Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for giving us this opportunity to appear before you to discuss the role of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, better known as FedDev Ontario, in regards to the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality 2008-2013.
My name is Jeff Moore, vice president of Policy, Partnerships and Performance Management and official languages champion at FedDev Ontario. With me here today is my colleague Susan Anzolin, director general, Innovation and Economic Development.
FedDev Ontario was created in August 2009 when our government recognized the challenges facing southern Ontario in terms of the economy. The agency works to stimulate economic development and growth in the region by expressly meeting the needs and priorities of our workers, businesses and communities.
Our headquarters are in Kitchener, and we have offices in Ottawa, Toronto, Peterborough and Stratford. Our personnel are out in the field, ideally positioned to be in tune with local concerns and needs. Our employees work together with businesses and communities in southern Ontario to ensure the delivery of programs and services pertaining to the agency's role.
I am pleased to speak to you today about how the agency is working with the francophone communities in southern Ontario on projects funded through the roadmap's economic development initiative, as well as through other agency programs.
As FedDev Ontario is a newer agency, I thought I'd take a few minutes to explain our role.
During its first year, FedDev Ontario focused its efforts on targeted investments for creating jobs and for meeting immediate needs given the economic challenges being faced by the region.
We also took on the delivery of existing national programs, such as the economic development initiative, the community futures program, the eastern Ontario development program and infrastructure programs.
During this time, we had an opportunity to listen to what business, industrial and community leaders throughout our region had to say regarding productivity, competitiveness and innovation challenges.
We also learned, in particular, about other challenges facing the francophone communities in southern Ontario: low rates of entrepreneurship and education; high rates of youth out-migration; accessibility barriers to business counseling information in French and accessibility barriers to business financing, especially micro loans.
That is why, in our second year, the agency launched an array of initiatives aimed at strengthening the economy of southern Ontario and positioning the region to increase our competitiveness at the international level. Our objective is to develop the tools needed to make sure that our businesses and communities can continue to innovate so that the economy can continue to prosper today and into the future.
We are building on the region's strategic advantages to strengthen innovation and competitiveness through seven initiatives: Youth STEM (for science, technology, engineering and mathematics); Graduate Enterprise Internships; Scientists and Engineers in Business; the Applied Research and Commercialization Initiative; the Technology Development Program; Investing in Business Innovation; and the Prosperity Initiative.
Finally, we are fostering partnerships between research and innovation organizations, the private sector, post-secondary institutions, and not-for-profit organizations to accelerate technological advances and to bring new products to market.
Since its creation, the agency has invested more than $800 million in projects aimed at stimulating the economic development of communities in southern Ontario.
I would like to point out that all FedDev Ontario programs are available to the francophone community. Thanks to partners such as Heritage Canada, we have created geographic maps identifying the location of communities that have a high percentage of francophones. We have also developed an analysis grid for projects as well as clauses regarding official languages for contribution agreements. These tools help us enormously in determining if a funded project will have an impact on the francophone community.
For example, Ivaco Rolling Mills in L'Orignal, one of the key employers in this region, will receive $10 million as part of a prosperity initiative for an expansion project. This project will have numerous benefits for the region, from the creation of approximately 200 short-term construction jobs to the addition of approximately 50 new permanent positions within the company itself.
A large number of beneficiaries from our youth STEM initiative hire francophone students in their activities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Thanks to our applied research and commercialization initiative, francophone businesses are working with post-secondary institutions such as the Cité Collégiale here in Ottawa.
Of course, as part of the roadmap, the agency is responsible for delivering the economic development initiative in southern Ontario. The original budget from the Treasury Board proposals was for $8.9 million for all of Ontario, representing 29% of the national budget of $30.5 million for the economic development initiative.
FedDev Ontario received $4.5 million for delivery in southern Ontario for the 2009 to 2013 period. Of this amount, $500,000 was set aside to cover operating and maintenance costs, leaving $4 million for contributions.
To date, 30 projects across southern Ontario with a value of about $2.6 million have been approved and are either completed or in the process of being completed. This represents approximately 64% of the total announced budget for EDI.
Projects range from the development of strategic plans, to marketing initiatives, to youth internships, to the new microcredit investment fund recently announced.
All of these projects are helping to meet the needs of the francophone communities in southern Ontario.
As a new agency, we had to develop both the infrastructure and the relationships to effectively deliver our programming. So we did experience some challenges in spending our budget allocated to the economic development initiative. Despite our outreach activities and relaunching the program with a continuous intake process, we still faced challenges in receiving a sufficient number of proposals. Unfortunately, this resulted in lapsing $1.4 million of the $4 million budget.
Since then, we've made strong progress in reaching out to key francophone organizations and funding strategic projects. For example, the agency took a proactive approach and met with three key francophone economic development organizations to discuss how to better support the region's official language minority communities. They were La Fondation Franco-Ontarienne; the Réseau de développement économique et d'employabilité de l'Ontario; and the Association Franco-Ontarienne.
I will conclude there. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I thank you once again for this invitation to appear before the Standing Committee on Official Languages.