Ontario Premier Doug Ford spontaneously promised to fund the return of Toronto’s Taste of the Danforth festival, suggesting Mayor Olivia Chow should also chip in to his seemingly spur-of-the-moment plan.
The premier began his remarks at an unrelated transit annoncement reminiscing about the east-end festival, which has struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and faced repeated cancellations.
“I’ve got an idea — I’m going off-script, I always get in trouble. Do you know what I miss? I miss the Taste of the Danforth,” Ford said at the podium.
“I will commit, and I’ll talk to our friend the boss there, to see if we can put money in to revatalize Taste of the Danforth. Mayor, you’re not getting off scot-free. You put a little, but we’ll put a little more in.”
Ford didn’t specify how much funding his government would put toward the festival or if anyone involved had applied for it. The festival’s organizer did not respond to questions from Global News in time for publication.
Mayor Chow welcomed Ford’s promise to help revitalize what was once one of the city’s most important street festivals.
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“Taste of the Danforth is a weekend of phenomenal music, great food, dancing, people coming together, tens of thousands of people come to Taste of Danforth,” she said. “Let’s bring it back this year because I’ve missed it the last two years.”
The event typically runs in the summer and stretches about 1.6 kilometres along the Danforth. It includes some 100 participating businesses and live entertainment.
Taste of the Danforth was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19, and then again in 2022 due to the changes from CafeTO that saw much of the street occupied by patios. Organizers said they did not have enough time to reimagine the festival, given changes to the streetscape along Danforth Avenue.
It returned in 2023, but after its comeback, organizers said they had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and that, without more funding, it would be forced to close for good.
Ford said if Toronto pitched in, he would find provincial funds to help the festival return.
“We’ll commit to that as long as we get partnership with our other colleagues here,” he said.
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