How arts organizations in B.C. are impacted by funding cuts, and why they aren’t giving up
By Esther Tung
Photos By Mark Burnham
It’s official — arts and culture funding in B.C. will be frozen for the next three years. The 2012 B.C. provincial budget, released last week, was projected to bring the province from its current deficit to a $154 million surplus for 2014. While other areas of the budget were also frozen, the province’s freeze on funding will put B.C. in dead last among all Canadian provinces for available arts funding. Even the one silver lining — $9 million set aside for a $500 tax credit for each child enrolled in sports or arts programs — comes with a catch: that credit only comes into effect if over $1,000 in fees is spent to begin with, which does little to make the arts any more accessible or affordable. Yet the B.C. government managed to find wiggle room for over $80 million in tax credits of up to $42,500 for purchases of recreational properties under $850,000.
Harper once notoriously said, “Ordinary Canadians don’t care about the arts,” to explain emptying $45 million out of the federal arts funding coffers in 2008. This is despite a federally-funded report’s findings that there has been a 107 per cent increase in spending on visual arts and a 50 per cent increase in spending on live performing arts in the last decade. No one has argued that we should increase arts funding at the expense of education and healthcare, or that the two can even be compared. However, there is an important place for the arts in our society. “An attitude in the culture that is particular to North America is that the government doesn’t have a responsibility to fund arts and culture, which I agree with,” Minna Schendlinger, the managing director of PuSh, a performance art festival, said. “They have a responsibility to invest in it, however.” The arts is more like post-secondary education — it’s beyond the basic set of human rights, but when accessible, is extremely enriching and valuable to a person, and it fosters critical, analytical, and creative thinking. There aren’t quite the same sneers when it comes to people wanting to see more subsidies and funding to post-secondary institutions, however.
An attitude in the culture that is particular to North America is that the government doesn’t have a responsibility to fund arts and culture, which I agree with. They have a responsibility to invest in it, however.
– Minna Schendlinger, managing director of PuSh
Contrary to popular opinion, ‘art’ is not limited to interpretive dance, vagina monologues, and abstract paintings. “When you pick up a newspaper, somebody wrote that. When you look at a website, somebody designed that,” said Schendlinger. “Because arts is [sic] so tightly woven into the fabric of society, it’s very easy to take for granted.” Art is your school choir and ensemble; it is your film, dance, and theatre electives. Art is reading a book; it is playing tambourine in a band. Art is doodling in the margins.
Furthermore, art spaces function as a kind of public sphere where grievances, good news, ideas, questions, and critiques come together. A healthy arts community creates social cohesion through real human interaction (because a live concert is never the same as the record). A developed cultural identity can bring a certain amount of prestige to a region. For example, we immediately think of Western European countries when we imagine a place with cool venues, progressive attitudes, and a cutting-edge artistic scene — and it correlates with the arts being assigned a much higher societal value in those countries.
On top of creating cultural prestige, the government at least won’t lose money by funding the arts, and may even earn some back. Directly after the Campbell arts cuts, then-executive director of the Alliance of Arts Amir Ali Alibhai held a talk at the VAG, citing this from a study funded by the City of Vancouver: “Every dollar invested in arts and culture returns between $1.05 and $1.36 in taxes back to the provincial government.” Furthermore, B.C.’s former minister of tourism, culture, and the arts, Kevin Krueger, reported that B.C.’s heritage and arts industry generate approximately 78,000 jobs in the creative industry and $5.2 billion in economic activity annually.
The arts are important for a number of reasons, and government funding cuts do not help them flourish. However, they are not solely responsible for the struggles faced by the arts community: the direct provincial spending makes up a small fraction of what B.C. arts organizations receive. What has affected the arts in B.C. far more are the changes made to the community gaming grants. Taxes collected by the province from gambling activities, including lotto tickets and horse racing, are reorganized into gaming grants, which are given out on the basis of an organization’s community engagement. $36 million was cut from gaming grants under Gordon Campbell’s government, and the eligibilities shifted to exclude arts, environmental, and sports programs that did not cater primarily to children and youth. Christy Clark, however, reinstated previous eligibilities and added $15 million to the fund in January — but that still leaves a $20 million shortfall from its earlier numbers.
