Canada Council for the Arts

The great news for the cul­tural sec­tor in the new fed­eral bud­get is def­i­nitely that the Canada Council’s bud­get was kept intact at $181 mil­lion. The news was met with delight by the cul­tural sec­tor. We had pre­pared for sig­nif­i­cant cuts in all sec­tors and the cul­tural milieu was on the alert, despite reas­sur­ances from the Her­itage Min­is­ter. We would like to point out that Canada Council’s bud­get accounts for 0.08% of the total fed­eral bud­get. [1]

Despite hav­ing their bud­get main­tained, the Canada Coun­cil announced, “Over the next three years we will imple­ment a num­ber of changes that are already in devel­op­ment, includ­ing reduc­ing the cost of our office space, stream­lin­ing oper­a­tional processes and adjust­ing pro­grams.” We must under­line how­ever that all depart­ments, agen­cies and soci­eties such as the Canada Coun­cil, also need to absorb the increased costs of doing busi­ness and inflation.

The Cana­dian Arts Coali­tion and many oth­ers saluted the efforts of the gov­ern­ment. While express­ing their relief, many other orga­ni­za­tions (ACTRA, WGC, Cul­ture Mon­tréal) raised other con­cerns regard­ing the cuts to the CBC, Tele­film and the NFB that risked under­min­ing the frag­ile cul­tural ecosystem.

Actors Equity affirmed, “Given the dra­matic pre-budget fear mon­ger­ing, Equity was relieved to see that fund­ing for the Canada Coun­cil was not reduced in the 2012 Fed­eral bud­get. How­ever, it should be noted that despite the Government’s talk of rec­og­niz­ing arts and culture’s con­tri­bu­tions to Canada’s econ­omy and GDP, fund­ing for the Canada Coun­cil has increased only 0.6% since 2008–2009.Further, Equity remains dis­ap­pointed that long-promised new tour­ing pro­grams to replace the sud­den fund­ing cuts to the Pro­mArt and Trade Routes pro­grams cut in 2008 have never been restored.”