Feds announce $26M in loans for Sask. businesses

The money is taking the form of interest-free loans that are expected to create 500 jobs.

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Roshan Thomas went from selling a few bikes out of his garage to selling 20,000 of them across the continent.

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The Biktrix Enterprises Inc. founder runs one of a handful of Saskatchewan businesses that the federal government is betting millions of dollars on succeeding.

Minister for Prairies Economic Development Canada Dan Vandal visited the warehouse Thomas’s company graduated into on Wednesday.

Ottawa is spending roughly $26 million on companies like Biktrix in the form of interest-free loans that are expected to create 500 jobs, Vandal said at a media conference.

The biggest allocations in the announcement include $5 million each for Coconut Software and Donald’s Fine Foods, which will convert a shuttered beef processing plant into a sow slaughtering and processing plant. Lytehorse Labs Inc. will get $2.7 million to start and scale up production of an all-terrain utility vehicle.

Other major spending items include $3.8 million for fertilizer company Northern Nutrients Ltd. and Biktrix, which will receive $3.5 million to commercialize software and hardware for its e-bikes.

Another company operating as Mother Labs will get about $1.8 million to improve cannabis breeding across western Canada. C-Merak Industries Inc. and affiliated farms get $2 million for a fava bean and oat milling processing facility in Saskatchewan.

The loans coincide with a labour shortage in many sectors.

Thomas said extra money will help his company pull recruits into Saskatoon from elsewhere by paying more competitive salaries, while directing other resources to train local workers.

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He used the example of one of Biktrix’s web developers, who worked preparing sandwiches and had no prior experience before joining the company.

“(We want to) take those risks that we normally wouldn’t have, if we did not have additional fuel on the fire from governments or other funding agencies,” he said.

Katherine Regnier, founder of Coconut Software, also said the money will help reel in candidates by supporting higher pay to compete with tech hubs in Vancouver and the United States.

Her company is in a hiring push that’s raised the total number staff members to 125 from 70 earlier this year.

The government loan announced on Wednesday will help her push that number above 200, she said.

“Coconut is having to compete with some of the really big tech companies in Canada. This is going to help pay (in a market) which has gone through the roof recently, and really compete to get either grads that are coming out or some of those special skilled staff.”