How can Toronto be a creative city if Mayor Rob Ford has launched a war on graffiti?

How important can the arts be in Toronto’s future if its new culture plan has mostly been written before youth are asked for input?

How vital can the arts be as an economic driver when many workers in the sector are poorly paid and possess little job security?

These were among the concerns expressed by some of the more than 100 people who attended the Creative Capital Initiative consultation at Toronto City Hall on April 7. It was the last of 11 such public meetings, and the only one aimed specifically at youth. The consultations, to gather recommendations for the city’s new culture plan, started in early February.

Devon Ostrom of the Beautiful City alliance suggested that the money the mayor is looking to spend on power washers to eradicate graffiti could be channelled more effectively into mural-painting programs.

“According to Toronto police, most sites—80 to 90 percent—never get tagged again when you do a mural over heavily tagged property,” Ostrom said. “Community and arts programs give kids a stake in their communities, give them a real sense of ownership.” The Beautiful City group wants to tax billboards and put that money into enhancing public spaces with art.

“Right now police are one of the biggest things we pay for,” said Lance Johnson, who runs a b-boy crew and is involved with Manifesto, a grassroots arts group. “They look at the stats and say, ‘Oh, we’re doing good, crime is going down.’ Well, that’s because a lot of us are doing community work, too. But not getting paid, not getting recognized at the same time.”

Johnson also expressed frustration at being asked to provide input into a culture plan that city officials concede is already partly written. “Next time it would be awesome if we could get involved earlier.”

On that point, city budget pressures have clearly lit a fire under culture-plan coordinators.

“It’s been a very intense, much quicker process than any sane person would have agreed to,” admitted Rita Davies, executive director of culture for the city. “We have done this in pretty much two months. The [2003] culture plan, by comparison, took two years.”

The aim is to get the new culture plan in front of councillors before the budget process starts next month and they decide, as Councillor Janet Davis put it, “what will get axed and what survives.”

In charge of the culture-plan push is Councillor Michael Thompson, who is responding to the financial pressures at the city with an economics-based argument for culture.

“Culture is a business,” said Thompson, who is also chair of the city's Economic Development Committee. “And our business in growing the economy is attracting investment to the city. In order to do that, you need more than bricks and mortar. You need all of the pieces working together. The cultural piece is a big part of that.”

On his website, Thompson underlines that Toronto’s cultural sector employs nearly 133,000 people and generates an annual $9 billion in GDP. Between 1991 and 2007, creative occupations grew at more than twice the rate of the general labour force.

But some attendees pointed out that jobs in the sector are often low-paying, insecure and lacking in benefits.

“What are all these artists going to do when they grow up? What will these people do after their six-month internships?” asked artist and writer Adriana Alarcón. "There's a lot of talk about the creative industry as a billion-dollar market and wanting to bring young people into that industry, but working in the arts, I know that there is no core funding to the organizations that deliver these programs to support competitive or even living wages."

Others questioned the cost of an “official” arts education. “I see a lot of young people to go art school like OCAD and they spend the money and go in for four years—and maybe even get a master’s [degree]—but still have no sense of what their artistic identity is. That’s crazy to me,” said Kehinde Bah of Grassroots Youth Collaborative.

The pricetag of the 2015 Pan Am Games’ cultural program, an event that has gained considerable space on the consultation agenda over the past two months, was also a concern. “Don’t leave us dry!” cried Ato Seitu of Sixahwi Artists’ Collective, reiterating a worry tweeted in by Roseneath Theatre and relayed by Aislinn Rose of Praxis Theatre: “We’re fearful of TO falling into Cultural Olympiad type traps and funding decreases similar to those felt in Vancouver 2010.”

In the end, no matter what the assurances for future culture plans might be, some folks would just like to see the big promises of the old 2003 culture plan finally implemented. Though Davies said 87 percent of the old plan's recommendations have been implemented, some significant promises, such as per capita funding, remain outstanding.

“Right before the election, council voted 40 to 1—and this included Rob Ford—to increase per capita arts spending in Toronto to $25 per person. I would like to see that commitment met in real dollars,” said Ostrom, who first attended a youth consultation for Toronto culture plans in 2001.

“They voted for it in the 2003 plan, too. I think maybe if they don’t do it this time … this will be the ‘fool me three times’ thing,” he said, laughing.

The finalized culture plan will be unveiled May 4 when it is presented to the Economic Development Committee.