An Open Letter to BC Finance Minister re: Arts Cuts in the Budget

Mar 5/09

Dear Minister Hansen,

Island Artisans Association is dismayed and disappointed that you have, in your February 17, 2009 provincial budget, dealt such a body blow to arts and culture in this province. It is a particularly ill-considered move with the current state of the economy. Perhaps, like Stephen Harper’s federal Conservative government who cut 45 million dollars from arts funding last fall, you and the BC Liberal Party have bought into the misconception that the arts are a “frill” that can’t be afforded in tough times. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In case you are ignorant of the facts and are relying on the inaccurate, misinformed and misleading information that unfortunately seems to be so prevalent, let me give you some more honest material on which to base your financial figuring.

According to the Canadian Board of Trade, arts and culture employ 1.1 million people in Canada, generate 84 billion dollars in economic activity, and account for 7.4% of Canada’s GDP. 

The Canada Council tells us that arts and culture employ roughly the same number of people as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined (emphasis added).  Did that sink in? Would you consider a budget that cut half the support that each and every one of those industries receives? Of course not.  But you would do it, and have done it, to the arts and culture sector without so much as a fare-thee-well.

Now those figures are for all of Canada, but according to your own Tourism, Arts and Culture minister, BC’s creative industries generate 5.2 billion dollars a year in this province, and employ 78,000 people. I suspect he’s talking of those directly employed in the arts; the figure for those employed directly and indirectly, i.e. including spin-off jobs, is 117,500 people.

It’s not just the positive impact of all this employment that has to be considered; cut the funding and let the cultural industries wither and die and there is a horrendous negative impact: Loss of income tax revenue from those 117,500 people, the cost of social programs to support those who can’t find suitable livelihoods outside the arts, the costs associated with those misplaced by the artists who do find other employment and the loss of all the spin-off revenue that would otherwise echo through the economy.

Not only have you cut direct funding to the arts in half, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture has had its budget virtually eliminated, cut from $349 million in 2008/2009 to a paltry $55 million in 2009/2010. When I first read that figure I thought it must be a mistake, and checked it with three other sources before I would believe it.

Can’t afford the arts? In truth we can’t afford not to have them, in so many senses. But even if we ignore the myriad of social, cultural and community benefits the arts provide, we can’t afford to lose them in an economic sense.  Funding to the arts has a disproportionately high economic multiplier in terms of both dollars returned to the economy and jobs created. In fact, it’s hard to find an industry that gives back so much for so little.

Statistics Canada figures for 2003/2004, the last year for which complete figures are available, show that the $7.7 billion that all three levels of government invested in the arts generated $40 billion for the Canadian economy. In case you’re wondering, that’s about a 500% return on investment. About a quarter of this went directly back into tax revenue, directly returning more than was initially invested. And you’re telling me that, in the interests of “fiscal responsibility” your BC Liberal government is going to strangle this cash cow to death?

Or perhaps you’re just moving one step closer to finishing the job you already started. Even before this latest budget attack, BC government spending on the arts was well below the Canadian provincial average. In fact, BC already lagged behind, in per capita spending, most other provinces, ranking sixth behind Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, and Nova Scotia. In terms of per capita funding to the operating budgets of performing arts organizations, the BC Liberals come in dead last, falling short of every other province in the country. And most provinces have made a commitment to increasing their investment in the arts, while your government slashes away at the pitiful funding the arts did receive.  All this despite the fact that BC has the highest number of artists per capita in all of Canada.

I know you’re going to trot out in your defence the $15 million, one time supplement also announced in the budget. This is a red herring. Almost half of that comes from money that remained unspent from last year’s arts and culture budget and is, therefore, not new money. The other half shows up nowhere in the figures for the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, so one has to question just where this money might be going. The 2010 Olympics springs to mind as a possible destination -- especially since this money must be allocated by March 31, 2009 or it will disappear. Besides, being a one-time only injection of cash, it does nothing for long-term funding of the arts.

One has to wonder, with a shake of the head, just what our Liberal government is thinking. For every dollar the BC government spends, a paltry 0.0003 cents goes to the arts. The ever-resourceful arts community manages to take that pittance and turn it into a $5.2 billion dollar industry. That’s billion with a “B”. And it’s an industry that is labour-intensive, fully renewable and, compared to most, very environmentally friendly. It also creates more spin-off than most other industries. It is not an industry that is run by or aligned with large corporations, multi-nationals or the wealthy elite of business. Perhaps that’s the problem – we generally don’t have these people who have the resources to lobby the government and have the ear of important politicians.

I could go on for pages about the benefits arts and culture provide for our society, but this government seems to value economic arguments more than social ones. So I have provided, in a nutshell, some of the important economic reasons why arts and culture matter and why this government is being fiscally irresponsible in failing to fund this sector adequately.

Island Artisans Association is not a group that normally involves itself in political commentary, but your February 17 budget has left us no alternative.  A unanimous vote at our March general membership meeting supported a motion to present these facts to the government and the public. We will also certainly be recommending that our members, other artists and anyone in the public at large who cares about the economic and social future of British Columbia consider this budget when choosing how to mark their ballot on May 12.

 

Sincerely,

Danny Lineham, President,  

Island Artisans Association

 

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