TORONTO – December 5, 2022 – Ontario Culture Days announces the arrival of 11 new ON Culture Guides leading into 2023. These travel guides highlight inclusive tourism and spotlight diverse cultural experiences, local businesses, and unique community histories throughout Ontario. From art galleries to historical sites to coffee shops, ON Culture Guides offer something new to encounter throughout every corner of the province. The guides are available in both English and French.

Several of the new guides were produced in consultation with Indigenous Tourism Ontario and Jacqueline Scott, an expert in Black tourism, arts, culture, and heritage in Ontario. They tell the often-untold stories of important southern Ontario history and feature more than 30 Indigenous and Black arts, culture, and heritage sites throughout the province. Highlighted communities include Six Nations of the Grand River, Owen Sound and Windsor.

This project is supported by a $500,000-Government of Canada investment through the Tourism Relief Fund, delivered by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).

The Hon. Filomena Tassi, Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, said, “Southern Ontario is rich with diverse cultural experiences waiting to be explored. Ontario Culture Days is helping to ensure that our tourism sector recovers and thrives once again. We are pleased to invest in Ontario Culture Days as they promote local tourism experiences and launch ON Culture Guides – an easy tool for travelers to use to learn about the stories of our province.”

Ontario Culture Days worked with Toronto’s award-winning creative agency D.PE (Diverse, Progressive, Experiences) to re-design the ON Culture Guides to feature a new look with improved functionality and user experience.

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A sincere thanks to Ontario Culture Days’ funders and supporters, including Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), VIA Rail Canada, Chicago Title Insurance Company Canada, Destination Toronto, Star Metroland Media and the Toronto Star. Our programming is supported by the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Northern Ontario, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of Ontario, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council.

About Ontario Culture Days:

Ontario Culture Days is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2010 to celebrate artists and cultural organizations in our communities. Every year, we coordinate an exciting celebration of arts and culture programming across Ontario.

Ontario Culture Days lives at the local level. We support organizers from the smallest hamlets to the largest cities, while coordinating with other national and provincial Culture Days partners. We support the success of our sector colleagues through resources and network development while highlighting the breadth and heterogeneity of Ontario’s arts and culture to the wider public.

About FedDev Ontario

For 13 years, the Government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario, has worked to advance and diversify the southern Ontario economy through funding opportunities and business services that support innovation, job creation and growth in Canada’s most populous region. The Agency has delivered impressive results, which can be seen in southern Ontario businesses that are creating innovative technologies, improving their productivity, growing their revenues, and in the economic advancement of communities across the region. Learn more about the impacts the Agency is having in southern Ontario by exploring our pivotal projects, our Southern Ontario Spotlight, and FedDev Ontario’s Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Contacts:

Deanne Moser
DMPUBLIC
deanne@dmpublic.com

Edward Hutchinson
Press Secretary
Office of the Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
edward.hutchinson@feddevontario.gc.ca