A $45 million government grant called the Ontario Music Fund has been allocated to help out the music industry in the province. As reported in the Toronto Star, the three-year government grant plan will help support the production, promotion, and distribution of Ontario-made music across the country and around the world. The proposal also aims to focus on promoting performance in the province. The project carries the slogan Music Makes Jobs.
Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa said, “You don’t have to go to L.A. or New York… you can do it right here in Toronto. This is what’s going to make us a prosperous Ontario.”
Sousa continued, “This is going to be money well spent because the ripple effect of this investment, of these government grants, is going to enable us to attract more productions, more talent here in Ontario. It’s going to develop jobs. It’s going to enable our young people to be even more involved and stay at home to get it done. It’s going to attract people from all over the world to want to come to Ontario. And it’s going to make us an even more dynamic and vibrant province.”
The budget has to receive a final green light, but many expressed interest, noting that in the Canadian music industry, an estimated 80 percent does business in Ontario.
“We create jobs,” Canadian Independent Music Association president Stuart Johnson said. “Music contributes to $303 million in GDP to the Canadian economy.” That means that this government grant is money that should pay for itself several times over.
Another booster for this government grant observed that Toronto is a “global music capital for today, tomorrow, and beyond.”
(Gregory Adams of Exclaim.ca contributed to this article)