[BCMA] CMA Clip Serv: BC Arts Cuts 'Devastating' Says Tory Minister

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BC Arts Cuts 'Devastating' Says Tory Minister 
Arts funding a key form of economic stimulus: Heritage Minister 
Moore 
Charles Campbell, The Tyee, Monday, September 28, 2009 

Cuts to arts funding by the BC Liberals are potentially "devastating" 
to some organizations, according to James Moore, minister of 
Canadian Heritage and Official Languages. At a press conference 
Friday announcing new funding for the Vancouver International Film 
Festival, Moore also said supporting the arts during the economic 
downturn is a critical element in the federal government's economic 
stimulus program. 

But after the press conference, the MP for Port Moody-Westwood- 
Port Coquitlam stopped short of directly criticizing the provincial 
government, saying he respects other governments' jurisdictions. "My 
job isn't to beat up on Kevin Krueger," he said of B.C.'s minister of 
Tourism, Culture and the Arts. "The province of British Columbia has 
made its own decisions and they will, politically, live with them." 

According to the Canadian Conference of the Arts, B.C. is the only 
Canadian province to cut arts funding since the economic downturn 
began last year. 

Minister told many arts groups may fold 
Moore told The Tyee he is fully aware of the arts funding concerns in 
B.C., and met with Krueger during the week. While in Victoria, he 
also met with arts groups, and said some administrators told him 
longstanding organizations are at risk of folding because of 90-per 
cent cuts to their provincial funding. "That's devastating, and may not 
be recoverable." 

Core B.C. provincial arts funding is slated to fall by more than 88 per 
cent over two years, from $19.5 million in 2008-'09 down to $2.25 
million in 2010-'11, according to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and 
Culture service plan. 

The provincial funding, most of which comes through the B.C. Arts 
Council, is the operating cornerstone for many B.C. arts 
organizations, and allows them to leverage additional funding from 
other governments and private foundations. 

When asked if cuts to provincial funding might limit federal funding 
for B.C. arts groups, Moore said his government is trying to 
compensate for funding that may be cut or absent in other Canadian 
jurisdictions. 

He also said while the Canada Council operates at arm's length from 
government, its administrators are quite cognizant of the impact that 
the disappearance of provincial funding in B.C could have. 

Cultural sector employs 650,000 
During the film festival press conference, where Moore announced 
$467,250 in funding for this year's film festival from the Marquee 
Tourism Events Program, Moore made a forceful case that arts 
funding is an essential element in an economic stimulus program 
during difficult times. "This has to be a central component if we're 
going to deal with economic recovery," he said. 

"There's a strong fiscally conservative argument for supporting the 
arts," Moore added, explaining that writers create things of social and 
economic value out of little more than their own knowledge and 
imagination. Moore said the cultural sector employs 650,000 people 
in Canada, twice the number employed in either forestry or 
agriculture, and he declared that infrastructure without the kind of 
activity that artists provide is "culturally and economically soulless." 

Moore, whose Conservative government may have cost itself a 
majority in the last election as a result of arts funding cuts and the 
statement by Prime Minister Stephen Harper that ordinary people 
don't care about arts funding, trumpeted the Conservatives' support 
for the arts during its current term, stating that no government in 
Canadian history has spent so much on culture. 

Two weeks to spend marketing money 
The film-festival funding announced Friday comes from a $100 
million Marquee Tourism Events Program, administered by the 
Ministry of Industry and geared to enhancing programming and 
promotion that attracts tourists, particularly international tourists. 
The Vancouver International Film Festival, which begins Oct. 1, 
learned on Sept. 16 that it would receive the money, which must be 
spent to promote this year's event. Festival director Alan Franey 
addressed the concern that the funding announcement is less than 
timely in his prepared remarks. "We put this festival together in such 
a way that we would be able to take advantage of it should we be so 
lucky as to receive it." 

The film festival, with a budget of about $2.4 million, has already 
been hit by provincial funding cuts. Its $70,000 gaming grant was 
axed, as the province increasingly diverts gambling earnings away 
from community groups and into general revenue. The festival had 
used that money for outreach to schools, multicultural groups 
and the underprivileged. While the festival received the usual $90,000 
in operating assistance for 2009 from the B.C. Arts Council, it banked 
a $54,000 supplemental arts council grant for next year in anticipation 
of future provincial funding cuts. 

The film festival is the fourth B.C. event to receive money from the 
Marquee Tourism fund -- the others were May's Cloverdale Rodeo 
($345,900), June's Vancouver International Jazz Festival ($712,500) 
and August's Pacific National Exhibition ($1.38 million). 

Other recipients include the Canadian National Exhibition ($3.75 
million), the Toronto International Film Festival ($3 million), the 
Festival International de Jazz de Montreal ($3 million)and the Ottawa 
Bluesfest ($1.5 million). Nearly a million dollars ($965,000) went to 
the International Balloon Festival in St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a town 
with two hotels. 

Pre-election spending? 
In all, nearly $40 million has so far been disbursed to 50 groups, with 
85 per cent of the funding going to events in Quebec, Ontario and 
Alberta. 

When Moore was asked if his funding announcement could be 
characterized as pre-election spending, he said right now when he 
buys a cup of coffee in his own riding it's considered pre-election 
spending. "Everything can be considered pre-election spending in a 
minority parliament." 

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