2021-2022 Departmental Plan

Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) and the Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) portfolio are working to position Canada as an innovation leader on the global stage by fostering a diverse, growing, competitive, sustainable and inclusive economy for all Canadians.

While the Government of Canada’s priority continues to be fighting COVID-19 and protecting Canadians’ health and safety, the ISED portfolio is committed to fostering conditions for investment, enhancing Canadian innovation, and driving growth in key sectors. Together, we will strengthen the Canadian economy and restore consumer confidence through strategic actions, including supporting Canadian businesses as they adapt and grow in a knowledge-based economy.

As a federal agency that is close to Quebec businesses and communities, CED will step up its efforts to adapt its interventions to the realities of Quebec's regions, including the repercussions of COVID-19. CED will continue to support the growth of businesses and the economic recovery and vitality of communities, in particular by promoting innovation and sustainable and inclusive.

Together with Canadians of all backgrounds, all generations and all regions of our country, we are building a strong culture of innovation to prepare Canada for a resilient and sustainable future. We are pleased to present, for your information, CED's 2021-2022 Departmental Plan.

I am pleased to present the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) 2021-2022 Departmental Plan. The Plan outlines the means by which our organization will fulfill its core responsibility, namely, to develop Quebec’s economy.

As the federal government’s agency on the ground for Quebec businesses and communities, CED draws on the economic diversity of the regions to generate long-term economic growth for Canadians. And in this special year, on the heels of the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, CED is also committed to implementing assistance measures for businesses and workers currently dealing with the fallout of the health crisis.

To bring together its mission with the urgent need to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, CED has set priorities that will guide its intervention in 2021–2022. In addition to efforts to mitigate the impact of the crisis and to prepare the economic recovery, CED will foster economic growth by supporting business development, innovation, and initiatives that contribute to a sustainable and inclusive economy. CED will also continue to help regions realize their full potential for economic growth, taking into account the unique challenges that communities are facing.

Our 12 business offices, located throughout Quebec, collaborate with the province, municipalities, community stakeholders and regional organizations to provide equitable development opportunities for all regions.

Today, more than ever, our planning highlights our commitment to lend a helping hand to Quebec’s businesses and regions and to equip them to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Enjoy your read!

The Quebec economy had been in full swing over the past few years, despite some apparent structural issues and regional disparities. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on workers, businesses and the regions, resulting in a severe economic slowdown, job losses and business closures.

As it became a health crisis and then an economic crisis, the pandemic highlighted certain vulnerabilities within businesses, such as delays in the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and in the shift towards digital technologies and e-commerce. It has also exacerbated gaps between large urban centres and the remote regions, as well as institutional, social and organizational barriers to the full participation of certain groups of people in the economy.

Like the other regional development agencies (RDAs), Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CED) quickly mobilized to put in place targeted measures for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) and affected communities^{Footnote i}. These measures are designed to mitigate the impact of the crisis on Canadians, communities and businesses, and to help reduce economic disparities and inequalities in the regions of Quebec.

CED has the necessary expertise and tailored programs and services to support and financially assist businesses and communities in overcoming these challenges. Over the course of 2021-2022, the Agency will work particularly hard to address the three following priorities:

1. Foster the economic resilience of businesses and the regions as they emerge from the crisis

In order to mitigate the negative consequences of the crisis and support the resilience of businesses, CED will continue to allow a certain flexibility in its current contribution agreements and will make targeted adjustments to support new projects tailored to the current context.

CED will also pursue the implementation of initiatives that support those industries hardest hit by the crisis. These initiatives include the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund ^{Footnote ii}(RRRF) and the Regional Air Transportation Initiative.

RRRF

Announced in April 2020, the RRRF aims to help businesses and organizations that are not eligible for other federal COVID-19 financial assistance programs, and which have cash flow requirements. Although it targets all economic sectors, focus is given to the sectors most affected by the pandemic, such as tourism.

Regional Air Transportation Initiative

In effect until March 31, 2022, this national initiative has a budget of $206 million, $59.2 million of which has been earmarked for CED, to support regional ecosystems for which air transportation is a key economic development factor. It is part of an interdepartmental approach spearheaded by the RDAs, in co-operation with Transport Canada (TC) and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), aimed at identifying measures to help mitigate the effects of the crisis on the regional air transportation sector. The funding will, among other things, be used to support regional airports and small regional air carriers, along with the businesses and organizations that make up this ecosystem, so that the air transportation sector can continue connecting Quebecers and markets. The Initiative will allow CED to support efforts to develop short-term economic opportunities aimed at better serving the regions and their inhabitants.

