Last week David Mirvish announced that a musical version of Lord of the Rings would make its world premiere in Toronto. The cost of the mega production that is set to open in February 2006 is about $27 million. Of that cost, $3 million is going to be supplied by each level of government.
9 Now the federal government is awash in so much of our money that their portion of the tab amounts to nothing more than small change. Since the feds aren’t willing to give any of their huge surpluses back to the hardworking taxpayers of this county, they might as well invest it. after all, pouring $3 million into the production is not likely to result in any harm. No Quebec advertising executive is going to go to bed hungry.
as far as the contribution of the province goes, we have recently learned that the projected provincial deficit that was estimated to be about $2.2 billion is really $6 billion. apparently the provincial auditor refused to go with the generally accepted accounting principles that are taught at the Greg Sorbara School of Creative accounting. This government is so inept at handling money that another $3 million spent to finance a theatrical production will hardly make a difference. and if perchance it does create a problem, Dalton (you won’t pay one penny more in taxes) McGuinty will just increase taxes by a few pennies. Ontario should go for it.
This brings us to the city of Toronto. Of the three levels of government, Toronto is in the worst shape. In order to "balance the budget" the city ended up selling assets. The mayor and the sheep that follow him seem to think that since this money will come from Tourism Toronto and not from City Hall that it somehow doesn’t count. Tourism Toronto gets its money from a tax that is placed on the city’s hotel rooms and is paid for by visitors.
Last week’s edition of the Sunday Sun featured a debate between journalists Rob Granatstein and Sue-ann Levy on whether or not Toronto should be financing Lord of the Rings. Granatstein’s argument in a nutshell is that Lord of the Rings will bring tourists and spending to the city and it is a win-win situation. Levy on the other hand argues that if the show is such a good idea, it should be able to be financed privately and the $3 million should be spent on other things such as the TTC and cleaning up the city.
The Toronto Sun should be given credit for setting out the pros and cons of the argument the way that they did and allowing both points of view to be succinctly put.
as appealing as Levy’s arguments are, they contain a fatal flaw. It cannot be assumed that if the city doesn’t put money into the production that it will be spent on making the buses run on time and cleaning the streets of debris, human and otherwise. There is no doubt that Toronto would be a much nicer city to visit and live or work in under a Sue-ann Levy administration, but she’s not the mayor. David Miller is. If the money is not put into Lord of the Rings it is just as likely that the $3 million would be put into another production that tourists from Pickering wouldn’t travel to Toronto to see. and the tourist industry still hasn’t fully recovered from the SaRS outbreak and bars and restaurants in the downtown core are suffering from the no smoking bylaw and the National Hockey League strike. although the same benefits would accrue to the city if the show was funded entirely by the private sector, there is no guarantee that the money would be otherwise well spent.
The broader issue in the debate over the funding of Lord of the Rings is what the role of government should be. at one end of the spectrum, there is the philosophy that the government should not play any role in something that the private sector can be expected to do. This was best expressed by PC MPP Jim Flaherty when the privatization or sale of the LCBO was talked about. Flaherty holds the view that if something is capable of being advertised in the Yellow Pages, the government shouldn’t be doing it. On the other hand, unless a significant amount of Ontario’s population wakes up tomorrow morning and decides to go on the wagon, even the government can’t lose while being in the liquor business.
It is difficult to imagine Lord of the Rings not bringing in tourist dollars to a city that badly needs it. If all it does is create some jobs in the hospitality sector, it will be well worth the investment. after all, the mayor and the council are not likely to do that in any other way.
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