Canadian Heritage Grants & Funding: Guide for Business Owners

Canadian Heritage Priorities

The Department’s priorities listed under their five core responsibilities include:

• Ensuring that a wide range of Canadian artistic and cultural content is accessible at home and abroad.
• Providing opportunities for Canadians to participate and engage in Canada’s creative life, fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion.
• Fostering creativity, innovation, growth and employment opportunities in Canada’s cultural sector, and in the creative economy.
• Advancing an ambitious legislative agenda to ensure better alignment with industry trends and changes.
• Delivering an unprecedented number of programs and activities to support the arts and culture sector through recovery and reopening.

• Offering opportunities for Canadians to participate in celebrations and commemorations of national significance, and in local festivals and heritage events.
• Investing in the development of learning materials and experiences that give Canadians opportunities to enhance their understanding of Canada’s history.
•  Facilitating access to heritage and providing support to heritage institutions to preserve and present heritage to all Canadians.
• Delivering projects, programs and services; grants, contributions and tax incentives; conducting research; providing authoritative information and expertise; and supporting the implementation of heritage-related legislation.

• Promoting and enhancing Canadian participation in sport, from initial introduction to sport to the highest levels through transfer payments and policy leadership.
• Ensuring that all Canadians have access to quality aligned sport programs in a safe and welcoming environment regardless of race, gender or physical disability.
• Fostering the development of high-performance athletes, coaches, officials, leaders and organizations within the Canadian Sport System.
• Assisting Canadian communities in hosting the Canada Games and international sport events.

• Celebrating Canada’s diversity, identity and multicultural heritage, promoting resilient communities and reinforcing the rights of Canadians, as a means to foster diversity and inclusion.
• Supporting legislation on multiculturalism.
• Promoting and supporting domestic implementation of international human rights treaties, constitutional and quasi-constitutional rights in Canada.
• Working in collaboration with a variety of governmental and non-governmental organizations to support the provision of programs and services on matters of diversity and inclusion.
• Supporting the engagement, participation and inclusion of Canadian youth in their communities and in exchange activities.
• Revitalizing, preserving and promoting Indigenous languages and cultures and celebrating achievements, and strengthening Indigenous communities through investments in a variety of initiatives.

• Supporting the promotion of Canada’s two official languages in Canadian society as well as the development of official-language minority communities by collaborating with voluntary organizations and provincial and territorial governments.
• Fostering a coordinated approach to ensure participation from across the federal government in the implementation of the Official Languages Act, and the coordination of related horizontal initiatives.

You can learn about the Department’s priorities by reading its 2022-2023 Departmental Plan.