News Centre

17-May-2013

May 16, 2013, Toronto –  Toronto Arts Council released the City of Toronto/Toronto Arts Council report Creating Value with Increased Investment in the Arts, which identifies and targets immediate arts funding principles and priorities and longer term programs and goals. This report was created following the City of Toronto’s unanimous vote (April 4, 2013) to allocate a $6 million increase to arts and culture funding, from revenues generated through the Billboard tax, $4 million of which is directed to Toronto Arts Council’s grants program.  This is an important first step towards realizing the City's commitment to $25 per capita arts funding.   The consultations were held in collaboration with Toronto Cultural Services, Beautifulcity.ca, and the Creative Capital Advisory Committee.  Between April 5 and 18,  more than 300 people attended 9 consultation sessions held in locations throughout the city.  Click here to access the full report Creating Value with Increased Investment in the Arts.   "I was impressed by the strong turnout throughout the consultation process and by the quality of the ideas that people brought forward," said Councillor Michael Thompson, Chair of Toronto's Economic Development and Culture Committee. "The success of this initiative certainly validates the City's commitment to public consultation, especially in sectors like the arts which are so vital to our economic and cultural vitality."   Participants in the consultations encouraged the City and TAC to create conditions where the arts and artists can thrive in Toronto and to use increased investment to expand support to the full spectrum of the arts and heritage community.  The consultations endorsed Toronto Arts Council’s Priorities for New Funding while offering many suggestions for improved public access to the arts and new funding programs.  Some of the highlights include: Artist centred: “Making Toronto a better place to be an artist should be the ultimate focus of investment in the arts” Collaboration: “Encourage cooperation and partnership” Diversity: “The arts and heritage sectors should celebrate and promote Toronto’s diverse communities and their histories” Equity: “All Torontonians, regardless of age, gender, socio-economic status, language, where they live in the city, ... should have equal opportunity to engage with the arts” Innovation: “Dare to invest in new ideas and unproven people and concepts”   “The Board of Directors of Toronto Arts Council is delighted that so many members of the arts community participated in the consultations and offered such thoughtful advice and support,” said John D. McKellar, Chair, Toronto Arts Council. “We on the Board of the Council look forward to implementing many of these ideas in the coming months and years.”   Toronto Arts Council, an arm’s length body of the City of Toronto, funds artists and arts organizations across the city through its grants programs.  In 2012, approximately $10.3 million was disbursed to 419 arts organizations and 272 individual artists following assessment of 1562 applications. Toronto Arts Council’s grant budget will increase to $14.3 million in 2013. Click here for TAC’s Priorities for New Funding, 2013 – 2016. -30-

Contact: susan@torontoartscouncil.org   416-392-6802 x 211

15-May-2013

The second National Dance Week has seen an amazing growth showing an increased interest towards Canadian dance, in Canada and abroad.

During National Dance Week 2013 ONLY, the total amount of website visits was:

• Ilovedance Blog: 4,001 hits
• CDA website: 4,238 hits
• Both the I love Dance and CDA Facebook pages combined reached a grand total 10,778 hits (more than twice the numbers of our last year stats)
• There were 7,121 viewers on our YouTube channel
• We also started being more active on Twitter:  
• We have posted 727 tweets so far, which means that people have been re-tweeting twice that amount.
• We now have 283 followers on Twitter for I Love Dance and 737 followers for our CDA twitter account.

During the month of April on Canadian’s Dance Assembly’s Website

• 95% of the people who visited our website were new people
• On April 29 (International Dance Day) we had 915 people view our website.

Throughout the month of April our website was viewed

• 6,892 times within Canada,
• 2,956 times from the US
• 579 from the Ukraine!
• China visited our page 491 times!
• France saw us 361 times!  
• 104 countries visited our website in April.

Canadian dance does have a global impact!

During the Month of April the following statistics have come in from our I love dance Blog

• April 22, 2013 had the highest views 723
• Our home page views  reached 1,284
• The views on our event listings page 1,138
• Total views referred by links to our blog - 1,052 (People clicked links to get to our site.)
• All time views for our blog have reached 13,342 to date
• The month of April views totaled 8,048

15-May-2013 Halifax, Nova Scotia - Dance Nova Scotia is thrilled to announce that Megan Matheson Hamilton will be taking over the helm of Dance Nova Scotia as Executive Director.

Megan has worked at Dance Nova Scotia for the past eight years as the Administrative Assistant and Systems Manager. “Her extensive knowledge of the organization and the community and her strong administrative background, combined with her passion for dance, made her the perfect choice for our organization,” says Dance Nova Scotia president, Drew Moore.

To read the full press release please click here.

06-May-2013

The federal government has introduced legislation that gives it sweeping powers to intervene in the collective bargaining process of Crown corporations, and even in the scale of executive salaries.

The provisions, which are part of the omnibus budget implementation bill tabled Monday, say that government ministers on the Treasury Board Secretariat will be able to impose "any requirement" on Crown corporations at the bargaining table.

To read the full story please click here

06-May-2013

Le gouvernement de Stephen Harper entend se donner le pouvoir d'intervenir dans les processus de négociation avec les employés des sociétés de la Couronne comme Radio-Canada/CBC, Via Rail et Postes Canada.

Joint par Radio-canada.ca mercredi matin, le bureau du président du Conseil du Trésor, Tony Clement, explique que cette mesure vise avant tout à « améliorer la viabilité financière des sociétés d'État, y compris les niveaux de rémunération ».

Lire l'article ici