-sector partners to connect Canadians more quickly to careers.
- Strategic Response Fund:an investment of $5 billion through a new fund with flexible terms to help firms in all sectors impacted by tariffs to adapt, diversify, and grow, with support provided to industries by new Workforce Alliances to align training and workforce needs.
- Buy Canadian Policy:introduction of a new policy to ensure the federal government buys from Canadian suppliers, requires local content when domestic suppliers are unavailable, extending this approach to all federal funding streams and Crown
corporations, and provide a roadmap for provinces and municipalities to apply similar standards to their own procurement.
- Immediate liquidity relief:expansion of the Business Development Bank of Canada loans for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to $5 million, providing more flexible financing through the Large Enterprise Tariff Loan Facility, and giving the auto sector flexibility by waiving 2026 model year vehicles from Electric Vehicle Availability Standard requirements and by launching an immediate 60-day review to reduce costs.
- Assisting Canada’s canola and agriculture producers:introduction of a new biofuel production incentive, with over $370 million for domestic producers to address immediate competitiveness challenges, amend Clean Fuel Regulations to support the domestic biofuels industry, temporarily increase the Advance Payments Program interest-free limit to $500,000 for canola advances, and providing increased funding for the AgriMarketing Program to support diversification into new markets of agricultural products.
- Regional Tariff Response Initiative: expansion of supports to SMEs of $1 billion over three years, with flexible terms, and increased new non-repayable contributions for eligible businesses impacted by tariffs across all affected sectors, including agricultural and seafood.
The full list of measures is available here.
These new measures will help industries and workers to build on the foundation of the Canadian market, diversity trade partnerships to ensure less reliance on a single trade partner and build stronger Canadian markets. We are building Canada Strong by acting with the most comprehensive suite of trade resilience measures in Canadian history.
Quotes
“We cannot control what other nations do. We can control what we give ourselves – what we build for ourselves. Canada is building the strongest economy in the G7, one that is less reliant on foreign powers and more resilient in the face of global shocks. In the face of uncertainty around the world, we are ensuring that our workers and businesses will prosper by building Canada’s strength at home.”
The Rt. Hon. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada