Northern Ontario is building the workforce to keep film and TV production in the North
The 2026 Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards at Place des Arts in Sudbury. The awards and conference are among the CION programs receiving support through a new $850,145 FedNor investment in Northern Ontario's film, television and music industries.
Photo credit: Cultural Industries Ontario North
In the summer of 2022, Northern Ontario had a problem created partly by its own success. More than 10 film and television productions were working at the same time across Sudbury, North Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, competing for local crews during a three-month stretch.
The region hosted 37 projects that year, but Cultural Industries Ontario North says producers were struggling to fill senior and specialized positions locally. Production managers, line producers, accountants and department heads sometimes had to come from outside Northern Ontario, adding travel and accommodation costs.
Four years later, the federal government is putting another $850,145 into the organization responsible for much of the work intended to address that problem.
FedNor announced the non-repayable investment in Cultural Industries Ontario North, or CION, on Sept. 25. The money, provided through the Northern Ontario Development Program, will support production attraction, workforce training, music-industry development, the Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards and Conference and partnerships intended to give post-secondary students hands-on experience on regional film and television projects.
FedNor projects that the investment will create and maintain close to 45 full-time jobs, although its announcement does not explain how that figure was calculated. It also does not provide an itemized budget showing how the $850,145 will be divided among the activities or state the funding period. Those details could not be independently established from currently available federal records.
The amount itself is familiar. FedNor announced $850,000 for CION in June 2023, following another $850,000 investment announced in 2019. The 2023 funding supported production attraction, CION's Crew Database and ONStage music-industry platform, its MAPPED crew-training program, NOMFA, artist showcases and partnerships with Northern Ontario post-secondary institutions.
CION traces Northern Ontario's current screen-production industry to 2001 and now lists more than 400 film and television productions shot across the region since then. Its database includes work in Greater Sudbury, North Bay, Parry Sound, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Timmins and smaller communities. The 400-plus figure cited by the federal government is therefore a cumulative CION count covering approximately 25 years, rather than a measure of recent production activity.
The industry's growth has also been uneven. CION's 2025 assessment of Northern Ontario film and television production records 31 projects in 2021 and 37 in 2022, followed by 21 in 2023 as the Hollywood labour disputes affected production across North America. The organization estimated another 21 projects region-wide in 2024.
Greater Sudbury subsequently recorded stronger activity in 2025. The city counted 21 productions within the municipality alone, covering 385 filming days and generating $16 million in direct local spending.
The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation's Film and Television Program provides one reason local workforce and infrastructure have become central to the region's production strategy. Funding can cover up to 50 per cent of eligible Northern Ontario costs, with maximum contributions ranging from $500,000 to $2 million according to a project's total Northern Ontario spend. Eligible expenses include Northern Ontario labour, goods, services and post-production, while the program gives priority to projects that create jobs and production expenditures in the region.
CION expanded its workforce-development work after the 2022 crew shortage, including union-led Northern Ontario Film Crew Training Sessions. Two rounds in 2023 produced 187 graduates in Sudbury, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie and Timmins. By November 2024, CION reported that more than 60 had entered the film and television workforce and accumulated more than 190 verifiable production credits.
Its MAPPED program takes that training onto working sets. Media Arts Production: Practiced, Employed, Developed provides partial funding for productions employing Northern Ontario crew trainees, with current funding available for as many as six trainees and a maximum of $10,000 per production.
The program has operated since 2014, and CION's 2025 industry assessment counted at least 1,355 verifiable production credits accumulated by MAPPED graduates between 2014 and 2024. CION says some early participants have since established themselves in key production positions.
The Sept. 25 FedNor investment will continue to support MAPPED.
CION has also built tools intended to make existing Northern workers and businesses easier for incoming productions to find. Its regional directory includes studios, equipment providers, production services, post-production businesses and other suppliers across the North, while its crew database allows producers to search for established and emerging workers. CION cautions that inclusion in its supplier directory does not automatically mean a business qualifies as eligible Northern Ontario spending under a particular funding program.
Production attraction has developed alongside those workforce programs. Through its Film & TV Project Pitch Exchange, CION connects producers with Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation and municipal representatives to discuss specific projects and their production requirements. Selected projects can subsequently receive Ontario Creates support for location tours in Northern Ontario.
The provincial incentive structure gives productions another reason to find those workers and services locally. NOHFC generally requires eligible labour costs to go to Northern Ontario residents, while eligible equipment rentals must come from vendors located in the region. The agency also encourages productions to provide on-set training and is working to increase the number of Northern Ontario businesses supplying the film and television sector.
A local grip, accountant, equipment supplier or post-production company can therefore affect both the amount of production spending retained in the region and Northern Ontario's ability to accommodate future projects.
CION's mandate extends into music. The organization supports Northern Ontario musicians through industry consultations and ONStage, an online network that lists performers alongside funding deadlines, festival opportunities and new releases. The new FedNor funding includes music-industry development and artist showcases alongside the film and television programs.
Some of that activity is already visible in 2026. CION partnered with MusicOntario on Northern artist showcases connected with the Folk Canada Conference in Hamilton, where musicians can perform for presenters, buyers and other industry delegates.
In June, the organization held the 2026 Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards at Place des Arts in Sudbury. The three-day event combined its awards with professional development, live performances, networking and meetings between Northern artists and industry participants.
The federal money announced Sept. 25 will support future NOMFA programming and additional showcases, according to FedNor, as well as work with Northern Ontario post-secondary institutions to connect students with practical film and television training. The government has not disclosed how much of the $850,145 is assigned to any one of those activities.
Northern Ontario's screen-production infrastructure continues to have gaps. CION's own assessment was prompted in part by the limits exposed when production demand outran local capacity in 2022, while the decline in projects during 2023 and 2024 demonstrated how quickly external industry conditions can affect production in the region.
Its current production database nevertheless shows crews working across Northern Ontario again in 2026. The listings include the fourth season of SkyMed in North Bay, the third season of When Hope Calls in Powassan and the second season of Extracted in Temagami, alongside feature-film productions in North Bay and Sudbury. The latest federal investment will help determine how many of the workers hired when those productions arrive can come from the communities where they are filming.
