I’ve been thinking recently about Canada’s arts granting system. With all this talk of financial reform, from the global to the municipal levels (hello, Rob Ford), maybe it’s time we looked at whether the granting system in Canada could use some reform of its own.

Image: canadianart.ca

Federal, provincial and municipal arts councils are all arms length agencies of the government. The Canada Council for the Arts is a crown corporation chaired by Joseph Rotman, which is funded from parliament along with endowments and donations. The visual arts are one division, the other five are media arts, dance, music, theatre and writing/publishing. The Ontario Arts Council is a publicly funded agency of the ministry of culture, and the Toronto Arts Council is funded by the City of Toronto.

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This morning, I met with Jeffrey Melanson, Mayor Rob Ford’s special advisor on the arts. We were introduced through the wonderful Will Huffman, at the Toronto Art Council.

Jeff Melanson. Image: 123nonstop.com

Though we had originally planned an interview, he asked to wait to answer my questions and instead suggested that we meet for coffee. The first thing you notice about Melanson is that he’s extremely tall and friendly, but he’s also clear and quite convincing.

Melanson outlined his plans and challenges (big challenges) for arts and culture in Toronto, and while I’m not allowed to say what we talked about – yet – suffice to say that the visual arts community can be sure that he is working on our behalf. He seems to have a fairly strong vision.

Bear in mind the huge amount of bureaucracy that he is up against, not to mention pressures from all sorts of interests.

As he pointed out, the city is polarized and I think that it’s important for all of us to keep an open mind when it comes to Rob Ford’s administration. I’m not pro-Ford, and I didn’t vote for him (nor did Melanson, in fact) but that doesn’t mean that he’s not open to Melanson’s plans for arts and culture.

Having spoken with him, I’m confident that he’s focusing on the right areas, and that he’ll be good for the arts.

I’m hoping that in the next few weeks I’ll be able to post the originally planned interview.

Stay tuned.

For now, HERE are Martin Knelman’s thoughts in the Toronto Star from a few weeks ago. Here’s hoping we move forward, not back.

This evening, members of the Toronto arts community gathered at the Four Seasons Centre for an “open reception” hosted by the Canada Council.

The Toronto arts community, listening to speeches. Image: VoCA

Luckily, I arrived late, mid-way through the interminably dull speeches in which speakers bandied about terms like ‘synergy’ and other corporate boardspeak. My first impression was that this event perfectly represented the chasm that exists between government and the arts community. Wine cost $10 a glass, beer $6. There were hors d’eouvres too, a nice gesture.

The council is launching a new strategic plan, called Strengthening Connections, which “envisions a stronger relationship between the Council, the arts community and the Canadian public.” It will strengthen connections between “artists and their publics, the Canada Council and other funders, the public and private sectors, different regions, cultural communities of Canada, and Canada and the rest of the world, the Council will…ensure that the arts continue to play a dynamic and transformative role in our society.”

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In Edmonton, a writer’s despair over provincial arts cuts is both convincing and less so on Government arts support.

“Alberta artists have taken the latest news of a 15-per-cent cut (to the arts) in their stride”, says Marliss Weber in SEE magazine.

Andrew Rucklidge, Sleeper, 2009. Image: courtesy the artist.

She continues, “Art allows us to express ourselves, which is an innate human desire. Without access to art, without the ability to write and draw and act and make music, or consume all of the above, we seriously limit the effectiveness of our communication abilities. We also limit our ability to persuade, to entertain, to connect with each other.”

Can’t argue with that.  She makes some good points in her article, and yet, while cities need the arts in order to thrive, her insinuation that the arts will cease without government support is troubling.

Read the full article HERE.

There will always be art, with or without government support and there should be absolutely no doubt about that.

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VoCA loves our GG.  She understands the value of arts and culture.  Last week in Montreal, Governor General Michaëlle Jean gave this statement: “Culture must be able to express itself everywhere and always, and be accessible to as many people as possible, for it bears within it our choices, our hopes, our memory and our imagination.”

I See What You Mean, the Big Blue Bear at the Colorado Convention Center. Image: denvergov.org

On the evening of March 1, culture-minded Torontonians gathered at a Town Hall meeting to protest the City Council’s rejection of BeautifulCity.com’s initiative to have taxes from advertising billboards going toward arts and culture.

