For several decades, Johanna worked with her husband George Metcalf, to develop a philanthropy infused with her qualities of humility, principled ambition, and a high tolerance for risk. Throughout her life, she championed the young, the new, and the emerging unconditionally. These prizes have been created to carry on Johanna’s legacy as a passionate advocate for the arts, and to celebrate artists in Ontario who have made a recognized impact on the field and the public, and who show great promise.

Fifteen finalists have been chosen with the help of juries organized by the Ontario Arts Council, and the five winners will be honoured at a celebration in Toronto on December 12, 2019. Each winner will receive a prize of $25,000 and will name a protégé as a way of celebrating early career artists. The protégés will each receive $5,000. These prizes seem a fine way of linking the Foundation’s long interest in sustaining the performing arts in Ontario with our focus on underpinning and celebrating extraordinary creative people.

In the Environment Program, we are deepening our commitment to advancing natural climate solutions across Canada. Starting in 2020, we will be directing all of our environment funding to our Carbon Landscapes initiative, in support of work at the intersection of climate, biodiversity, and sustainable livelihoods. Since we first launched Carbon Landscapes in 2017 as one of our three environment funding streams, we have charted a substantial growth in interest, attention, and support for advancing natural climate solutions across the country. We have celebrated recent government commitments to support natural climate solutions and are encouraged by growing investments in efforts to protect and steward globally significant ecosystems that sustain people and wildlife, and help to maintain a stable climate here on Earth. But we recognize that this work needs to be ramped up.

And finally, we’ve just finished completely revamping our website. I encourage you to spend some time exploring it. You will find a wide range of reports, videos, reflections, and research from across the Foundation’s work. And as always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Sandy Houston President and CEO