Mississauga Focuses on Creative Industries Sector with New Strategy

The City of Mississauga’s new Creative Industries (CI) Strategy was approved during today’s City Council meeting.

The City’s Culture Division developed the strategy to assess creative industry assets in Mississauga. The strategy also focuses on outlining actions and tactics for attracting, developing, retaining and growing the creative industry sector.

“Through the investigation process, we identified three creative industries that pose the greatest potential opportunity and benefit to Mississauga,” said Paul Damaso, Director, Culture Division. “Film and television, interactive digital media and live music are the areas that we will focus on moving forward.”

The strategy outlines seven recommendations and 21 actions to drive the growth and development of these CI sectors, added Damaso.

The five key directions are:

• position Mississauga as an innovative city, a digital city and a creative city;
• create a Mississauga Creative Industries Advisory Forum;
• develop industry-specific creative clusters; develop public and private partnerships to build creative spaces; and
• implement specific actions to remove barriers and stimulate Mississauga’s targeted CI sectors.

According to Damaso, the operationalization of the Creative Industries Strategy will require a joint effort between Culture Division and the Economic Development Office (EDO).

Culture’s attention will be on addressing the growth and development of the film and television sector and live music industry sectors and supporting youth and young adult participation in interactive digital media (IDM). EDO will focus on leading the attraction of IDM as a key subsector of the Information Communications and Technologies (ICT) targeted sector.

“The Creative Industries Strategy and the partnership between Culture and Economic Development will continue to support the City’s commitment to growth and prosperity,” said Susan Amring, Director, Economic Development. “It is in alignment with the City’s Economic Development Strategy to build a knowledge economy and a culture of innovation.”