Check out past blog posts on that topic HERE and HERE.

It might not seem like a big deal, but it points to the fact that the arts community must keep fighting for recognition of the importance of art in Toronto. It’s the most obvious difference between Toronto and cities like Chicago and Montreal.

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It’s frustrating that the powers that be in Toronto seem to have such little interest in placing value on arts and culture.

A billboard by the Economist. The light is triggered by a motion sensor. Image: objectivemarketer.com

Sure, we’ve got Nuit Blanche and the amazing Luminato festival, both of which are truly wonderful, but when it comes to an innovative 8-year-long project by the arts community to get billboard taxes put towards beautifying the city, which we blogged about HERE, the city says no go.

And yet:

-According to Spacing magazine, every member of the Budget Committee expressed their support for a billboard tax that would fund art and public realm enhancements.

-Apparently, The new tax was justified in staff and consultant reports, public consultations, city press releases, over 45 times in Council and through a wide variety of media outlets.

-Over 4500 people have signed a petition of support and over 60 organizations have endorsed BeautifulCity.ca

-What’s more, a McKinsey and Co. study in 2006 found that “for every 1 dollar of public arts funding in a regional economy, 8 are generated.”

And yet, we hear that it was recently recommended at Council that zero new money now go to enhancing public spaces with art.

(This recent action suggests that) “They have no faith in the future of Toronto’s creative youth,” says No. 9 founder Andrew Davies, whose public art organization endorses Beautifulcity.ca.

It would have been an opportunity to look to the city’s future, to create vibrant public spaces that enhance property values, boost tourism, give something visible back to residents and will help build the city for the long-term.

What a shame.

This just in from the Department of Culture, a community of artists and arts professionals who organized themselves in the wake of the Harper Government’s brutal cuts to the arts in the past year, in order to ensure “the social and cultural health and prosperity of our nation in the face of a Federal Government that is aggressively undermining the values that define Canada.”

Daniel Borins and Jennifer Marman, In Sit You, 2007. Image: torontoist.com

The Department of Culture and VoCA are encouraging Torontonians to support beautifulcity.ca, an initiative that will see tax from billboard ads go toward municipal arts funding.  Toronto is a city with ‘money issues’, so this is an important possible revenue stream.

Please take a second to click below to sign the petition or contact your councillor.

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We were just forwarded this letter by the excellent Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia. It was sent by the gallery’s director and curator, Scott Watson. According to an article in The Tyee, there has been a decline in core funding over two years of more than 88 per cent in British Columbia, from $19.5 million down to $2.25 million.

Gordon Campbell, Premier of British Columbia. Image: nxew.ca

The Honourable Gordon Campbell
Premier of British Columbia
9041 Station PROV GOVT
Victoria, BC V8W 9E1
f. 250.387.0087
e. Gordon.campbell.mla@leg.bc.ca

Dear Premier Campbell,

I am writing in hopes that the recent cuts to the B.C. Arts Council and the cuts of lottery money to the arts will be reconsidered.

The arts are fundamental to civil society and one of the basic elements of a healthy economy. British Columbia is in a relatively remote part of the Western world with a small population; public support for the arts is all the more necessary. B.C. has never had a stellar reputation for arts support. We lag far behind Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba. Now that reputation will be even more dubious.

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A New York Democratic senator has introduced a bill that could make the process of gifting artworks to museums easier for Americans. Sen. Charles Schumer has introduced the bill in reaction to museums’ complaints of sharp declines in art donations.

The full article, HERE, explains it in more detail but it does make VoCA think that a similar bill should also be introduced here.

Rineke Dijkstra, Golani Brigade, Orev Unit, Elyacim, Israel, May 26, 1999, 1999.
Collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery, Gift of Alison and Alan Schwartz
Image: vanartgallery.bc.ca

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We’ve wondered about the Conservative Government’s plan for cultural spending for some time now. It has started to seem like a sinister re-evaluation of cultural priorities and this scares VoCA.

Ken Lum, What an Idiot. Image: burnaway.org

Few people are talking about it, but here is an excellent piece by David Akin in the National Post:

“The argument, it seems to me, should not be about whether any government of the day is spending more or less on “culture”. Anyone who spends the time reading through government financial information for the last five years, as I did, will see that the government is spending more. The argument is really about what we define as culture.”

Read the full article HERE.

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