Minister Joly highlights budget investments in EV supply chain & research

Saskatoon – The federal government recently tabled Budget 2024: Fairness for Every Generation.

It is a plan to build a Canada that works better for everyone, where younger generations can get ahead, where their hard work pays off, and where they can buy a home—where everyone has a fair chance at a good middle-class life.

Mélanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Canadian Light Source, a University of Saskatchewan research facility. There, she highlighted the federal government’s recent funding of $83.5 million over 3 years to support the facility’s work in various research areas ranging from climate resistant crop development to research in electric vehicles technology. With Budget 2024’s proposed a new electric vehicle supply chain tax credit, the federal government is seizing the opportunity to secure Canada’s future in the automotive industry and support the supply chain, while creating high-quality jobs for Canadian workers for generations to come.

As more electric vehicles are being produced worldwide, it is essential for Canada’s automotive industry to have the tools needed to compete in global markets and become a leader in electric vehicle supply chain hub.

Budget 2024 is a plan to deliver fairness for every generation.

First, the budget takes bold action to build more homes. Because the best way to make home prices more affordable is to increase supply—and quickly. It lays out a strategy to unlock 3.87 million new homes by 2031. Key measures include launching the new Public Lands for Homes Plan and Canada Rental Protection Fund, enhancing the Canadian Mortgage Charter, and creating a new Canadian Renters’ Bill of Rights.

Second, it will help make life cost less. The budget builds on the government’s transformative expansion of Canada’s social safety net—$10-a-day childcare; dental care for uninsured Canadians, the first phase of universal pharmacare—and advances the government’s work to lower everyday costs for Canadians. This includes helping to stabilizing the cost of groceries, cracking down on junk fees and lowering the costs of banking. Budget 2024 also makes transformative new investments, including a National School Food Program and the Canada Disability Benefit.

Third, this year’s budget will grow the economy in a way that’s shared by all. The government’s plan will increase investment, enhance productivity, and encourage innovation. It will create good-paying and meaningful jobs, keep Canada at the economic forefront, and deliver new support to empower more of our best entrepreneurs and innovators. This includes attracting more investment in the net-zero economy by expanding and delivering the major economic investment tax credits, securing Canada’s advantage as a leader in artificial intelligence, and investing in enhanced research grants that will provide younger generations with good jobs and new opportunities. And it means ensuring Indigenous Peoples share in this growth in a way that works for them.

Budget 2024 will also make Canada’s tax system fairer by asking the wealthiest to pay a bit more—so that the government can invest in prosperity for every generation, and because it would be irresponsible and unfair to pass on more debt to the next generations. Budget 2024 is a responsible economic plan that upholds the fiscal objectives outlined in the 2023 Fall Economic Statement, and sees Canada maintain the lowest deficit- and net debt-to-GDP ratios in the G7.