PROMOTE ARTS-DRIVEN MUNICIPAL CULTURAL PLANNING, DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION, INDIGENOUS & CITY/COUNTY PARTNERSHIPS
Since my election to council in 2022, I have been advocating fiercely for increased funding for the arts. In the first 2 years of the term, and prior to portfolio changes and removal of councillors from advisory committees and local boards by the Mayor’s directive in October 2024, I served as co-chair to the Arts Community Advisory Committee. Yearly, arts funding faced the unreasonable threat of cuts, particularly to individual artists and groups receiving much needed and sustained grant funding over the years to survive and thrive. Fortunately, our collective work and advocacy in finding the money to top up our arts funding commitments has generated new hope and energy in our Peterborough Arts Community. The Arts and Culture sector in Peterborough generated an estimated 38 million in local economic benefits in 2024, with roughly $1 of public funding generating a $25 economic impact.
Arts funding is considered a high-return investment for the city, supporting the thriving “quality of place” that attracts talent, creative workers and urgently needed… physicians. In 2026, we look forward to a new Municipal Cultural Plan, which would seek to uphold and scaffold the arts as the economic driver it is in our city. We are so lucky to be a city with an arms length arts council serving the local arts. Peterborough’s Arts Council, EC3, provides crucial and ongoing support and professional development for artists and arts organizations so that our city can continue to be the nucleus for new, emerging and exceptional work.
Downtown’s Peterborough Musicfest serves as a vital economic driver for the City, generating over 4.3 million in total annual economic activity for the region. As Canada’s longest running free outdoor concert series, it heavily fuels the local tourism, hospitality and retail sectors every summer.
As Economic Development, an element of my IPG portfolio, was brought “In House” this past year, more than ever before and beyond territory and land acknowledgements, Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action in our City, need to inform our Economic Development goals. I was thrilled to participate in April in Canada 2020’s Economic Reconciliation Summit in Ottawa, bringing together Indigenous leaders, policy-makers and industry innovators.
In October 2024, our Peterborough Museum and Archives exhibit, “To Honour and Respect: Gifts from the Michi Saagiig Women to the Prince of Wales, 1860, was a powerful experience of learning and settler-Indigenous relationship-building in Peterborough and Region’s ongoing work towards Reconciliation. The exhibit was profoundly moving, featuring 13 exquisite birchbark makakoon (baskets) made in 1860 by women at what is now Hiawatha First Nation. The makakoon, beautifully decorated with porcupine quills, were made as gifts to the Prince of Wales when he visited Rice Lake Village. Such rare examples of historic Indigenous art provoked the ability, as Chief Carr stated, to “Sit with the Ancestors and acknowledge their spirits and what they have to teach us. Each of the makakoon adds to our cultural knowledge and strength as Michi Saagiig Peoples.”
Since the 1800’s the agricultural-commercial relationship between City and County has been arterial, reciprocal and meaningful in bringing community together. From the horse-drawn days of farmers hauling their carts to Market Hall, Market Plaza or unloading trucks at Peterborough Square, a downtown outdoor seasonal green market has been a cornerstone of life. Farmers feed cities and the advent of Quaker Square has created an amazing new locus for green commerce, culture and downtown events. It was a pleasure for us as Town Ward councillors to have a small part in negotiating this vibrant new location.