Meet the Man Behind the Petition to Give Drake the Keys to the City of Toronto

As a fairly new citizen of Toronto, I moved quickly to do my civic duty (read: provide an electronic signature) when I was alerted to the fact there was a push to give Drake the Key to the City of Toronto. It’s an online petition, so the whole process was not particularly difficult, but the Facebook event made it clear there was more that concerned fans could do: “Sign the petition to give Drake the Keys To The City of Toronto and we'll deliver the printed petition to the Mayor's office on March 10th,” the event description read. So, like the other assumed 297 people who had clicked “going” to be marching on City Hall on behald of Aubrey, I woke up on Tuesday and walked down to 100 Queen Street West to show my support.

The only problem was that, as 11AM rolled by outside the Mayor John Tory’s office, no comrades had shown up. The office was empty, save for dudes wearing ties making jokes with the receptionist. City Hall looked as sleepy as ever. It was a good thing no one came, because as Brett Chang, organizer of the event had told me, the event posting was never actually meant to make people believe a rally or march was being planned. It was only supposed to serve as a deadline for signing the petition. You could see how someone might be confused if you check out the Facebook event, as it says in clear English the plan was to "deliver the petition" to Tory today at 11 AM. As of that time, there were no clarifications that would suggest the plan had changed, just “attendees” posting hilarious lines like, “Give Drake the keys to my house,” and “Runnin thru the 6 wit my keys.”

Photo of the melee at City Hall by the author

While it was kind of disappointing to show up and find nothing, Chang had some clear logic about why they put the brakes on things, despite overlooking the fact that they should maybe let everyone know all of the things he was now telling me. While they had originally intended to deliver it today, Chang claims he's been working closely with a few city councilors to raise the issue at the next session of council. The idea is that taking some time to clean up the data and get more signatures, all while working with city councilors, might give them a better chance to “get Drake the key to the city he rightfully deserves.” Essentially, they’re changing things up on the fly and figuring out the very best way to make this happen. They just forgot to tell the people that might’ve shown up.

A quick search shows that there are, indeed, some very questionable recipients of the Key to the City of Toronto. Among them are Sharon, Lois & Bram, Mickey Mouse, and Tiger Woods, raising a very legitimate question: What have children’s performers, a cartoon rodent, and a famous sex addict (and golfer) done for the 6 that could even come close to what Drizzy’s done for it? The push to get him the Key to the City could be one of the more noble pursuits to run through City Hall in recent memory.

A bit of extra clarity could help, so Chang agreed to meet me outside of City Hall, shortly after they had originally meant to deliver the petition.

Noisey: So what do you do?
Brett Chang: I’m the co-founder of a platform to help people discover and find new things and places to go to in the city, so we started the petition.

Why do you think Drake deserves the Key to the City?
I don’t think the city has any greater current ambassador than Drake. Just look at what he’s doing for Toronto’s reputation not only abroad but also here at home. I think if you look at Toronto’s history, Toronto, for a lot of the time, was a footnote in North America, and you see with the growth of population, the growth of our social and cultural scenes here, Toronto’s really emerging as one of the great North American cities, and I think Drake embodies that.

Do you think that there are some people who’ve received the Key who don’t really deserve it?
Yeah, if you look at the list of people who’ve been given the Key to the City over the past 100 years, Mel Lastman kind of went a bit crazy on them, and he gave out a ton to bands like Nickelback, authors like J.K. Rowling, and people who have no connection to the city of Toronto. So it’s kind of confusing as to why they got them and still, somebody who’s a great ambassador for the city of Toronto, like Drake, doesn’t have his.

Was there a reason you decided to run the event through your platform's name and not your own?
Yeah, it’s just the organization that we fall under, and we are kind of objective as to how people discover new things in the city, and we think Drake does a good job of that himself. He’s talked about a lot of restaurants and places in the city which I never knew about, and it was a great opportunity to go out there and kind of see what some places have to offer.

Can you tell me why you weren’t actually delivering the petition today like the event said?
It’s a few things. So one, people are still signing the petition at a pretty good rate so we thought it would be a bit premature to stop it today. Two, we did a bit more research into the best way to get Drake the Key to the City, and we think going through the councilor route—delivering our signatures to councilors, getting councilors to submit that as new business for the next council session—is probably the best way to get the most awareness around the issue and not necessarily pressure the mayor. I don’t think there needs to be a lot of pressure applied, but just raise that awareness and make sure the mayor knows there’s a strong support for giving Drake the Key to the City.

Are things going according to plan, then?
We’re just about over 1,000 signatures, so we’re really happy with that so far and we’re just hoping that more people sign. So that’s what we’re looking for.

Is there a reason that you didn’t update the event to say you weren’t coming down here?
So, I think that was just something we forgot to do. There was never a planned rally or media event or anything along those lines, it was more symbolic than anything, like “we’d love for you to sign this petition by this date.” But yeah, we just keep seeing people signing the petition, keep seeing a lot of interest for it, and there’s no real reason why we need to stop it. The next council session is not super soon, so we have some time. We just want to grow the list as big as possible and make sure we can grow awareness as much as possible.

Is there anything else you want to say about the petition?
I think that’s about it. We think Drake’s a great ambassador for the city, he’s done a lot of good here. He’s raised awareness of Toronto internationally. I saw he was in Sydney doing his Australian tour, and when he played “Know Yourself” he’s got the city skyline up on the back of the stage. It’s a great way to draw people to the city who otherwise wouldn’t have come.

@MattGeeWilliams already gave Drake the key to his heart.