A departmental plan describes a department’s priorities, plans and associated costs for the upcoming three fiscal years.
Key priorities
FedDev Ontario continues to advance its mandate to strengthen southern Ontario’s capacity for innovation and clean and inclusive economic growth. For 2024-25, its key priorities are:
- Make strategic investments that advance government priorities and southern Ontario’s economic interests.
- Collaborate with partners and stakeholders to support emerging growth opportunities and industrial transition, specifically as related to zero emissions vehicles, clean growth, advanced manufacturing and other burgeoning sectors.
- Implement targeted strategies and initiatives that leverage key relationships to broaden access to Agency programs and services to advance activities that support greater diversity and inclusion in economic growth.
- Promote sustainable regional economic growth and resiliency across all southern Ontario communities, including implementing place-based solutions like the Tourism Growth Program (TGP).
Refocusing Government Spending
In Budget 2023, the government committed to reducing spending by $14.1 billion over the next five years, starting in 2023–24, and by $4.1 billion annually after that.
As part of meeting this commitment, FedDev Ontario is planning the following spending reductions.
- 2024-25: $604,900
- 2025-26: $713,900
- 2026-27 and after: $863,050
FedDev Ontario will achieve these reductions by doing the following:
- Reviewing contracts and Memorandums of Understanding for alignment with current resource and service requirements.
- Prioritizing travel expenditures that are essential to its core mandate.
The figures in this departmental plan reflect these reductions.
Highlights
A Departmental Results Framework (DRF) consists of an organization’s core responsibilities, the results it plans to achieve and the performance indicators that measure progress toward these results.
Core Responsibility: Economic development in southern Ontario
Departmental results:
- Communities are economically diversified in southern Ontario
- Businesses in southern Ontario invest in the development and commercialization of innovative technologies
- Businesses in southern Ontario are innovative and growing
Planned spending: $212,704,457
Planned human resources: 184
The core responsibility and departmental results from FedDev Ontario’s Departmental Results Framework are as follows.
FedDev Ontario will continue to implement its economic development programming in 2024–25 while maintaining its focus on identifying opportunities to advance the innovation capacity and competitiveness of the southern Ontario economy. With an ongoing focus on strategic investments, the Agency will target southern Ontario’s high-potential firms to help bring new technologies and innovations to market.
The Agency will maintain relationships with not-for-profit organizations, including through the development and ongoing delivery of multi-year projects to achieve strategic community and regional outcomes. FedDev Ontario will also aim to partner with new not-for-profit organizations to broaden the reach of its programming from regional, sectoral and inclusivity perspectives.
In 2024–25, FedDev Ontario will continue to deliver national programming, such as the Tourism Growth Program (TGP) and Regional Quantum Initiative (RQI) in a regionally-tailored fashion, supporting the broader Government of Canada agenda through targeted investments in businesses and organizations to drive economic growth in the region.
By relying on its collective expertise and knowledge of the southern Ontario economic landscape, FedDev Ontario will continue to act as a convenor and collaborator while working with stakeholders to establish new relationships that can help yield significant ongoing benefits.
More information about economic development in southern Ontario core responsibility can be found in the full departmental plan.