Canada’s manufacturing sector represents more than 10 per cent of the country’s total GDP. Manufacturers export more than $354 billion each year, representing 68 per cent of all of Canada’s merchandise exports. So, it was no surprise that one of the supercluster winners is a manufacturing group. As Next Generation Manufacturing Canada’s CEO, Jayson Myers, writes, innovation in manufacturing means both adopting and adapting.
Stretching from Windsor to Quebec City, Canada’s innovation corridor is home to some of the best research, technologies and manufacturing capabilities in the world. The region boasts a globally ranked start-up ecosystem in the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor, a diverse and concentrated manufacturing base, many leading technology companies, a highly skilled workforce, world-class research and educational facilities and a remarkable entrepreneurial dynamic. Imagine the economic powerhouse it would be if we could combine these assets more effectively, applying more advanced technologies to improve the competitiveness and growth potential of our manufacturers and scaling up more technologies to apply and manufacture them in Canada.
Next Generation Manufacturing Canada, the industry-led, not-for-profit organization established to lead Canada’s Advanced Manufacturing Supercluster initiative, aims to do just that. We believe the transformation to advanced manufacturing will enrich all our lives, delivering better products and good jobs while generating the economic growth that is essential to building a better world. Our goal by 2025 is to see Canadian manufacturers setting world benchmarks in competitiveness and growth through the application and production of advanced technologies.