The Great Toronto Arts Debate

September 22, 2003, CBC Atrium Toronto

The following questions were presented to the Mayoral Candidates at the Arts Debate by moderator Andy Barrie:

ONE: THE POWER OF THE MAYOR’S OFFICE Andy Barrie

The City of Toronto is governed by 44 elected councillors and 1 mayor.

A substantial arts bureaucracy exerts considerable influence on the decisions of Council and their implementation.

What powers, mechanisms and levers does the Mayor have to influence municipal arts policy and programs? How would you, as Mayor, use these powers, mechanisms and levers to achieve your goals for the arts in Toronto?

TWO: ART IN CANDIDATE’S LIVES Karin Eaton, Executive Director, Scarborough Arts Council

It is important to growing numbers of Torontonians that our Mayor genuinely understand how and why art affects our lives and our communities so positively. Our health, wealth, safety, recreation, education and common understanding all quite depend upon the quality and quantity of arts experience available to us. Art feeds our souls, in fact.

How has your life been affected by art? What role does art play in your life today?

THREE: RETURN ON INVESTMENT IN THE ARTS Andy Barrie

According to the City’s recently-approved Culture Plan, Toronto is currently funding arts and cultural activities at a rate that is less than one-fifth that of San Francisco. Tourism is increasing in that city, and declining in ours. The citizens and politicians of San Francisco have recognized the value of arts and culture as a huge engine for the Bay area economy, as well as a significant factor in increasing the quality of urban life.

Would you agree, if we are to sustain and increase our stature as a major urban centre that Toronto needs a comparable rate of per capita investment in its artists, arts institutions and cultural development? That is, would you agree that we should be thinking on a scale five times larger than we currently are, when it comes to how much we invest in arts and culture?

FOUR: THE LIBRARY QUESTION Katherine Govier, Author

The Toronto Public Library is the most utilized of all public cultural facilities in the City, and is considered by many to be the last great public space available to citizens. Last year Toronto public libraries had 18 million walk-in visits, over 12 million electronic visits, over 30 million items were borrowed and over 65,000 people attended programs for adults.

While the City's cultural renaissance has an emphasis on downtown and tourists, the Library with 98 branches across the city, in addition to our flagship at Yonge/Bloor, has an opportunity to take that Cultural Renaissance to every part of the City. Do you see this as important? In the current fiscal environment how would you support it?

FIVE: ARTS SECTOR OPERATING REVENUES Andy Barrie

Many of our professional arts organizations are technically insolvent.

“False Economy”, a 2002 study by Toronto Arts Council Foundation, indicates that our non-profit arts sector is short by $45 million a year in operating revenues. $45 million, a 21% increase, is the amount of new money needed to move the sector away from crisis management toward more efficient modes of creation, management and marketing of artists’ work. Greater efficiency will lead to much greater achievement of existing potential.

In February of this year, Toronto Arts Council Foundation launched “Great Arts = Great City”, a 10-year project designed to permanently eliminate crippling operational shortfalls. The plan calls for raising awareness of the value of Toronto arts to the City, the Province and the whole of Canada. It calls for increased investment by Canadian foundations and all levels of government. It suggests strategies for increasing consumer and corporate spending on the arts.

Are you familiar with these reports and do you support the initiatives outlined in “Great Arts = Great City”? As Mayor, are you prepared to lend the strength of you office to solving this most pressing of all arts sector problems?

SIX: CREATION Laura Michalchyshyn, Senior Vice President, Dramatic Programming, Alliance Atlantis Broadcasting

Visitors are drawn to many of the great cities of the world to enjoy art and architecture created in previous centuries by local artists. Leonardo da Vinci was a local artist.

Toronto is a young city, still very dependent on the works of dead, European artists. While many of these works are deservedly popular, they were not created by our local artists.

What can we do to ensure that the creations of our best artists reach the public in the present and continue to enrich our city in the future?

SEVEN: DIVERSITY QUESTION Andy Barrie

Toronto is a city characterized by diverse communities--communities defined by factors as various as neighborhood, age, sexual preference, workplace, language, ethnicity and cultural tradition.

How do we choose between preserving cultural integrity within communities and encouraging communication and understanding in the overall community? What role should the City play in resolving this dilemma?

EIGHT: THE INCUBATOR QUESTION TBA

Michael MacMillan, Chairman & CEO of Alliance Atlantis Communications, once observed that without a steady supply of talent and innovation from Toronto's non-profit arts sector, his company, "would simply not exist".

No one doubts that our arts sector supplies the cultural industries--broadcasters, distributors, advertising agencies, design studios and so forth--with talent and creative ideas.

Corporate and government sectors also draw heavily on this same source. Our artists help make our society prosperous, yet work and live in impoverished circumstances.

How can the City assist in returning some of that prosperity to our artists? Would that not be in everyone's best economic interest?

NINE: FACILITIES & CONTENT Andy Barrie (backup question)

Our governments and philanthropists are investing heavily in what many are calling a cultural renaissance for Toronto. So far, this renaissance consists of plans to build or extend a number of big-ticket, blue chip arts facilites. These are welcome, long overdue additions to the high end of the arts spectrum.

Is it possible, though, to have a cultural renaissance without paying attention to the whole spectrum; for example, to the state of repair of existing facilities of all sizes, to the provision of live-work spaces for artists, to creation at all levels and in all parts of the city?

TEN: STATUS OF THE ARTIST Andy Barrie (backup question)

Many cities around the world name streets, parks and buildings after their artists. They mark with plaques places where they lived and worked.

Greg Gatenby, departed director of Harbourfront International Festival of Authors, was fond of saying that Toronto has been the publishing and literary capital of Canada for over 150 years and yet, after all that time in this city, we still do not have a single statue in a publicly-owned space to a Canadian literary figure.

What steps would you take, as Mayor, to honour our artists?