It’s Unanimous: City Council Wants Toronto to be a Music City
Before you write this off as some grand ego-boost for the Most Self-Important City in Canada®, it’s not. The music industry generates billions in revenue in Canada and most of that happens in Toronto. (Sorry, rest of Canada, but when it comes to music in this country, Toronto is the Centre of the Universe. It just is.)
Toronto City Council, which has been dancing with this idea of declaring Toronto a “music city,” voted unanimously the Toronto Music Advisory Council’s official Music Strategy. This means the TMAC will have more clout when it comes to growing the music sector. How? By making it easier for musicians, venues and promoters to cut through all the hideous red tape and bureaucracy that plagues the system now. It even covers issues like affordable housing for artists.
NOW Magazine has more detail.
The proposed changes fall under six broad areas: supporting an environment friendly to music creators, encouraging the music business, supporting music education, promoting Toronto’s music sector locally and internationally, fostering alliances with other music cities worldwide, and implementing a process to monitor progress and measure success.
One key element is the emphasis on affordable housing, which falls under the first of the six goals outlined in the plan.
All this is great news. Read the whole thing here.