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Barbara Hall's Arts Policy

We need spend very little time in describing how important the arts sector is to our city from either an economic or cultural perspective.

The real issue facing this sector is one of funding – both the amount and the stability of funding.  Toronto has fallen way behind comparable cities in Canada and the U.S. in the funding of its artists, venues and organizations.

Substantial capital reinvestment is now underway in some of our major venues, including: the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Ballet School, and the Canadian Opera Company. This funding is much needed and long-overdo but ultimately what will ensure the successful growth of our arts and culture sector is stable, predictable funding for both capital and operations.

Haven fallen so behind, our city has a long way to catch up and not all needs can be met immediately.  The first priority is to stop the decline, shore up critical needs and work together to build up the sector to a stronger position.  This will require the participation of all partners in the sector including all levels of government.

The city’s Culture Plan for the Creative City is a great blueprint from which to rebuild.  I support this report and will work towards its implementation. The report lays out a variety of tools that may be available for leveraging greater funds for the sector including:

• Income tax credits from the federal government
• Reinvestment of a portion of the PST and GST collected from places of amusement

I support these endeavours and I would also advocate on behalf of the city for the restoration of provincial government arts funding to 1994 levels (there has been a 40% reduction in provincial grants since this time).

There are things that the city itself can do including increased funding to the Toronto Arts Council.  And the city is in a position to do much more if the province allows the implementation of such tools as a visitor levy (destination marketing fee), and TIFs (Tax Increment Financing).  A visitor levy would allow the city to appropriately investment in tourism marketing and promotion.

And TIFs, along with other development incentives would leverage funds for community improvements, arts districts (similar to the Distillery District) or other arts-related development.

Ultimately, the city needs a different way to look at cultural policy. Too many times, we are working from within different silos.  We need to understand that the full range of the arts and culture sector depends on linkages between all the elements and partners in this sector. We cannot afford to think of this sector in terms of only tourism, or museums, or artists, or profit versus non-profit, etc…

We need to think of cultural development as an all-encompassing thing. Tourism is not supported solely by better marketing but by stronger destinations and artists – and vice-versa.

So as mayor, I will ensure that we: have strong linkages between cultural planning and urban planning; form strong creative cities networks (where we can collect best-case policies and exchange experiences with other cities); stabilize capital and operating funding; get the commitment of government and the private sector; and ensure that our diverse citizenry and neighbourhoods are involved and represented.