CCA Releases Study of Government Spending on Culture

report on gov­ern­ment fund­ing for the arts. The report, titled “Gov­ern­ment Spend­ing on Cul­ture
in Canada, 1992–93 to 2002–03”, was com­mis­sioned by the CCA from Hill Strate­gies Research
Inc.
The report exam­ines spend­ing on cul­ture by fed­eral, provin­cial, and munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments in
Canada, focus­ing largely on changes in spend­ing between the years 1992–93 and 2002-03. It
also pro­vides a more detailed overview of gov­ern­ment cul­tural spend­ing for fis­cal year 2002-03.
Using Sta­tis­tics Canada’s Sur­vey of Gov­ern­ment Expen­di­tures on Cul­ture as a ref­er­ence, the
infor­ma­tion is exam­ined by cul­tural sub­sec­tor, by level of gov­ern­ment, by province, and in rela­tion
to pop­u­la­tion size. Sev­eral key find­ings emerge, includ­ing the fol­low­ing:
o Total gov­ern­ment spend­ing on cul­ture, includ­ing trans­fers, was $7.4 bil­lion in 2002-03. Of
that total, her­itage and libraries received $3.7 bil­lion (50%), the cul­tural indus­tries received
$2.5 bil­lion (34%), mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and other cul­tural activ­i­ties received $690 mil­lion (9%),
and the arts received the small­est share at $550 mil­lion (7%).
o The con­tri­bu­tions of each level of gov­ern­ment to the $7.4 bil­lion in cul­tural spend­ing in 2002–
03 were as fol­lows:
– Fed­eral: $3.4 bil­lion (46% of total, or $109 per capita);
– Provin­cial: $2.1 bil­lion (28% of total, or $67 per capita); and
– Munic­i­pal: $1.9 bil­lion (25% of total, or $60 per capita).
o Of the $550 mil­lion spent by all lev­els of gov­ern­ment on the arts in 2002-03:
– $243 mil­lion was spent by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment (44%, or $8 per capita);
– $283 mil­lion was spent by provin­cial gov­ern­ments (51%, or $9 per capita); and
– $24 mil­lion was spent by munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments (4%, or $1 per capita).
o Per capita gov­ern­ment cul­tural spend­ing increased in four provinces between 1992–93 and
2002-03: New Brunswick, Nova Sco­tia, Saskatchewan and Que­bec. Per capita gov­ern­ment
cul­tural spend­ing decreased in the other six provinces: Alberta, Ontario, British Colum­bia,
Prince Edward Island, Man­i­toba and New­found­land and Labrador.
o After adjust­ing for infla­tion, total gov­ern­ment spend­ing on cul­ture decreased by 0.3%
between 1992–93 and 2002-03. In com­par­i­son:
– The num­ber of cul­tural work­ers increased by 20% between 1991 and 2001;
– The num­ber of artists increased by 29% between 1991 and 2001;
– Con­sumer spend­ing on cul­ture increased by 19% between 1997 and 2003;
– The pop­u­la­tion of Canada grew by 11% between 1992 and 2002; and
– Canada’s Gross Domes­tic Prod­uct grew by 39% between 1992 and 2002.
These com­par­isons clearly demon­strate that gov­ern­ment spend­ing has failed to keep pace with
sub­stan­tial growth in the cul­ture sec­tor over the past decade. They also reveal the rel­a­tively low
level of sup­port for the arts.
Over the past 60 years, gov­ern­ments have played a fun­da­men­tal role in the growth of the arts,
cul­ture and cul­tural indus­tries in Canada. They have pro­vided the solid foun­da­tion on which
many of our most impor­tant arts orga­ni­za­tions and cul­tural indus­tries have been built.
Inad­e­quate lev­els of gov­ern­ment invest­ment will have a grave impact on the cul­ture sector’s
abil­ity to cre­ate, pro­duce, dis­trib­ute, and pre­serve Canada’s cul­tural her­itage.
The CCA/Hill Strate­gies report can be found in its entirety on the CCA web­site at
http://www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/publications/policy/#funding. It con­tains a great wealth of
detailed infor­ma­tion on tri-level gov­ern­ment fund­ing for cul­ture in Canada.
Sixty years strong, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts is the national forum for the arts and
cul­tural com­mu­nity in Canada. It serves as a leader, author­ity, and cat­a­lyst to ensure that artists
can con­tribute freely and fully to a cre­ative, dynamic, and civil Cana­dian soci­ety.
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