OTTAWA — With an election call fast approaching, Ottawa’s flagship innovation fund has awarded more new funding in the last two weeks than it did in the first six months of 2024, government data shows.

The Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) has granted $228.9 million to four new projects since March 11, including three biomanufacturing initiatives, upgrades at a semiconductor plant and a hydrogen liquefier facility. The grants amount to 39 per cent of the $580.7 million the fund awarded in all of 2024. The Logic calculated the figures using press releases and a publicly available database of SIF awards. The program includes grants and repayable contributions to projects. 

The flurry of announcements comes just days before Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to ask the Governor General to dissolve Parliament and call an election. The opposition Conservatives have already mused about overhauling the fund if they win, arguing it is not producing results and unduly benefits multinationals over homegrown companies. 

Benjamin Bergen, the president of the Council of Canadian Innovators, said he’s less concerned about the timing of the grants than about where the money is going while Canada is in a trade war with the U.S.

“The thing about the Strategic Innovation Fund is that it’s meant to be strategic,” he said. “Every dollar directed towards multinational corporations is basically a missed opportunity to help scaling tech companies become global leaders.”

On March 11, the government announced a $62-million grant for Entos Pharmaceuticals to build a new $198.5 million biomanufacturing plant in Edmonton. It was one of François-Philippe Champagne’s final acts as innovation minister before Carney shuffled him into the finance portfolio.

Seven days later, the new innovation minister, Anita Anand, announced a $60-million contribution to expand a biomanufacturing facility in Boucherville, Que., owned by the Canadian arm of Delpharm, a pharmaceutical giant based in France. 

That was followed the next day by two more announcements: $49 million for HTEC’s North Vancouver project to capture and liquefy industrial by-product hydrogen, and $49.9 million for Stemcell Technologies Canada to build two B.C. facilities that will make products used in vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools. 

On Friday, Anand pledged $8 million to U.S.-based Teledyne Technologies to upgrade the equipment at its semiconductor plant in Bromont, Que.

Ottawa also announced on March 7 it set aside up to $226 million from the fund as a contribution to the second phase of Heidelberg Materials’ Edmonton carbon-capture system, designed to produce carbon-neutral cement. The government previously agreed to put $49 million toward the first phase. In a press release, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada noted the new funding would support the project once the German industrial giant makes a final investment decision by April 30, which will likely be after the election ends. 

All that is compared to only two grants issued during an unusually slow period in the first half of 2024, both awarded to IBM Canada to expand its own semiconductor packaging plant in Bromont, and for the tech giant to develop quantum technologies with a local R&D lab. The combined contribution amounted to $59.9 million. 

Aspects of the program could be upended by a new government, Bergen said, but those changes will likely be directed by the political situation in the U.S. “Our reality has shifted, so I hope our policies shift as well to meet the moment,” he said.

Neither Anand nor ISED immediately responded to a request for comment.