CITY OF SAULT STE.MARIE COMMUNITY CULTURE PLAN

Sault Ste. Marie, a city of 74,000 people, is one of Canada’s oldest settlements and has been a gathering place and home for Indigenous peoples for millennia. As Sault Ste. Marie’s natural environment has defined the city, so too has its industry.

In 2016, an initiative that came to be known as FutureSSM was spearheaded by a Community Adjustment Committee (CAC) to study the current landscape in Sault Ste. Marie. It not only examined the impact of factory closings and the dependence on a single industry, but also looked at aging demographics, net migrations, and failing health and wellbeing statistics.

One of the key recommendations of the FutureSSM report was the development of a Cultural Plan and in December 2018, the City engaged Lord Cultural Resources to develop a Community Culture Plan. The goal of this plan is to provide the City with a clear direction to plan, resource, and leverage arts, culture, and heritage, integrating them into all facets of municipal planning and operations to support the Sault’s social and economic imperatives over a 5-year planning horizon.