Port Lands studio space key

Re Film board should cast wider net for studio land, Hume, Feb. 13

Columnist Chris Hume argues that the Toronto Film Board should look beyond the Port Lands for studio space.

My primary objection is to the disparate picture he paints between residential and employment needs. Toronto residents need places to live and places to work. The Toronto Film Board has gone to great lengths to ensure both needs can coexist, so that the Port Lands can thrive economically and culturally.

Telling the film industry, which delivers more than 30,000 Toronto jobs annually, to look elsewhere puts our ability to attract production at risk. In our current era of economic uncertainty, such a proposition is unacceptable.

To compete in a highly mobile international industry, it’s essential for Toronto to leverage its competitive advantage — proximity to Canada’s best locations, suppliers, amenities and hotels that save producers time and money. The Port Lands’ close distance to Toronto’s downtown core makes it a strategic fortress for our industry.

It is deliberately misleading to conflate the design of our Titan Studios structure with our plans for the Port Lands, which are being designed creatively to engage residents, attract tourists and address Toronto’s shortage of studio space.

Let’s not delay much-needed action any further.

Jim Mirkopoulos, vice-president, Cinespace Film Studios