On Thursday April 11th, the Province of Ontario released the 19/20 Budget. Under the 10-year “Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program” [ICIP] announced March 12, Ontario’s share per project will be up to 33 per cent, or $10.2 billion spread across four streams: 1. Rural and Northern 2. Public Transit 3. Green 4. Community, Culture and Recreation but the budget provided very few specifics as related to the fourth category.
Intake for the first category, Rural and Northern, is currently open until May 14 and will focus on road, bridge, air or marine infrastructure in rural and northern communities with populations under 100,000 people.
It is not clear yet how this provincial budget intends to support the fourth category, Community, Culture and Recreation, in terms of cultural space as the only references that can potential benefit them include soliciting expressions of interest for a new vision for Ontario Place and $315 million over five years for shovel-ready broadband projects in rural and remote areas.
ArtsBuild Ontario is hopeful about the potential for provincial support of cultural spaces with the launch of ICIP but still believe strongly that the province should maintain its own capital infrastructure fund to continually support the infrastructure needs of our creative spaces province wide. ABO will continue to advocate for this fund.
Full application details for all categories as they become available are found at the Grants Ontario website (click on Grant Opportunities), a “one-window” source for applicants, handling application intake, review, nomination, reporting and transfer payment management processes.
The full budget can be found here: http://budget.ontario.ca/2019/index.html
