Premier Kathleen Wynne stopped by the Sandvine office in Waterloo March 16 to announce a $15 million grant from the government of Ontario to assist with research and development. </p>
Sandvine is a broadband and information technology company that produces systems which help monitor and regulate online material.
The company plans to hire for 75 new positions with the funds from the grant. While creating new jobs, this grant will also go to further support 267 existing positions.
“By creating jobs, it creates opportunities. The $15 million that we’re investing in Sandvine will create 75 new jobs and it will mean that the [267] jobs that are already here will stay here. This is a strong Ontario company; we want to keep them here and that’s one of the reasons we are partnering with them,” Wynne said in an interview with Imprint.
The grant is an extension of the Jobs and Prosperity Fund and the province’s push to increase employment opportunities.
The grant will also assist partway in paying for future projects the company plans to undertake over the next seven years.
The estimated overall fund is $169 million. Through this initiative, Wynne is hoping to maintain high-paying employment opportunities for Ontarians and lessen the decline of low-skilled jobs that began 15 years ago.
“Our government was looking ahead, and we saw that to secure those high-paying jobs of the future and support the visionaries at companies like Sandvine, we need to invest in our people. We need to invest in our post-secondary institutions and in an entrepreneurial ecosystem,” Wynne said.
According to Dave Miller, Sandvine’s vice-president, the company has already begun its hiring process.
