CCA Bulletin 4/09

February 9 , 2009

More Budget Details: Where is the $335 million going?

Just the facts

It has been two weeks since the Minister of Finance, the Hon. James Flaherty, unveiled the 2009 Federal Budget.  This document contained $ 335 million in support of culture and the arts. The Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) has been delving into the announced funding initiatives to better understand how this investment translates into support for the arts and culture sector and what portion of the sums announced constitutes a new investment as opposed to renewal of existing budgets. The picture should become clearer once the Main Estimates are made available.

In its pre-budget submission to the Standing Committee on Finance in August 2008 and in its economic stimulus submission of December, the CCA pointed with some concern to the number of funding programs administered by the Department of Canadian Heritage scheduled to expire at the end of March 2009 or March 2010. The CCA asked the Standing Committee to seek assurances from the Minister of Finance that these programs would be renewed with their current or higher budgets.

In the budget documents, we see that the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Canadian Heritage delivered with renewed funding for the Cultural Spaces program, the National Arts Training Contribution Program, the New Media Fund, the Canadian Television Fund, as well as support for community newspapers and magazines. Some of these programs seem to have been renewed or increased on a permanent basis, others just for the next two years.

How Much New Money is Being Invested?

The question that the CCA has been trying to answer is how much of the $335 million is new funding and how much is the result of program renewal.

In the case of Cultural Spaces, there is $ 30 million of new funding for one year, with the following year seen as a renewal. It would also seem that these funds are largely designated for projects in Toronto and Montreal and that none will be available for much needed cultural infrastructure projects in other communities across the country. These communities will however be able to renovate and upgrade their sports and recreational infrastructures through the $500 million the government is dedicating to that purpose over the next two years. The CCA will continue to advance the idea that in the context of economic stimulus and of long-term investments in the creative sector, much more infrastructure investments in arts and culture sector are required throughout the country and not only in large urban centres,

The National Arts Training Contribution Program appears to be the clear winner in the budget, receiving an additional $ 7 million on what seems to be a permanent basis. The following year will see the program renewed at its $ 16.7 million level with another addition of $7 million. The CCA can only rejoice that its plea for more federal investments in this field was heard.

Despite the silence on replacing PromArt and Trade Routes, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Hon, James Moore, has referred often to the $22.5 million of programming dollars available to assist in the promotion of Canadian artists, creators and arts professionals. The Minister’s Office has provided a breakdown of this amount which is as follows:

The refusal of the government to consider investing more in touring despite several fact based representations made by the sector probably constitutes the main disappointment with regards to the 2009 budget. The CCA will continue to make representations that $21 millions cut through the abolition of Trade Routes ($9 millions) and PromArt ($10.6 million when one considers the first cut of $5,8 million announced in 2006) need to be addressed to enable the sector to develop new markets. The $ 25 million endowment for the Canada Prizes for the Arts and Creativity came as a total surprise to most and is raising questions all over the country. The Prizes will be administered by a yet to be created private sector international board of directors and will be based in Toronto. It will be an international talent competition intended to ferret out the best and the brightest young talent from around the world. Canadian artists are also eligible to compete for those Prizes scheduled to launch in 2010. While it is difficult to object to any money being dedicated to arts and culture, the fact that this is targeting mostly foreign artists has been described by some as “the cherry on the cake we did not get”. 

Once the Main Estimates are tabled, the CCA will produce additional information on the 2009 Federal Budget.

Tell Me More

The CCA has written to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Canadian Heritage thanking them for providing some financial stability to the arts and culture sector. The CCA also indicated that the CCA would provide updates to the Ministers on how the sector is weathering the economic downturn.

The CCA also expressed appreciation for the recognition of the value of the sector and its vulnerability in the Budget 2009 Economic Plan. The CCA suggests that additional measures might be considered to achieve the objective of the Government “to help ensure as much stability as possible for the sector at a time when the sector is facing difficult challenges.”

What Can I Do?

The CCA is attempting to monitor the impact of the recession on all parts of the arts and culture sector. If you have information about how the economy is affecting your work or the work of your organization, please share it with us. Send your input to Jessica Litwin.