Northern Ontario Heritage Fund

The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund is a Crown corporation and development agency of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines in the Canadian province of Ontario, whose purpose is to provide funding and program support to foster economic development in the economically disadvantaged Northern Ontario region.

The NOHF concentrates on six key funding programs: job creation, technology research and development, infrastructure and community development, youth entrepreneurship, youth internship and cooperative education, and generation and conservation of renewable energy.

First announced in the David Peterson government's 1987 throne speech, the fund's creation was included in the 1988 provincial budget, and the enabling legislation was given royal assent on June 7, 1988. At the time, it was set up as a short-term program which was slated to conclude in 1999; it has since seen periodic funding expansions and term extensions, and continues to run today, although as of 2015 the fund has still not been officially converted into a permanent program.

The organization's first board, consisting of 19 representatives from various cities and towns across the region, was named in July 1988. One of the fund's first large-scale investments was a $7.6 million contribution to the creation and construction of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory.

In its earliest years, the fund received some criticism focusing on allegations that it was too often used as an emergency bailout fund for failing natural resource companies rather than as a mechanism to actively encourage economic development or diversification, and that it lacked sufficient controls to prevent it from becoming misused as a vote-buying slush fund.

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