Eligibility

I. Eligible Recipients

Recognizing that EDI is designed to meet the needs of Ontario’s Francophone communities (the official language minority communities in Ontario), eligible recipients would normally include Francophone or bilingual organizations that are located in Southern Ontario and provide programs or services in French to the Francophone community. For example, this could include community economic development corporations, not-for-profit organizations and sector associations, post-secondary institutions that offer full-time programs of study in French, and municipalities that serve the Francophone community.

II. Eligible Activities

Eligible activities include incremental business and economic development activities. This would normally include activities undertaken in French by, or for the benefit of, a Francophone client group.

A) Community Strategic Planning

Eligible activities are those that enhance the economic base and competitiveness of Ontario’s Francophone communities, including:

• strategic and community planning;
• community mobilization and networking;
• feasibility studies;
• business planning;
• marketing studies; and,
• export market research.

Some examples of projects:

• research development of a multi-service model to coordinate Francophone services;
• development of a French-language visitor’s strategy; and,
• business and industry sector studies and business plans

B) Business and Economic Development

Eligible activities are those that respond to identified needs and foster the economic growth of Francophone communities in sectors such as tourism, as well as cultural, knowledge-based and manufacturing industries, including:

• developing economic and business skills;
• integrating Francophone immigrants into the business and economic development community;
• enhancing access to economic and business information and services (e.g. awareness and promotion of French as an asset for economic and business development);
• promoting Francophone youth internships and entrepreneurship initiatives (e.g. young entrepreneur days or business plan competitions that celebrate and value Francophone youth entrepreneurship);
• developing and expanding export markets; and,
• supporting innovation, applied research and development and commercialization.

Eligible activities for Youth Internships in economic development organizations are those that enhance the economic base and competitiveness of Ontario’s Francophone communities, respond to their needs and foster sustainable economic growth.

Eligible Youth Intern Criteria:

• participants will be unemployed or underemployed youth (persons under the age of 30);
• participants will have graduated within the last three (3) years with a degree, diploma or certificate from a recognized post-secondary institution;
• participants will be legally entitled to work in Canada;
• participants will not have previously participated as a youth intern in any other federal or provincial internship program with pay for a period of six (6) months or more;
• participants will not be related to members of the directors, officers or managers of the recipient unless prior written consent is obtained from FedDev Ontario.

The work experience must also meet one or more of the following criteria:

• workplace uses French in day-to-day internal operations;
• work activity involves generating French text, video, audio or web-based information; and/or
• participants are required primarily to use French for external activities or in responding to external demands (e.g. customer service, communications).

III. Eligible Costs

Only costs that are reasonable, incremental and that relate directly to the eligible project activities will be eligible. By way of example, eligible costs may include non-capital and minor capital costs, including but not limited to:

• consulting and/or professional fees;
• marketing and advertising costs;
• minor non-capital acquisitions (i.e software, items under $1,000);
• travel and meeting costs;
• salary and statutory employee benefit expenses (for Youth internships only); and
• materials and supplies.

Eligible costs for Youth Internships are the incremental salary for the full-time intern and statutory employee benefit expenses incurred by the organization.

The salary for intern and employee benefits are eligible costs where there is an “Employer-Employee Relationship.” Such relationship exists when a verbal or written agreement is in place in which an employee agrees to work on a full-time basis for an employer for a specified period of time, in return for salary or wages.

IV. Ineligible Costs

Costs that are deemed unreasonable, not incremental and not directly related to the eligible project activities will be ineligible. Other ineligible costs include:

• major infrastructure and major capital acquisitions such as land, building and related construction;
• information and communications technologies (ICT) infrastructure (e.g. broadband);
• ongoing staff salaries and administrative/operational activities that are considered to be part of the regular operations of the applicant or its partners;
• direct financing to SMEs (Note: activities administered through a not-for-profit organization for the benefit of a group of SMEs could, however, be eligible for support); and,
• in-kind contributions.