A federal economic development program in Northern Ontario cost taxpayers more than $13,000 per job on average, according to internal documents, with some subsidies reaching nearly five times that amount for single positions.Blacklock's Reporter said the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, known as FedNor, claimed in a May 21 briefing note that its spending over the past decade contributed to 58,000 jobs across the region. The agency said it spent more than $755 million on 1,894 projects, averaging $13,017 per job..While FedNor praised its results, records reveal some individual grants far exceeded the average. In one case, Canadore College in North Bay received $125,000 to hire just two interns, or $62,500 per position. Other examples include $57,500 to the Kapuskasing Golf Club to hire a “membership intern,” $53,500 to the Friends of Killarney Park to update a canoe guide, and $70,000 to the City of Thunder Bay to support an intern working on heritage mapping.Some grants were issued with no clear connection to job creation. FedNor paid $716,800 to subsidize a booth at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair and gave $16,991 to the Township of Nipigon to open tourism kiosks..“Our mandate is the promotion of economic growth and diversification and the creation of jobs,” FedNor executive director Lucie Perreault told the Commons trade committee in 2024. She described subsidies as “a key role” in supporting the region’s economy and said, “We would have liked more money of course.”FedNor spent $71.8 million last year. Comparable regional development agencies spent significantly more: $563.2 million in Québec, $462 million in Southern Ontario, $377.6 million in Western Canada and $478.4 million in Atlantic Canada.Despite the spending, federal figures around job creation are loosely defined. Access to Information records from the Department of Industry in 2020 noted that recipients were not required to report how many jobs they created or maintained, and that key fields in the agency’s database — including “actual jobs created” — were optional.
