Culture Connects: An Action Plan for Culture in Toronto (2025-2035) was adopted by City Council in November 2024. It sets out a bold new vision for culture in Toronto – a vision for a city where everyone, everywhere, can discover, create and experience culture.
Culture is what draws us to the city, connects us to each other and makes us proud to call Toronto home. Culture Connects will address challenges facing the sector today and ensure that we are increasing access for audiences, while supporting local artists, organizations and creative industries into the future.
The implementation of Culture Connects will be informed by five guiding principles. These principles, developed based on overarching values shared with us by the community, will shape every action the City takes to advance culture in Toronto – from the day-to-day support that City staff provide to residents, creatives and businesses, to the development of long-term projects and plans.
Celebrate diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis knowledge and knowing, culture, and artistic processes, and work to support the deepening of Toronto as a centre for Indigenous culture, creativity and leadership.
Prioritize opportunities and eliminate barriers to access for Indigenous, Black, disabled and equity-deserving communities to create and experience culture in neighbourhoods across the city, to ensure we have a culture sector that is relevant and accessible to everyone.
Recognize and promote Toronto’s creatives and cultural sectors as essential components to city building, shared prosperity and community well-being.
Increase opportunities for everyone to discover, create and engage with meaningful and impactful cultural and creative programs and events.
Cultivate an environment that supports and encourages creative and technological innovation, financial sustainability, entrepreneurial thinking and risk-taking.
Culture Connects identifies four priorities for the next ten years. Each priority includes a key target, a set of urgent actions to address the pressing challenges facing culture today and longer-term actions to drive systemic change in the years to come.
Ensure that culture and creativity are essential components of thriving communities across Toronto.
Over the next ten years, the City will support the development of one million square feet of new cultural space in Toronto.
Toronto residents and visitors can discover, create, and access rich, meaningful, and fun cultural experiences, engaging all kinds of creators and audiences.
Every resident will have access to at least one free cultural experience in their neighbourhood supported by the City each month.
Ensure that Toronto continues to have a successful and innovative cultural and creative sector, today and in the future.
The City will increase investment in culture by $35 million over the next ten years to retain, rebuild and reimagine culture in Toronto.
Solidify Toronto’s recognition globally as a creative capital offering both unparalleled cultural experiences and an environment where creative businesses flourish.
The City will enable 1,000 new creative export and artist exchange projects over the next ten years.
The actions identified in Culture Connects will be implemented over the ten-year period of the plan. Implementation of these actions may vary and change in order to be responsive to community and sector needs.
The implementation of Culture Connects will kickstart in 2025 with a focus on investing in culture and connecting audiences to art and culture. The City will deliver immediate targeted investments to support creatives, cultural organizations, and creative industries. Investment will focus on stabilizing and empowering vital, new and growing organizations, and organizations led by and serving Indigenous, Black and equity-deserving communities.
The City will also work to connect communities to culture, and each other, with deeper and increased opportunities for residents to gather and engage with culture closer to where they live, all year round. This will include a focus on promotion and discoverability to make it easier for all Toronto residents and visitors to find and participate in cultural offerings.
Additional information about the implementation of Culture Connects can be found in the report to Council.
Culture Connects was developed through a three-phase process:
The project kicked off in the summer of 2023 with research and analysis to better understand sector challenges and opportunities, as well as conducted a jurisdictional scan to see what other cities and organizations were doing to address similar challenges. This phase continued throughout 2023 and into 2024.
Community engagement took place from fall 2023 to spring 2024.
The Action Plan was developed from spring 2024 to fall 2024 based on the feedback gathered throughout the engagement process and the research and analysis.
The City partnered with the University of Toronto School of Cities to conduct research on the state of culture in Toronto, including a detailed analysis of Toronto’s economic dynamics and changes in the cultural sector between 1991 and 2021.
The University of Toronto’s work was complemented by research led by City staff, including a jurisdictional scan of best and next practices of 14 cities and organizations worldwide, as well as an assessment of recent economic impacts and trends related to culture. Together, this comprehensive research and engagement directly informed the development of Culture Connects, ensuring its actions will meet the needs of the sector and Torontonians.
Over 4,000 residents participated in community consultations through a series of different engagement activities including:
Read the engagement summary report by Monumental Projects, summarizing key findings from the consultation process leading up to April 2024.
An Advisory Panel made up of community leaders from across the cultural sector and creative industries shared their insights, guidance and feedback to inform the development of Culture Connects. Panel members included:
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