AUTO21 funding would be restored 'immediately' by NDP

An NDP government would "immediately" reinstate funding for AUTO21 at the University of Windsor, party leader Tom Mulcair announced Wednesday morning.

It was one of several automotive initiatives Mulcair promised Wednesday during a campaign stop in Niagara Falls.

• AUTO21 stops operating as federal funding ends

The Windsor-based national automotive research network called AUTO21 is currently winding down operations after 14 years because federal funding is no longer available.

It brought together nearly 200 top Canadian researchers at 48 universities and partnered those researchers with more than 130 industry and government partners.

AUTO21 was eligible for two seven-year cycles of federal funding and no more through the Networks of Centres of Excellence program.

"When we applied for money to get started back in 2000, we knew the last day would be March 2015, with a wind-down period after that," AUTO21 scientific director and CEO Peter Frise told CBC two weeks ago.

Kingsville, Ont., Mayor Nelson Santos applauded the promise on Twitter. His town is about 45 minutes from the University of Windsor.

Mulcair's funding plan for AUTO21 also includes the University of Waterloo's Centre for Automotive Research and the University of Ontario Institute of Technology's Automotive Centre of Excellence.

Frank Schiller, a Liberal candidate who is running for a federal seat in the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh, said that the funding for AUTO21 should never have ended.

"The facts around AUTO21 warrant the continuation of federal funding. We've made that clear,"Schiller told CBC News in a telephone interview.

Conservative manufacturing plank

Last week, Conservative Leader Stephen Harper announced that if his party forms government, Burlington, Ont.,would be the centre for a new, not-for-profit organization focused on manufacturing.

Harper said it will help develop new products and technologies for the manufacturing industry beginning in 2016-2017 at a cost of $30million annually for five years.

A Conservative government would also set up a new trade promotion office within the prime minister's own bureaucracy to help attract new business into Canada and Canadian exporters, paid for by reallocating other government resources.