Provincial Funding

MITACS

Mitacs offers various funding and business support programs designed to foster innovation and collaboration between academia and industry. Mitacs helps businesses optimize their R&D efforts, access top-tier research talent, and achieve their innovation goals. For students Mitacs provides support by offering opportunities to gain practical experience, develop professional skills, and build valuable networks. Mitacs programs are supported jointly by the federal and provincial governments and agencies, industry, and post-secondary institutions within Canada, as well as governments and universities overseas.

Ontario Creates

Ontario Creates enables creative industry companies to increase productivity, build scale, mitigate risks, access international markets, and achieve critical and commercial success. Ontario Creates is an agency of the provincial government whose mandate is to be a catalyst for economic development, investment and collaboration in Ontario’s creative industries including the music, book, magazine, film, television and interactive digital media sectors, both domestically and internationally. Funding programs are available for various sectors including book, film and television, interactive digital media, magazine as well as music.

Ontario Disability Support Program

Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) employment supports provides various supports to entrepreneurs with disabilities including

• help with business planning
• financial management training
• business marketing support
• mentoring
• help getting work-related disability supports

Ontario Genomics

Ontario Genomics seeks to support those in the genomics field with funding and award opportunities for research and innovation projects.

Rural Ontario Development Program

Replacing the Rural Economic Development (RED) program, the Rural Ontario Development Program (ROD) offers cost-share funding to support economic growth, job creation and retention as well as infrastructure enhancements in rural communities across the province. The ROD program is structured into two main streams, the Community Development stream and the Business Development stream.

Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development & Employment Ontario

The Employment Ontario Partners’ Gateway (EOPG) website provides an overview of funding programs aimed at supporting workforce development, training, and employment services across Ontario. These programs are designed for individuals, employers, training providers, and community organizations.

Employer-focused programs include:
Canada-Ontario Job Grant (COJG): The COJG is intended to encourage employers to invest in the skills of job seekers and employees.
Ontario Job Creation Partnerships (OJCP): The OJCP program provides funding to eligible employers that support projects while creating opportunities to eligible job seekers to gain meaningful work experiences.
Skills Development Fund (SDF) Training Stream: The SDF Training Stream targets projects that address challenges with respect to hiring, training or worker retention.
Skills Development Fund (SDF) Capital Stream: The SDF Capital Stream supports projects in relation to education and skills development enablement, including providing major capital investments for building new or upgrading existing training centers or converting existing facilities into training centers.
Skills Advance Ontario: Skills Advance Ontario is a sector-based workforce development program delivered by the Government of Ontario, jointly funded with the Government of Canada. It funds strategic partnerships between employers and employment and training service providers to address evolving labour demands by supporting employer access to skilled talent and enabling individuals to upskill, reskill, and advance within high‑potential sectors.
Achievement Incentive Program: The Achievement Incentive Program is a systems-based grant program designed and developed to increase apprenticeship employer participation and the number of apprentice registrations and certified journey persons.

Furthermore, the Apprenticeship Capital Grant provides capital funding for Training Delivery Agents (TDAs) to upgrade their equipment and training facilities in order to keep up with evolving technology and to train apprentices on equipment that is relevant to employers.

Moreover, the Ontario Labour Market Partnerships program offers funding to local communities, industry groups, employee/employer associations, and employers in developing and implementing strategies for addressing and responding to local economic (employment) development, labour force adjustments and human resource planning.