Canada’s Finance Minister, Hon. Chrystia Freeland tabled the Liberal government’s 2024 Budget entitled “Fairness for Every Generation”. This represents the third Budget for the minority Liberal government that is being conditionally supported by the NDP through their “Supply and Confidence Agreement”. Should the agreement that was struck in 2022 hold, today’s Budget means that the Liberals will have one more Budget to introduce before the general election takes place in the Fall of next year.
To learn more: S&A Budget Review and Analysis – S&A Strategies (sastrategies.ca)
The following provides a brief summary of some of the new proposals under the 2024 federal budget.
As always, if you are interested in more detail and context under each of these announcements, please reach out to S&A Strategies.
ENVIRONMENT / ENERGY
- Clean Fuels Fund – retooled funding delivery process, and an extension of the fund to 2029-2030. In total, $776.3M will be made available. CFF will move to a continuous intake process.
- Canada Infrastructure Bank – $500M being made available in biofuels production.
- Clean Electricity Investment Tax Credit – the design and implementation details of this ITC were outlined in the Budget, and includes eligibility profiles for generation systems using energy from wind, solar, water, geothermal, waste biomass, nuclear, or natural gas with carbon capture and storage.
- Clean Hydrogen Investment Tax Credit – government is committing to introduce legislation soon.
- Clean Technology Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit – legislation will be tabled soon.
- Canada Growth Fund – expanding their range of contracts for difference (CCFDs).
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT & INDUSTRY
- New AI Compute Access Fund – $2 billion over five years, staring in 2024-25 to launch a new AI Compute Access Fund, and Canadian AI Sovereign Compute Strategy.
- AI Start Up Support – $200 million over five years, starting in 2024-25, to boost AI start-ups to bring new technologies to market, and accelerate AI adoption in critical sectors. This support will be delivered through Canada’s Regional Development Agencies (such as Feddev Ontario).
- AI Assist Program – $100M over five years, starting in 2024-25, for the NRC’s AI Assist Program to help Canadian SMEs build and deploy new AI solutions.
- $50M over four years, starting in 2025-26, to support workers who may be impacted by AI, such as creative industries.
- Existing programs:
- SR&ED – $600M over four years starting in 2025-26.
- Regional Development Agencies – $158.5M over two years for the Regional Economic Growth through Innovation program.
- Capital Cost Allowance – the Budget proposes to allow businesses to immediately write off the full cost of investments in patents, data network infrastructure equipment, computers, and other data processing equipment. $725M is being made available for this.
- EVs and EV Infrastructure:
- New EV ITC – a new 10 per cent Electric Vehicle Supply Chain investment tax credit (ITC). The ITC would be available as of Jan. 1, 2024. Updates will provided in the Fall Economic Statement in 2024.
- Incentives for Zero-Emission Vehicles Program – this program is receiving a top-up of $607.9 million to extend the program by two years starting in 2024-2025.