2. Support business growth and development

SMEs are key engines of economic growth in the regions of Quebec, and their vitality helps ensure equal opportunities for all. Despite the unprecedented challenges that businesses are facing in the current context, it is essential to support these businesses so that they can position themselves favourably and strategically in this new competitive environment. In 2021–2022, we will continue to boost business growth through our support for innovation, the adoption and marketing of cutting-edge technologies, the digitization of services, e-commerce, cybersecurity and local production. To help businesses expand and remain competitive, we will also prioritize their internationalization in global supply chains, and commercialization in foreign markets.

In addition, we will foster the growth and development of regional innovation ecosystems, specifically by supporting industrial clusters and incubators and accelerators. These players act as an important lever for regional economic development through the support they provide for businesses to help them expand, attract international investment and integrate into global value chains that are being restructured in the current pandemic context.

CED will continue to work to fight climate change by placing an emphasis on projects that improve business’s environmental performance. Specifically, this means projects involving the development and adoption of clean technologies; the decarbonization of operations and production processes; the deployment of the circular economy; and the regionalization of supply chains by promoting the location of manufacturing activities closer to raw material supply sources.

3. Strengthen the economic vitality of communities

In 2021–2022, CED will also continue to support local economic development and to strengthen the capacity of communities to develop in a sustainable manner through the Community Futures Program^{Footnote iii} (CFP).

Since the crisis has exacerbated many of the challenges facing Quebec’s regions and communities, CED will strengthen its regional approach, which focuses on local realities and opportunities, particularly in sectors where the impact is greatest, such as tourism. We will support promising projects that consider both the regional impact and broader economic dynamics.

CED will also support Black-led business organizations through the Black Entrepreneurship Program^{Footnote iv}. These organizations have, for a long time, been receiving insufficient funding, a situation that has been aggravated by the economic repercussions of COVID-19.

All these 2021-2022 priorities will, to varying degrees and in a complementary manner, allow CED to make progress towards the achievement of its departmental results, outlined in the section below.

For more information on CED’s plans, priorities and planned results, see the “Core responsibilities: planned results and resources, and key risks” section of this report.

This section contains detailed information on the department’s planned results and resources for each of its core responsibilities. It also contains information on key risks related to achieving those results.

Description

Internal Services are comprised of those groups of related activities and resources that the federal government considers to be services in support of Programs and/or required to meet corporate obligations of an organization. Internal Services refers to the activities and resources of the 10 distinct services that support Program delivery in the organization, regardless of the Internal Services delivery model in a department. These services are:

• Management and Oversight Services
• Communications Services
• Legal Services
• Human Resources Management Services
• Financial Management Services
• Information Management Services
• Information Technology Services
• Real Property Management Services
• Materiel Management Services
• Acquisition Management Services

Planning highlights

CED will continue to demonstrate its commitment to creating a healthy, stimulating and attractive work environment and to promoting innovation in the way it does business. Of course, the crisis in Quebec and around the world requires employers to raise the bar and adapt to the new realities that will characterize the professional scene going forward. We will continue to use innovation and digital technology to define the way we do things and to ensure that we are inclusive in the development of our ideas and decision-making.

Ongoing modernization projects include:

1. The rollout of our new grant and contribution program management solution developed in collaboration with the RDAs. This common platform focuses on clients, with a view to ensuring that their needs and concerns are taken into account. Its implementation in 2021–2022 will allow us to modernize the management of our projects and improve the client experience, specifically through the introduction of a client portal.
2. The rollout of the Digital Dexterity Hub. Developed by the Innovation Incubator, the Hub anticipates users’ training needs by means of a platform for access to tutorials and solutions to common problems. CED will thus be able to rely on staff empowerment to meet the challenges of the digital transformation of society, such as distance work and emerging technologies.
3. Various digital transformation initiatives will be put in place to equip employees for the delivery of digital services. We will also be focusing on the optimization of data use, which will result in the modernization of our business intelligence tools.
4. The launch of a revamped website, including a brand new secure customer portal. Completely redesigned with user needs in mind, the site will make it easier for our current and potential customers to find the information and services they are looking for through intuitive navigation and plain language. With this site, CED aims to make itself accessible to as many people as possible. Particular attention has been paid to accessibility for users with visual and cognitive disabilities, and efforts to optimize content for mobile devices will be pursued in order to continue to meet the service preferences of Canadians.

