When I was going into grade nine back in Toronto, I was presented (as were all students starting high school) with three options: a visual arts class, a music class, or a drama class.
I had some experience with music from previous years, and I loved to draw, but drama was what I chose. I was afraid of public speaking and thought that, if I had to take something for just one year, maybe this would be the best way for me to learn something to stick with me.
Fortunately for me, drama was about a lot more than stage fright (which I never got over, more fool me). It was about making friends, exploring identity, and building an enduring love of narrative storytelling. It was also about leadership: I went from just another theatre kid in grade nine to running a 20-person stage crew in my final year, with keys to the school and the authority to sign students out of class.
There is a direct through-line between that choice in grade nine to my entire career in the Canadian tech scene, and an even more direct connection between my drama class and my love of civic action: without the experience I would have pulling together a group of volunteers there, I would never have considered that running for municipal council was even an option.
This is only a small slice of the real impact that the arts have on our communities: the practical cause-and-effect road from a school arts class to today. It is also ignoring the thousands of other art-driven factors that pushed me towards this place, like plays at Seaway Valley Theatre, paintings on the walls of restaurants like Schnitzel’s, or music at the bandstands in Lamoreaux Park.
One of my favourite pieces is the mural on Pitt, between Second and Third, advertising Mary Pickford’s 1924 classic Taming of the Shrew.
It will come as no surprise to anyone who was at the excellent meeting last Thursday, hosted by the Friends of Cline House, that I strongly support both advocacy and funding for the arts coming from the council chambers, and I hope this has helped you understand why - and how important it can be for everyone in the community, whether you consider yourself “artistically-inclined” or not.