Dear members, dear partners,

On Monday, we held the 16^th Annual General Meeting of Aéro Montréal. More than 210 of you attended the event and I would like to thank you. The day was full of good news for the industry.

First, we were pleased to announce that Fassi Kafyeke is joining the Aéro Montréal team as Project Manager for the development and deployment of the Innovation Zone. Fassi is currently Senior Advisor, Research, Innovation and Collaboration, at Bombardier and will be seconded for a period of two years in order to accelerate the process of creating the next Zone. This is a first for Aéro Montréal and the arrival of an expert in innovation will help to advance the way we tackle this decisive area for our sector. I would like to thank the Bombardier team who, by facilitating this secondment, will provide unprecedented support to the entire ecosystem over the next two years.

Decisive support for Québec’s aerospace industry

The Annual General Meeting was also an opportunity for Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of Economy and Innovation, to confirm the Québec government’s commitment to support the recovery of our sector.

Mr. Fitzgibbon announced a grant of nearly $48.65 million to the Coalition for Greener Aircraft. This financial contribution will support Les projets collaboratifs de l'aéronef de demain (future aircraft collaborative projects). In the long term, the results of these projects could be integrated into the development of new, more eco-efficient aircraft.

Under this initiative, prime contractors and equipment manufacturers in the sector will carry out, together with their respective partners, four collaborative projects that will mobilize SMEs, universities and government laboratories. The overall mobilization project will maintain and create 256 well-paying high technology jobs.

A dedicated budget to accelerate the recovery

At the end of the day, the federal government announced a $1.75 billion budget over seven years through the Strategic Innovation Fund. By making this massive investment, the government is stimulating the sector's creativity and encouraging the industry to accelerate its shift towards decarbonization. It is complementing this support with $250 million over three years for regional development agencies to implement a regional aerospace recovery initiative. The goal of this measure is to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to improve productivity, build marketing capacity and improve the energy efficiency of their operations and products.

I would like to commend the way the industry mobilized at the beginning of the crisis, quickly getting together to propose concrete solutions to government authorities that were adapted to the sector’s needs. We are now reaping the benefits of this collective effort. Thanks to these clear signals from governments, we can now look forward to a strong and sustainable recovery that will enable our aerospace industry to remain in the global race towards sustainable mobility.