This section provides an overview of the department’s planned spending and human resources for the next three consecutive fiscal years and compares planned spending for the upcoming year with the current and previous years’ actual spending.

Planned spending

The following graph presents planned (voted and statutory) spending over time.

Description

The chart below illustrates trends in actual and planned spending over the past three fiscal years and the next two fiscal years.

In 2018-2019 and 2019-2020, expenditures were $293 million and $324 million respectively.

Additional funding received to deliver one-time, targeted initiatives related to the COVID-19 pandemic explains the significant increase in expenditures in 2020-2021, amounting to $601 million.

In 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024, expenditures decrease to $366M, $257M and $223M respectively.

Notwithstanding the explanations provided in the following section, the significant decline in spending starting in 2022–2023 can be explained by the fact that planned spending as of April 1, 2022, does not include the reinvestment of revenues from our clients’ repayable contributions, given that the authorizations had not yet been received at the time this document was written. It should also be noted that the repayment moratorium granted to our clients as a result of the COVID-19 crisis to help them address liquidity shortfalls could have a decreasing impact on reinvestment starting in 2022–2023.

Budgetary planning summary for core responsibilities and Internal Services (dollars)

The following table shows actual, forecast and planned spending for each of CED’s core responsibilities and to Internal Services for the years relevant to the current planning year.

Core responsibilities and Internal Services	2018–19 expenditures	2019–20 expenditures	2020–21 forecast spending	2021–22 budgetary spending (as indicated in Main Estimates)	2021–22 planned spending	2022–23 planned spending	2023–24 planned spending
Developing Quebec’s economy	273,397,927	303,896,531	579,631,121	346,277,629	346,277,629	237,556,111	204,131,914
Internal Services	19,738,917	20,726,195	22,019,440	20,204,199	20,204,199	19,650,127	19,118,277
Total	293,136,844	324,622,726	601,650,561	366,481,828	366,481,828	257,206,238	223,250,191

In 2020–2021, CED received additional funds to deliver temporary targeted Covied-19–related initiatives, which explains the marked increase in spending. Funding for some of these initiatives will end on March 31, 2021, notably:

• $281.2 million for the Regional Relief and Recovery Fund (RRRF)^{Footnote 2}
• $9.1 million for the Canadian Seafood Stabilization Fund (CSSF)
• $3.1 million for the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy

Other initiatives that began in 2020–2021 will be continued in the coming fiscal years:

• $35 million over three years (2020–2021 to 2022–2023) for the Initiative for the development of regional economic infrastructure in Quebec
• $59.2 million over two years (2020–2021 to 2021–2022) for the Regional Air Transportation Initiative
• $13.3 million over four years (2020–2021 to 2023–2024) for the Black Entrepreneurship Program.

Supporting information on planned expenditures, human resources, and results related to CED’s program inventory is available in the GC InfoBase^{Footnote xvi}.

The following supplementary information tables are available on Footnote xvii:

• Sustainable Development Goals
• Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy
• Details on transfer payment programs
• Gender-based analysis plus

CED’s Departmental Plan does not include information on tax expenditures that relate to its planned results for 2021–22.

Tax expenditures are the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, and the Department of Finance Canada publishes cost estimates and projections for government-wide tax expenditures each year in the Report on Federal Tax Expenditures^{Footnote xviii}. This report provides detailed information on tax expenditures, including objectives, historical background and references to related federal spending programs, as well as evaluations, research papers and gender-based analysis. The tax measures presented in this report are solely the responsibility of the Minister of Finance.

