COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund

Federal emergency support administered by the Canada Council for the Arts

The Government of Canada invested $500M to help alleviate the financial pressures of affected organizations through the COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund for Cultural, Heritage and Sport Organizations.

Canadian Heritage and its portfolio organizations were responsible for the distribution of these funds.

A two-phased approach was taken in order to accelerate the distribution of funds.

Phase 1: support for arts organizations

In the first phase, the Canada Council administered $55M to eligible arts organizations experiencing a significant financial impact as a result of the pandemic.

Phase 1 supported organizations that experienced reductions in revenues and that applied for and were awarded core or project funding from any Canada Council program, fund, or special initiative between April 2017 and April 2020.

Phase 2: support for Indigenous and equity-seeking groups and organizations

As part of a second phase, the Council distributed $7.8M in emergency support to arts collectives, groups and organizations affected by the pandemic from one of the Council’s four designated priority groups: Indigenous, culturally diverse, Deaf and disability, and official language minority communities.