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Canadian Heritage will award funds faster, more fairly

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Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly

The Department of Canadian Heritage is making several changes to the way it processes funding requests, in an effort to get money to arts organizations faster, and more fairly.

Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly announced on April 14 that she would no longer personally sign-off on funding decisions of less than $75,000. Senior bureaucrats instead will make the final decision in such cases, a move expected to reduce processing time by weeks or months. The department also plans to set up an online application processing system, and all payments will now be awarded by bank transfer instead of cheque. To reduce funding uncertainty for arts organizations, the number of multi-year grants will increase, some spanning two, three, or four years.

“Thanks to these changes,” Joly said in a release, “all our beneficiaries – festivals; cultural groups; associations dedicated to heritage and official languages; and community museums – will be in a better position to accomplish what they do so well: help build an innovative country that draws strength from its cultural wealth, its heritage and its diverse communities.”

Joly said the changes will also limit the use of political considerations to overturn approved funding decisions, something which currently happens in about two per cent of successful applicants.

The minister will continue to personally approve applications for funding of more than $75,000, which combined equal about 10 per cent of the money awarded by the department annually. In the interest of transparency, all granting decisions will now be made public, not just those of more than $25,000, as previously had been the case.

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April 14th, 2016

4:20 pm

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