Mailing address

800 René Lévesque Blvd. West, Suite 500
Montréal, Quebec
H3B 1X9

Telephone: 514-283-3302
Fax: 514-283-3302
Website(s): www.ced.canada.ca

• appropriation (crédit)
• Any authority of Parliament to pay money out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
• budgetary expenditures (dépenses budgétaires)
• Operating and capital expenditures; transfer payments to other levels of government, organizations or individuals; and payments to Crown corporations.
• Core Responsibility (responsabilité essentielle)
• An enduring function or role performed by a department. The intentions of the department with respect to a Core Responsibility are reflected in one or more related Departmental Results that the department seeks to contribute to or influence.
• Departmental Plan (plan ministériel)
• A report on the plans and expected performance of an appropriated department over a three-year period. Departmental Plans are tabled in Parliament each spring.
• departmental priority (priorité ministérielle)
• A plan or project that a department has chosen to focus and report on during the planning period. Departmental priorities represent the things that are most important or what must be done first to support the achievement of the desired departmental results.
• Departmental Result (résultat ministériel)
• A consequence or outcome that a department seeks to achieve. A departmental result is often outside departments’ immediate control, but it should be influenced by program-level outcomes.
• Departmental Result Indicator (indicateur de résultat ministériel)
• A factor or variable that provides a valid and reliable means to measure or describe progress on a Departmental Result.
• Departmental Results Framework (cadre ministériel des résultats)
• A framework that consists of the department’s core responsibilities, departmental results and departmental result indicators.
• Departmental Results Report (rapport sur les résultats ministériels)
• A report on an appropriated department’s actual accomplishments against the plans, priorities and expected results set out in the corresponding Departmental Plan.
• experimentation (expérimentation)
• The conducting of activities thatseek to first explore, then test and compare, the effects and impacts of policies and interventions in order to inform evidence-based decision-making, and 2020–21 Departmental Plan 30 Appendix improve outcomes for Canadians, by learning what works and what doesn’t. Experimentation is related to, but distinct form innovation (the trying of new things), because it involves a rigorous comparison of results. For example, using a new website to communicate with Canadians can be an innovation;systematically testing the new website against existing outreach tools or an old website to see which one leads to more engagement, is experimentation.
• full-time equivalent (équivalent temps plein)
• A measure of the extent to which an employee represents a full person-year charge against a departmental budget. Full-time equivalents are calculated as a ratio of assigned hours of work to scheduled hours of work. Scheduled hours of work are set out in collective agreements.
• gender-based analysis plus (GBA+)(analyse comparative entre les sexes plus [ACS+])
• An analytical process used to assess how diverse groups of women, men and gender-diverse people experience policies, programs and services based on multiple factors including race, ethnicity, religion, age, and mental or physical disability.
• government-wide priorities (priorités pangouvernementales)
• For the purpose of the 2021–22 Departmental Plan, government-wide priorities refers to those high-level themes outlining the government’s agenda in the 2020 Speech from the Throne, namely: Protecting Canadians from COVID-19; Helping Canadians through the pandemic; Building back better – a resiliency agenda for the middle class; The Canada we’re fighting for.
• horizontal initiative (initiative horizontale)
• An initiative in which two or more federal organizations are given funding to pursue a shared outcome, often linked to a government priority.
• non-budgetary expenditures (dépenses non budgétaires)
• Net outlays and receipts related to loans, investments and advances, which change the composition of the financial assets of the Government of Canada.
• performance (rendement)
• What an organization did with its resources to achieve its results, how well those results compare to what the organization intended to achieve, and how well lessons learned have been identified.
• performance indicator (indicateur de rendement)
• A qualitative or quantitative means of measuring an output or outcome, with the intention of gauging the performance of an organization, program, policy or initiative respecting expected results.
• performance reporting (production de rapports sur le rendement)
• The process of communicating evidence-based performance information. Performance reporting supports decision making, accountability and transparency.
• plan (plan)
• The articulation of strategic choices, which provides information on how an organization intends to achieve its priorities and associated results. Generally a plan will explain the logic behind the strategies chosen and tend to focus on actions that lead up to the expected result.
• planned spending (dépenses prévues)
• For Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports, planned spending refers to those amounts presented in Main Estimates.
• A department is expected to be aware of the authorities that it has sought and received. The determination of planned spending is a departmental responsibility, and departments must be able to defend the expenditure and accrual numbers presented in their Departmental Plans and Departmental Results Reports.
• program (programme)
• Individual or groups of services, activities or combinations thereof that are managed together within the department and focus on a specific set of outputs, outcomes or service levels.
• program inventory (répertoire des programmes)
• Identifies all of the department’s programs and describes how resources are organized to contribute to the department’s core responsibilities and results.
• result (résultat)
• An external consequence attributed, in part, to an organization, policy, program or initiative. Results are not within the control of a single organization, policy, program or initiative; instead they are within the area of the organization’s influence.
• statutory expenditures (dépenses législatives)
• Expenditures that Parliament has approved through legislation other than appropriation acts. The legislation sets out the purpose of the expenditures and the terms and conditions under which they may be made.
• Strategic Outcome (résultat stratégique)
• A long-term and enduring benefit to Canadians that is linked to the organization’s mandate, vision and core functions.
• target (cible)
• A measurable performance or success level that an organization, program or initiative plans to achieve within a specified time period. Targets can be either quantitative or qualitative.
• voted expenditures (dépenses votées)
• Expenditures that Parliament approves annually through an Appropriation Act. The Vote wording becomes the governing conditions under which these expenditures may be made.