Trinity Bellwoods Becoming Cultural Hub...

From Torontoist

Shipping News

From June 11 to 28, a ship will be wrecked at Trinity Bellwoods Park. Ship O' Fools is what we we think of when we think of Luminato: a large intervention in a public space, an unexpected injection of art into the city. This and more festival highlights. Jun 09, 2010

You Are Never Too Young...

...to be exposed to examples of how politicians, bureaucrats and self interest groups screw you and spend your money. 

Should people under 18 be barred from parts of a new exhibition coming to the National Gallery of Canada because of the exhibit's content?

23% 422 votes

Yes

77% 1404 votes

No

Much Of It Has Been Labelled As Garbage For Years

I think it might have been one of the social philosophers on Air Farce was asked to define Arts And Crafts and he did so; :One you piss on and the other your piss in!"

Reuse, recycle, reintroduce: Salvaged products become works of art

One man’s trash is another man’s chandelier, or doormat or iPod carrying case. Cut/Paste: Creative Reuse in Canadian Design, a new exhibition opening ...

First It Was Wychwood Barns And Now......

Kudos and carves for billboard tax

By SUN MEDIA

Toronto's arts community -- at least that part of it which spends a lot of time hanging around City Hall trolling for money -- feels it's entitled to its entitlements.

It's claiming credit for having lobbied city council successfully this week to slap a new, $10.4 million-a-year tax on billboards.

It also insists it's entitled to the lion's share of the new cash.

That's about $9 million annually, which will be dispersed by the city's budget committee, after council this week earmarked $1.4 million of the new revenues for enforcing the new bylaw.

A spokesman for the arts community insisted the city has a "moral responsibility" to cough up the cash for the arts because it helped push successfully for the new tax.

While nothing's been decided yet, a number of councillors, including budget committee chair Shelley Carroll and Coun. Joe Mihevc, appear to agree with handing out more money to the arts.

Sigh.

To begin, we have just four words to say to the arts community.

The first two, which are printable, are: "Thank you."

SMART SUGGESTION

It was smart of you to suggest this new revenue stream to council, if that's what happened, even if the billboard industry is upset, which is to be expected.

Our next two words, however, can't be printed in a family paper.

But if we could, they would stress our anger that a city hall lobby group apparently feels it's entitled to direct the spending of millions of tax dollars to itself, and that some councillors appear to agree.

Time for a reality check on all sides. That is, Toronto has a $500-million deficit this year and the city in fact has a "moral responsibility" to all taxpayers to gets its finances under control.

Simply raising taxes and then instantly shipping out the newly-generated revenues to every special interest group with its hand out is not going to solve the city's long-term financial problems.

Finally, too many people in and around City Hall these days seem to think the city's power to tax represents a piggy bank they're entitled to draw on at will.

They are long overdue for a lesson in humility from voters.

Letters to the Editor

By SUN READERS

"Miller goes deeper into the red" (Dec. 8): Well done, Sue-Ann Levy. Mayor Miller and his gang are still in denial if they think Torontonians are not outraged that the mayor's 2010 capital budget proposal allows the city to take on more debt to be paid out over 30 years.

All Parties Actively Discussing This EI Changes

I think it was a segment on Air Farce that put Arts and Crafts in perspective.....one you piss on and the other you piss in!

Arts activists regroup

Feds refuse to reinstate multimillion-dollar programs that helped with travel, marketing

By ALTHIA RAJ, NATIONAL BUREAU

A year after the Conservative government was hammered over culture cuts during the federal election, the arts community is mobilizing for a new offensive.

"Absolutely nothing has changed," said George Krump, the general manager of Louise Bedard Danse in Montreal.

According to Krump, the Conservatives do not support the arts industry, which they view with "mistrust."

Members of the arts community are extremely frustrated, said Marc Drouin, executive director of the Quebec playwrights' group le Centre des Auteurs Dramatiques, especially about the cuts to arts promotion because that threatens the survival of companies by no longer enabling them to tour larger markets.

DEEMED INEFFICIENT

Art groups are upset the government refuses to reinstate two funds -- the $7.1-million Trade Routes program and the $4.8-million Arts Promotion program -- that helped with international travel and marketing.

