Ottawa is replacing years of short-term, project-by-project grants to Black-led organizations with a permanent funding commitment, pledging $135.7 million over five years and $27.1 million annually after that, Employment and Social Development Canada said Sept. 20.
Patty Hajdu, minister of jobs and families, announced the Black Canadian Communities Program in Winnipeg during the fifth National Black Canadians Summit, a three-day gathering themed “Moving Forward Together” that brought community leaders, researchers and advocates together from across the country. The summit, organized by the Michaëlle Jean Foundation and presented by TD Bank Group, ran Sept. 18 to 20.
The new program builds on the Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative, which has funded more than 3,000 projects since it launched in 2019. That initiative relied on competitive grant rounds organizations had to reapply for every few years, a model advocates say made it difficult to keep staff or plan beyond a single funding cycle.
“Across Canada, Black organizations and community leaders are doing incredible work to support families, create opportunities and strengthen their communities,” Hajdu said in a statement announcing the program.
The Black Class Action Secretariat, an advocacy group that has pressed Ottawa on anti-Black discrimination in the federal public service, welcomed the shift to permanent funding but said it addresses only part of what Black organizations have been asking for. “Permanent funding is what is needed to address the impact of decades of systemic anti-Black discrimination and underinvestment,” Nicholas Marcus Thompson, the group’s president and chief executive, said in a statement, adding that organizations had “relied on short-term funding to address barriers that have existed for generations.”
Thompson said BCAS continues to press Ottawa to modernize the Employment Equity Act so Black workers are formally recognized as a designated group, alongside women, Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities and other visible minorities. That change, which would require legislation, is not addressed by the new funding program.
The announcement is separate from the Black-led Philanthropic Endowment Fund, a $200-million endowment Ottawa created in 2021 and handed to the Toronto-based Foundation for Black Communities to administer at arm’s length. That fund opened its fourth call for proposals Sept. 15, offering $8 million, including $6.4 million in federal money, for community “Black Ideas” projects, with applications due Oct. 20 and selections expected in spring 2027, as canadanewsmedia.ca reported earlier this month. The endowment invests its principal and distributes the returns, while the new Black Canadian Communities Program is direct, ongoing government spending administered by Employment and Social Development Canada. The two funding streams target similar organizations but run through different mechanisms, which advocates say has sometimes made it hard for smaller groups to know which door to knock on.
Ottawa is also putting more than $800,000 toward the Michaëlle Jean Foundation to support this year’s summit and its Power of Youth Initiative, a leadership program for young Black Canadians.
Black people numbered just over 1.5 million in the 2021 census, or 4.3 per cent of Canada’s population, making them the country’s third-largest racialized group after South Asian and Chinese Canadians, according to Justice Department research on the criminal justice system. Four in 10 were born in Canada, and nearly 42 per cent were under the age of 25.
Employment and Social Development Canada did not say in its announcement when applications or funding agreements under the new program would open, or how the money will be divided among the thousands of organizations that competed for grants under the old initiative.
Via Government of Canada / Newswire.ca. Read the original announcement here. Additional sourcing: Black Class Action Secretariat statement, Justice Canada research on Black Canadians and the criminal justice system, and canadanewsmedia.ca’s Sept. 18 report on the Black Ideas Grant.