Perhaps the one upside to all these cuts is that they allowed many arts organizations to prove that their sustainability was rooted in more than just government money and demonstrate how much “ordinary people” really do care about the arts. The Vancouver International Fringe Festival, considered a large independent theatre festival with a budget of over $1 million, was lucky to lock in a three-year term with a $70,000 gaming grant before the eligibilities changed, keeping them on track with the festival’s projected 30 per cent expansion. When their term ended, Fringe was resourceful in making up for the difference. “We’ve had to shift a lot of our focus to donations and fundraising,” said Executive Director David Jordan. “This meant we had to change the way we communicated with the community, which really had a positive effect, as now more people are aware that we are a charity, not just an entertainment event.”
For all non-profit organizations, including Fringe and many other arts festivals and organizations in B.C., surplus money is invested back into the organization — as opposed to being distributed as profit to owners and shareholders. In the Fringe’s case, that includes a mentoring program. Last year’s obvious pick was Awkward Stage Productions, which put on Smile, which alternated between a senior and junior youth cast. At Awkward Stage, older actors mentor newcomers, and all tech and design work is handled by youth as well.
Grants are vital to non-profits, precisely because grants are not loans. Without the pressure of needing to put together an event that must appeal to a wide enough audience so as to both repay the loan and earn enough money for next year, organizations are allowed that bit of leeway to step outside their comfort zone, nurture their artists, and sharpen their edges. The Fringe is one such instance. “The Fringe acts as an incubator for emerging ideas and artists,” said Jordan. The Fringe has a bit of a curious curatorial approach, in which they literally pick their shows out of a hat. “It’s very against the grain in terms of our society, which is so organized around excellence. We’re the opposite of that.” And if a weird show happens to get picked? “Then we have a weird show, and usually there will be weird people that like it,” he laughed. The only quality control in place is the artist application fee of $800, though participating artists keep everything earned at the box office after. “It’s a little mix of capitalism of socialism.” According to Jordan, the average group makes about $2,500, while top-tier shows, such as last year’s media darling Grim and Fischer, make around $5,000, which doesn’t amount to much of an hourly wage.
Of course, grants are not handed out indiscriminately. There is still pressure to create an end product that displays stability and a potential for growth if the organization wants to have a shot at applying for the grant again. Organizations still need to work hard to raise money on their own through donations and sales. “Grants are not handouts. You don’t get in line, put your hand out, and then someone drops a few thousand dollars in it.” Schendlinger said, explaining the long, arduous grant application process. She spends an average of 80 to 100 hours per grant proposal, which can include up to four separate reports. The bottom line is that arts organizations don’t just squander taxpayer money. Many festivals have contingent measures in place, whether it be following the for-profit model of having three months’ operating costs in reserve at all times, or having an endowment fund, which are both strategies adopted by the Vancouver International Writer’s Festival.
Arts in B.C. have definitely not reached their full potential, and dismal arts funding is only one factor among many. Consider the Writers’ Festival again. Their programming targeted at school-age children allowed them to remain eligible for the gaming grants, though ironically, it has been the attendance of that very demographic that has suffered in the past. “The teachers’ job action is hurting many arts organizations aimed at school-age audiences overall,” began Camilla Tibbs, operations manager of the festival. While teachers under the current B.C. Teachers’ Federation job action are still in classes, they have refused to pick up extra tasks, which include the arrangement of field trips. The year prior, cuts at the school board level affected ticket sales to school groups. Tibbs considered the Writer’s Festival fortunate in that this only afflicted half their programming, and added that many tickets were instead given away to schools that otherwise could not attend.
Despite all of these struggles, the arts community in B.C. is still trying to hold on. Going back to Harper’s sentiment on the arts, which has appeared to seep down to lower levels of government — if ordinary Canadians don’t care about the arts, then who are the people volunteering to man box offices in the cold, or working minimum wage while keeping their eye on the Pulitzer Prize? Why bother organizing free outdoor movies in the summer when no one supposedly cares? If it’s not ordinary Canadians who are behind the resurgence of book clubs in the last decade, then who is?