The government maintains the programs were inefficient.

Trade Routes spent $5 million paying people to "push paper" and only $2 million went to the artists, said Heritage Minister James Moore's spokeswoman Deirdra McCracken.

The programs are not coming back, McCracken said, adding the Harper government is spending $540 million over two years for arts and culture in a recession period.

But art groups said the funds should be reformed, not eliminated.

Alain Dancyger, the executive director of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, said he had to beg donors in Egypt this spring to make up a $250,000 travel budget shortfall for the company's historic Middle East tour.

"It was embarrassing," he said. Donors were asking why they should give if the Canadian government was refusing to help, he said.

Last August, after the cuts were announced, artists, especially in Quebec, mobilized. They held rallies lashing out at the Tories.

IMPACT ON ELECTION

"Without the debate around culture, the Conservatives may have won more seats in Quebec," said Stanley Pean, head of the province's writers union. "They did not win a majority in the House of Commons, in part because of our efforts."

After the election, the heritage minister held a series of roundtables with the arts community.

Martine Levesque, director general of the Quebec theatre council, called them protocol meetings with no tangible results.

But Shannon Litzenberger, a dancer and spokeswoman for the Canadian Arts Coalition, said the government deserves some credit for investing millions in training and cultural infrastructure. Still, she plans to lobby for reinstatement of the travel programs during the next election.

Traditionally, campaigns haven't been forums where culture was discussed, but that changed last year, said Anne-Marie Jean, executive director of Culture Montreal.

"I think it will never be the same."

ALTHIA.RAJ@SUNMEDIA.CA

I Didn't Know That.........

Casino keeps CNE in the game

Brodie Fenlon

From Monday's Globe and Mail Last updated on Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 04:27AM EDT

Without gambling proceeds from the Canadian National Exhibition casino that quietly opened a week ago today, the fair as Toronto knows it would be mired in red ink, forcing taxpayers to cover the shortfall.

Financial figures obtained by The Globe and Mail show “The Ex” would have posted a $1.4-million loss last year, a $1.5-million deficit in 2007 and more than twice as much in 2006 had it not been for the profits of poker, blackjack, roulette and other games of chance, which account for more than a quarter of all fair revenues. Instead

The City of Toronto is on the hook for any profits or losses the 18-day fair incurs under a long-standing agreement between the board of governors for Exhibition Place and the non-profit Canadian National Exhibition Association.

“The casino is a significant contributor to our annual operating revenues,” said David Bednar, the fair's general manager.

“By all means, we would have a CNE without a casino, if it came to it, but we just wouldn't have as good a CNE,” he said.

MORE

Community Input Lost In The Bowels Of Toronto Silly Hall

Wychwood Barns

We can't find $$$ to send kids to school with a full stomach;

Charity in danger of going under

but we can find money for projects like:

Masterpiece or a big mess?

Joe Mihevc thinks Toronto's newly-opened artistic community is terrific. I beg to disagree

By SUE-ANN LEVY, TORONTO SUN

This is Toronto Coun. Joe Mihevc's masterpiece.

The midtown councillor is so protective of the newly-restored Artscape Wychwood Barns -- a multi-use complex dedicated to the arts and the environment that has been in the works for eight years -- that he begins our recent interview cautiously.

"You're not going to beat up on me?" he asks before leading me on a tour of the complex, reported to cost at least $21.2 million and subject to nearly as much local backlash as Mihevc's other pet project, the as yet incomplete $100-million St. Clair dedicated streetcar line.

On the surface, the transformation of what Mihevc calls the one-time "Union Station to the North" -- five derelict streetcar barns dating back to 1913 -- is brilliant.

No green detail has been spared -- from the geothermal field that heats and cools the building to the year-round temperate greenhouse, to the 24,000-gallon cistern used to flush all the building's toilets and to irrigate the greenhouse, to the deliberate lack of (car) parking on-site.

A 127,000-square-foot park -- including an off-leash dog area and an ice rink in winter -- surrounds the complex.

The concept of a community of artists living and working under one roof would make creative city guru Richard Florida proud.

