No More CanExport for Us This Year
CanExport just opened up applications for the new fiscal year. We’ve been fortunate enough, in the past, to have received funds to help us expand into the US and pick up new customers State-side.
As I’ve done in year’s past, I fired up our account and started filling out a new application in hopes of hitting up parts of California this summer to see if we can, once again, drum up some new sales in the United States.
Just to err on the side of caution, I always review the eligibility requirements to make sure we are fully compliant.
That’s when I spotted a crucial update that stopped me in my tracks:
As I was reviewing the eligibility requirements, I wanted to double-check that our project would be fully compliant with any new rules
(screen capture from - “Category C: Marketing and translation” section)
According to the section labeled “Category C: Marketing and translation”, only advertising costs related to participation in a trade event are eligible as of this year. Furthermore, they specifically state that “online advertising, including social media” is no longer eligible.
I had to go back to last year’s page to confirm that this is indeed a new change.
In last year’s document under section “5.3 Category C: Marketing and translation”, the section clearly stated that online advertising was fully eligible. They even had a specific section for it:
(screen capture from WaybackMachine)
It seems that the Canadian Government no longer wants to be seen funding US tech companies. I can totally get behind the thought process but it does affect our operating budget for the year.
Is an update to the rules coming?
One thing I found odd about the wording of the updated “Category C” was that it talks about advertising in terms of trade events.
The section above it is “Category B: Participation in trade events (non-travel related)” which makes me wonder if the “advertising” bullet point was intended for the section above?
However, since the “not eligible” section clearly lists “online advertising” I think the stance on not giving government money to Google and Facebook are pretty clear.
Conclusion
While it was always helpful to get a little of our ad spend back from the government, I think this is in line with the recent political climate.
Famously, Google and Meta (Facebook) were recently in a legal battle with the Canadian Government over supporting local media (see “Online News Act”). While Google decided to settle and Meta held its ground the damage to the relationship with these tech giants was done.
Add on the recent trade war with a US government that is cozy with tech billionaires and it makes total sense to cut ad funding out of CanExport (and, I would imagine, other government grants).
It’s difficult to support small businesses when we’re beholden to monopolies looking to bully our country and government.
While it stings a little personally, I am 100% behind the decision for our government to stand up for itself.
To me, this is a concrete example of how trade wars hurt everyone and monopolies are bad for business.