On September 8, 2026, Ottawa rolled out an expanded Regional Tariff Response Initiative in British Columbia, and the headline number is hard to ignore: up to $3 million in non-repayable support per business— $2 million of it tied to nothing more complicated than your payroll. For a BC manufacturer, exporter, or supplier watching margins get eaten by the Canada–US tariff escalation, this is the most direct cash relief the federal government has offered since the trade war began.
It is also widely misunderstood, starting with the name. This guide sets out what the program actually pays, who clears the gate, and the two timing rules that decide how much of it you can capture.
First, the name: RTRI is not duty drawback
Two very different things get called “tariff relief” in Canada right now, and the initials RTRI have been attached to both. Clearing that up matters, because the programs are run by different agencies, pay for different things, and — importantly — can be claimed together.
- CBSA duty drawback and surtax remission give you back duties you already paid on imported goods that were exported, or on inputs covered by a remission order. They are refunds, administered on the customs side. We cover them in our duty drawback guide.
- RTRI — the Regional Tariff Response Initiative is economic-development funding delivered in BC by PacifiCan. It does not refund a tariff. It gives a tariff-hit business cash to keep people employed and to change what it sells or where it sells it.
A manufacturer importing steel and exporting finished parts to the US may qualify for drawback on the imports andRTRI on the payroll strain. The programs don't compete; they answer different questions.
What changed on September 8
RTRI launched earlier in the trade dispute as a pivot-project program. Two things changed this September:
- Money. A further $1.5 billion was added on August 25, taking the initiative to $3.45 billion over four years nationally.
- A new liquidity stream.For the first time, businesses can receive non-repayable support for cash-flow pressure itself — not only for a defined transformation project. This is the part most BC operators have not yet absorbed.
The result is a program with three lanes that can be combined, up to a total of $3 million non-repayable, or as much as $20 million when repayable support is included.
The three funding lanes
| Lane | How much | Basis | Repayable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liquidity support | Up to $2M | Roughly 50% of average monthly payroll, for up to 12 months (or demonstrated need, whichever is lower) | No |
| Pivot project | Up to $1M | Up to 50% of eligible project costs | No |
| Larger pivot project | Over $1M | Up to 75% of eligible project costs | Yes — interest-free, on a schedule in the agreement |
The lanes combine in defined ways. Liquidity on its own caps at $2M. Liquidity plus a non-repayable pivot project caps at $3M. Liquidity plus a repayable project can reach $20M in aggregate. A business can hold more than one contribution agreement under the initiative.
Who clears the gate
Four tests do most of the screening:
- An incorporated, for-profit business located and operating in BC. Not-for-profits can access pivot funding if their primary purpose is supporting BC businesses, but not the liquidity lane.
- At least $1 million in annual revenue in one of the last two fiscal years. This is the hard floor, and it rules out a lot of early-stage companies. Businesses established after March 21, 2025 are assessed case by case.
- Viability. PacifiCan looks at financial statements and operating history to confirm the business was sound before the tariffs hit and can grow afterwards. This is support for a healthy business under external pressure, not rescue funding.
- Demonstrated tariff impact.Not a narrative — evidence. Export sales that dropped, input costs that rose, orders that moved. The application asks for it directly.
Recipients of liquidity support also take on an obligation: maintain Canadian operations, and report on employment and payroll during and after the support period. The money is explicitly about keeping people employed in BC.
The retroactive window most businesses miss
Project start dates can be set up to 12 months before the application is submitted. If you began diversifying into a new market, re-tooling a line, or onboarding a non-US supplier in the last year, those costs may already be eligible. Businesses that assume funding only covers future spend routinely leave the largest part of their claim on the table.
What it won't pay for
The exclusions are specific: land and building acquisition, entertainment, motor vehicles, and refinancing existing debt. More generally, costs must be new, incremental, and directly tied to the project or to payroll. A pivot project must also show a broader economic benefit — productivity, competitiveness, supply-chain resilience, market diversification, or long-term growth — not just a cost you would have incurred anyway.
Stacking with duty drawback and SR&ED
The rule is simple: you may receive other federal, provincial, or municipal support, provided there is no duplication of funding for the same costs. In practice that leaves plenty of room, because the programs pay for different things:
- Duty drawback refunds duties on imports. RTRI does not touch those duties. Both can apply to the same business in the same year.
- SR&ED rewards experimental development. If a pivot project includes genuine technical uncertainty, the R&D salaries inside it may support a SR&ED claim — but the same dollar cannot be claimed under both, so the allocation has to be built deliberately.
- CanExport funds export marketing. A market diversification pivot and a CanExport application often describe the same strategy from two angles; keeping the cost buckets separate is the whole job.
Two timing rules that decide the size of your claim
Liquidity support ends no later than March 31, 2028. Support runs for up to 12 months, so every month a business waits is a month of payroll-based funding it may not get back. The window is finite and it is already open.
Projects must complete by March 31, 2029. A pivot project has to be scoped to land inside that date, which for a re-tooling or market-entry project means starting the planning now, not next fiscal year.
What to have ready before you apply
PacifiCan reviews on a rolling basis, and the strength of the file determines both the outcome and the speed. The core package:
- Corporate information and a business profile
- Two years of financial statements
- Evidence of tariff impact — export sales data, cost changes, lost or shifted orders
- Disclosure of other government funding received or applied for
- For liquidity support: payroll records, a quantified liquidity gap, and employment retention targets
The last item is where applications succeed or stall. “Tariffs hurt us” is a sentence; a quantified gap with payroll behind it is a claim.
Next steps
If your business is BC-based, clears $1M in revenue, and has felt the tariffs in its numbers, the question is not whether to look at RTRI but how much of the $3M ceiling your file can support — and whether duty drawback should be filed alongside it. Our programs page sets out how we run the two together. Or send a note through the contact pagewith your revenue range, headcount, and a sentence on how the tariffs have hit you; we'll come back within a business day with a first read on which lanes apply and roughly what they are worth.