The reconverted "Barn 1" houses 26 affordable units for "verified working" but nonetheless starving artists. There are also 14 studios for artists judged by an Artscape committee of peers to have "bona fides" credentials and experience.

The plan includes providing year-round space in the reconstructed "Barn 2" -- the Covered Street Barn -- for community events, exhibitions and meetings.

Alex Flores, a Mexican painter focusing on environmental issues, opened her studio doors on Nov. 1 and is thrilled to be part of a community of artists.

"Being part of the Wychwood Arts Barns is like being part of something that is alternative and good for the earth," she told me.

Tim Jones, president and CEO of Artscape, said their aim was to provide creative people "affordable space" in an environment where they can "collaborate and share resources. It was to create an environment where artists and environmentalists could rub shoulders."

Mihevc adds many arts and environmental organizations came together with the local community and found a "very creative way" to finance and build the project.

But opponents question not just the price but whether it would have ever gotten off the ground without the tremendous infusion of public money.

While Mihevc has been involved with the potential redevelopment since the TTC first declared the property surplus in 1998, he claimed not to know exactly who gave what dollars to the project.

The $21.2-million publicized as the project's cost does not include the city's expenditure of $3 million remediating and improving parkland surrounding the barns, or the partial demolition of "Barn 5."

A 2005 city report notes Mihevc arranged for $1 million for the project from a Section 37 agreement negotiated in his ward. It was in that year -- while being questioined about the 26 affordable units -- that he confirmed Artscape had been handed a 50-year lease on the land for $1-a-year and the prized parcel had never been "evaluated as to its market value."

MANY CONCESSIONS

Since then, the city has coughed up a number of concessions for the project including waiving development fees and property taxes and a $3.5-million capital loan guarantee on the project's $7.4-million mortgage.

Former Toronto city councillor Howard Levine, who lives next door to the new complex, feels the subsidy to save the Barns has been "just staggering."

He questions Mihevc's contention that the surrounding Wychwood community now supports the project -- insisting the project's opponents are just beaten down.

"This is the most manipulated, railroaded project I've ever seen in my life," said the planner. "A tremdendous amount of energy and political wheeling and dealing was expended to make this happen."

While Jones claims the complex must now stand on its own two feet financially, Levine says he doubts Artscape will ever recover even its annual operating costs.

He may have a point. I got the feeling during my tour that Artscape isn't really interested in making the project sustainable in the true sense of the word.

Take the rent paid on the artist studios. Artscape's director of properties, Bruce Rosensweet, told me the artists pay "more or less" gross market rent of $17 per sq. ft.

But when I later clarified the amount with him, I learned that was for a year, not per month -- meaning rent on a typical 250-square-foot studio is a meagre $4,250 per year.

I also asked if the Covered Barns portion -- a sizable space -- would be rented out for weddings or other private affairs.

"We're not going to do a lot of weddings and we don't care," said Rosensweet.

"There are a lot of hoops to jump through (to rent this space)," added Artscape's Ray Stedman.

Levine isn't surprised with that attitude. "This project is all based on subsidies," he said, arguing an agency unaccountable to the taxpayer has run "roughshod" over the process of local government.

"It has been a nightmare ... it is a clear indication of the dysfunctionality of the city."

---

THE ARTSCAPE WYCHWOOD BARNS PRICE LIST

TOTAL REPORTED COST: $21.2 million (not including parkland)

- Overall government funding: $10.3 million

- Feds: $3.1 million

- Province: $3.3 million

- City: $3.8 million ($1 million in cash, $2.8 million in in-kind contributions)

- Private funding: $10.9 million

- Fundraising: $3.5 million

- Private financing: $7.4 million (backed with a three-year $3.5-million capital loan guarantee from the city)

- Artscape provided 50-year lease on the land for $1 a year; city waived development fees and property taxes; remediation of the land.

COST OF 26 AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNITS

TOTAL FUNDING: Approx. $2.9 million or $111,538 per unit

- Canada/Ontario affordable housing grant: $1.8 million

- City affordable housing grant: $450,000

- Waived development, planning and building permit fees: $187,000

- Rent-free land

- Annual property tax waiver: $8,357

- Annual rent supplement payment: $100,000

COST OF CITY-OPERATED 3.3-ACRE PARK

- Parkland improvements: $1.47 million

- Partial demolition of Barn 5: $425,000

- Environmental remediation of site (including parkland): $1.8 million

- Annual operating costs of park: $142,000

OTHER:

- Artscape received a $253,800 grant from the Toronto Arts Council in 2008.

