Toronto’s pandemic response: transforming crisis into creative opportunities

The Purpose

In the early days of COVID-19, Toronto’s $9 billion culture sector complied with emergency orders to close non-essential businesses and practise physical distancing. The result was a 25% drop in the sector’s employment between 2019 and 2020 and a 34% loss of paid hours. The freelancers who form 72% of all Toronto artists, were particularly badly affected.

The City implemented special programmes to address the immediate impacts on the sector and helped to prepare it for a safe reopening.

The Challenge

The cultural sector was one of the hardest hit by COVID-19 restrictions and one of the last to recover. The City acted quickly to support the sector with funds and rapid policy responses. In the aftermath, it worked to address structural challenges that the sector was facing long before the pandemic, helping it to flourish in the future.

The sector’s fragility is in part caused by more prevalent issues. They include precarious employment, with median artist incomes in Toronto being less than half the national average. Less privileged demographics have long been shut out of creative careers. This is reflected in the uneven public participation in the arts. There has also been a longstanding squeeze on art space, with development pressures and rising costs leading to the closure of music venues, 2SLGBTQ+ nightclubs and small performing arts spaces.

The City used the pandemic relief and recovery to take risks and experiment with new ideas; rolling out programmes and investing in new strategic initiatives.

The Solution

TOArtist COVID-19 Emergency Response – an artists’ relief fund – was set up in partnership with the Toronto Arts Council, which granted CAD 837,000 to 982 artists. Live music venues were made eligible for property tax relief of up to 50%, saving 45 venues a total of CAD 1.7 million in 2020. A Cultural Festivals Recovery Fund shared CAD 500,000 between 30 organisations to help with reopening. Programmes and festivals, including a Canada Day event and Nuit Blanche 2020, moved to digital platforms. Finally, 600 cultural and creative businesses were attracted to register for shopHERE, a program matching volunteer developers with independent organisations needing websites.

However, despite the importance of these interventions, in the pandemic aftermath at the end of 2021, recovery remained slow, with arts and entertainment across Canada generating 49% of their economic output compared to 2019.

The City’s Toronto Office of Recovery and Rebuild (TORR), recognised culture as one of six essential pillars of the city’s recovery, vital for generating economic and social well-being.

The Impact

Following round table consultations with the sector, it made recommendations for more systemic, long term strengthening and diversifying of the sector. In crafting its approach to pandemic response, mitigation and into recovery, the City put culture at the heart of many strategies. Cultural initiatives were rapidly deployed to help people make meaning in the crisis, forge bonds of solidarity and support mutual aid networks, and, once conditions allowed, invite people back together into the public realm.

Given the strength of culture in the pandemic response, and guided by public consultation on recovery, the City is undertaking several new initiatives to support sector recovery and renewal. The City launched a new Office for Creative Space, to preserve existing and creating new affordable arts spaces in Toronto. It is also transforming its approach to funding.

The City used the pandemic relief and recovery to take risks and experiment with new ideas; rolling out programmes and investing in new strategic initiatives. This entrepreneurial spirit created a culture change within the government, helping it to begin to tackle long-standing problems. This innovation will help strengthen the cultural sector for the future.

Source: World Cities Culture Report 2022

Images Courtesy © City of Toronto, Getty/Canva