Government of Canada invests to help make Canada a world leader in clean technologies

 

Fredericton, New Brunswick, and Amherst, Nova Scotia - Canada’s economy is strong and growing, creating good jobs for the middle class and the people working hard to join it. At the same time, there is an opportunity to encourage businesses to make investments that will position them for long-term growth.

 

The Honourable Bernadette Jordan, Minister of Rural Economic Development, and Matt DeCourcey, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and Member of Parliament for Fredericton, on behalf of the Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, announced an investment of up to $35.66 million in a partnership between Siemens Canada—a leading electronics and electrical engineering firm—New Brunswick Power and Nova Scotia Power.

 

The funding will help create and maintain up to 241 highly skilled jobs in Atlantic Canada and support the partners’ $92.7-million project. Under this project, Siemens will research and develop smart grid technology to help better manage the provinces’ electricity and will build Canadian expertise that could improve the sustainability and efficiency of power grids around the world. This project will help improve power delivery to underserved communities, better integrate renewable energy into the power grid and reduce future electricity costs for consumers.

 

Thanks in part to this investment, Canadians will benefit from increased collaboration among the partners and post-secondary students, greater gender diversity in the workforce, more intellectual property produced in Canada, and more engagement with local Indigenous communities in the clean energy sector.

 

As part of the Innovation and Skills Plan, this investment supports the Clean Technology Economic Strategy Table’s aim to develop domestic markets for clean technologies. This investment also supports the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, as well as Canada’s commitments to Mission Innovation, a global initiative of 23 countries and the European Union to dramatically accelerate global clean energy innovation.

 

This project is funded through the Strategic Innovation Fund, a program designed to attract and support high-quality business investments in Canada's most dynamic and innovative sectors.