Times Are Tough But Not If You Feed From The Public Trough

Why it's nice to work for the government

Posted: November 24, 2008, 6:30 PM by Kelly McParland
Filed under: Full Comment

CanWest Global Communications Corp. said last week it will cut about 5% of its workforce, eliminating about 560 positions through voluntary buyouts, attrition and staff cuts.

CTVGlobemedia told employees last week there would be layoffs and a freeze on travel and entertainment spending at CTV Inc., the country's largest private broadcaster.

The Toronto Star is hunkering down, the Globe & Mail warned staff there are rough times ahead due to the sudden departure of advertising dollars.

That's the private sector. But what about the CBC, which gets its billion dollars a year straight from taxpayers?

No worries mate: here's the notice from InsidetheCBC.com

Click here to read more...

Public servants accept Ottawa’s offer

OTTAWA — Canada's largest public sector union blinked in the face of mounting economic gloom, accepting the federal government's final financial offer. The tentative deal would see roughly 100,000 federal public servants receive a 6.8 per cent raise over the next four years. [...more]

It Is Hard To Salute......

.....when you are bent over feeding from the trough being maintained by taxpayers.

Arts cuts were more than Harper could chew

By PETER WORTHINGTON, TORONTO SUN

You'd think by the reaction to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cutting back individual arts grants by some $45 million, that both the stability and possibly the existence of Canada were threatened.

Harper surely knew there'd be an uproar by the cultural class that gets these grants, but it's unlikely he anticipated the intensity and diversity of disapproval.

Someone on his staff should have warned him Margaret Atwood would be at the forefront of protests -- assuming he knows she's our most famous novelist, long overdue for a Nobel prize in literature. It's doubtful he's read any of her books.

Harper might have expected her to write an angry letter to the Globe and Mail, but it's unlikely he expected cutting funding for artists would be seen as his way of installing a dictatorship.

"Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists because they are a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily," Atwood wrote. "Individual voices must be silenced because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad."

Arts & Crafts

A recent advertisement in The Star, paid for by the Toronto Film committee, espouse the impact of the "arts" on the ecomomy, the number of jobs involved, the importance to tourism, etc. etc. and you have to wonder if the industry is that vital and vibrant why it is not able to sustain itself.

Arts matter, but does Big Brother have to pay the tab every time?

Christie Blatchford: It would be ridiculous if Stephen Harper was so inarticulate or so misunderstood that those of us who like him were left to interpret what he means. MORE...

Oh! The Poor NIMBYers......

....I am not a big fan of Starbucks but I am less a fan of elitist groups who have lost touch with reality and feel that people give a shit about their tranquility....

Starbucks In Kensington? Not On Their Watch

Wednesday October 1, 2008

CityNews.ca Staff

"I think it's horrific, horrific, yeah," fumes Chrissy.

You might think she's talking about a terrible crime scene, or the financial crisis that's overtaking the United States.

But no - what Chrissy is reacting to is the thought that there might possibly be a Starbucks in Kensington Market.

The proposal has prompted angry reactions from other residents as well.

"The heart of Kensington would die," a local resident named Anthony exclaimed.

"It's THE store. It's up there with Home Depot, or Wal-Mart."

Critics claim the presence of a massive corporation will forever change the dynamic of the area, which is dominated by small, family-run businesses.

"This is a historic place," said Lucy Bove. She's worked at the Kensington Clothing Company for 22 years.

"It's different. [It would] be nice to keep it like that."

Yet most Starbucks locations aren't wanting for customers.

An outlet that recently opened at Queen and Bathurst caused a bit of a stir and a store in the increasingly trendy West Queen West area - at the corner of Dovercourt and Queen - inspired vehement responses from neighbours three years ago.

They're both still open.

But many believe allowing a Starbucks location in the heart of Kensington Market is crossing the line. The java giant is apparently eyeing a location in the area and the real estate agent in charge of a vacant former fruit market is reportedly in talks with the company.

Nothing has been confirmed.

Kensington locals have vowed to fight the chain from coming to their neighbourhood.

A petition against Starbucks is circulating in nearly every store Kensington Market. Residents and people who come into this neighbourhood are being asked to sign it to make their feelings known.

Community groups have attempted to fight major chains in other areas in the past - some tried to block a Wendy's from opening on the Danforth and Cabbagetown residents tried to block a Tim Horton's - but both attempts were unsuccessful.

Community members in Leslieville are currently trying to block a SmartCentre in their area.

The real estate agent overseeing the Kensington location told CityNews the controversy has been good for business and that nothing stays the same.

Don't We Already Have Something Similar.....

.....hanging in the National Gallery that taxpayers paid something like $550K. In all fairness though we did get a red dot.

Hockey Is On The Brink of Survival???

Don't take crap over culture

By ROY CLANCY

Talk about a clash of cultures.

On one side, you have arts groups and opposition parties warning reduced government funding threatens the very survival of Canadian culture.

On the other, Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismisses artful attempts to paint the Conservatives as a party ideologically opposed to culture.

"Ordinary people understand we have to live within a budget," he said, calling the furor over arts funding "a fringe issue."

When it comes to whether I pay my taxes, property & income, to keep a roof over my head, to buy food, to put gas in the car to get to work, etc. I find I am hard pressed to find money to go those "cultural events" that appeal to me.

The Liberals accuse the Tories of making $45 million in cuts over the summer to programs directly geared to supporting the arts, while conveniently ignoring the chops to the CBC, Canada Council and Canadian Heritage made during their own reign.

A rally protesting Tory arts funding was planned last night in Quebec.

NDP Leader Jack Layton accused Harper of "grabbing hold of the aorta and putting the squeeze" on Quebec culture.

To hear him talk, you'd think the arts in La Belle Province were in cardiac arrest, when in reality the scene there puts the rest of Canada to shame.

That's because Quebec consumers support their artistic industries and not necessarily as the result of massive injections of government grants.

It would be nice if the same could be said about English Canada.

No one should underestimate the richness and texture arts and culture add to our lives in Canada.

But there's troubling evidence too many of the beneficiaries of Canada's cultural cash cow are mostly gifted in the art of extricating government funds. These are the people screaming loudest.

Too many middlemen and hangers-on are more focused on getting grants than creating "art" that can be enjoyed and appreciated by the multitudes.

Ordinary Canadians are aware of this and are voting en masse with their wallets and channel changers.

Rather than feeding more dollars into this morass of mediocrity, it's time for a radical overhaul that will see more of the money go to the gifted artists -- performers, writers, musicians and filmmakers -- who actually craft our culture.

Where arts thou?

By PETER ZIMONJIC, SUN MEDIA

What's all this fuss about the arts?

Would There Still Be A TIFF If It Wasn't For Big Business

Look at all of the "free" events staged in the city and generally they are sponsored by big business.....somebody has to pay the freight for being elitist. Toronto filmfest a farce Common folk get 2nd billing to big business

By BRUCE KIRKLAND, TORONTO SUN

The Toronto International Film Festival is no longer the people's film festival. Co-founder Dusty Cohl would be appalled. His widow, Joan Cohl, is certainly unhappy about this breach of trust.

Dusty, the gruff yet big-hearted conscience of the festival for its first 32 years, would have railed against turning it into an elitist corporate spectacle, as it has now become.

He would have hated the annoying new policy of increasing ticket prices and letting donors go to the head of the line, while heartland people -- cinephiles, working stiffs, the common folk who are the lifeblood of the event -- are treated as rudely as dozens were on opening night, and as thousands have been in the distribution of tickets for the entire festival.

But Dusty is not here to analyze, complain and set things right. He died Jan. 11. So we have to speak up for him.

More

No Need....The Public Has Spoken.

They will pay for something they want......have you tried to get tickets to Jersey Boys or Mamma Mia, etc. lately and you will seem to willing to pay the price. Look at the reality of the arts......

Hendrix's burnt guitar fetches $600,000