Cultural funding: where will the axe fall?

CCA Bul­letin 27/11

Sep­tem­ber 12, 2011

Just the facts

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) today presents its analy­sis of the 2011 fed­eral bud­get, which was adopted in June by the 41st Par­lia­ment, fur­ther to the May gen­eral election.

Like last year, this year’s bud­get analy­sis reveals that over­all, fed­eral fund­ing to the cul­tural sec­tor remains sta­ble, which has more or less been the case since 2006 under suc­ces­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive minor­ity gov­ern­ments. While the CCA char­ac­ter­ized this ‘hold­ing pat­tern’ as reas­sur­ing last year, we pro­jected that this state of affairs would not likely endure given the tight­en­ing fis­cal sit­u­a­tion of the gov­ern­ment, and the con­clu­sion of stim­u­lus spend­ing to address the 2008/09 recession.

The back­drop to this year’s analy­sis is there­fore the fed­eral government’s deter­mi­na­tion to get its fis­cal house in order by 2014/15, one full year ahead of its orig­i­nal pre-election schedule.

For this fis­cal year how­ever, over­all fed­eral cul­tural fund­ing remains quite sta­ble, with only the slimmest of reduc­tions for most orga­ni­za­tions – and even small increases for some. The fact that the gov­ern­ment has main­tained what was essen­tially a pre-election bud­get may seem reas­sur­ing, as is the renewed com­mit­ment to a num­ber of arts and cul­ture pro­grams. One can only wel­come the announce­ment that the CBC will receive its annual $60 mil­lion top-up again this year and the renewed com­mit­ment to the Canada Media Fund, which includes the for­mer Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund, on an ongo­ing basis at a level of $100 mil­lion per year. The gov­ern­ment also estab­lishes fund­ing for the sec­ond national museum out­side of the national cap­i­tal region. The Cana­dian Museum of Immi­gra­tion at Pier 21 in Hal­i­fax receives its first appro­pri­a­tion of $10 mil­lion in the 2011–2012 Main Esti­mates. Bud­get 2011 also intro­duces a new children’s tax credit for arts activ­i­ties, some­thing the sec­tor has been advo­cat­ing for some time. The gov­ern­ment indi­cates that this new tax credit will reduce fed­eral rev­enues by $25 mil­lion 2010/11 and by $100 mil­lion in each of 2011/12 and 2012/13.

While there is lit­tle in the way of bad news in expen­di­tures announced for this year, all eyes are on next year, and where the axe will fall. Dur­ing the sum­mer, many gov­ern­ment depart­ments already announced staff cut-backs as well as pro­gram elim­i­na­tions, but these are the result of pre­vi­ous strate­gic review exer­cises. This is the case for the Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil, which has been told that its fund­ing is com­ing to an end in March 2013, and that like other sec­toral coun­cils funded by the Depart­ment of Human Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment, it may con­tinue to apply for project fund­ing if it can find ways to fund its own operations.

The results of the Strate­gic and Oper­at­ing Review – or Deficit Reduc­tion Action Plan, as the process is now known in bureau­cratic cir­cles — will not be known until the bud­get is announced next Feb­ru­ary or March. It is expected that at the out­set of its four-year major­ity man­date, the gov­ern­ment will announce all of the severe cuts it deems nec­es­sary to achieve a bal­anced bud­get by 2014, espe­cially given an eco­nomic cli­mate which seems to be wors­en­ing. The Pres­i­dent of the Trea­sury Board, Min­is­ter Tony Clement, had stated that the gov­ern­ment would be selec­tive and not apply “across the board” cuts, so it may well be that some depart­ments or agen­cies will be asked to cough up more over time.

What this will mean for the arts and cul­ture sec­tor is not yet clear. Rumour-prone Ottawa is rife with whis­per­ings that cuts to Her­itage staff and pro­grams will be severe. The depart­ment, which like the whole gov­ern­men­tal appa­ra­tus, is under­stand­ably tight-lipped on these mat­ters at present, will obvi­ously not escape the blade of the expen­di­ture reduc­tion axe. Like other depart­ments, it is required to iden­tify sce­nar­ios for a five per cent and a ten per cent expen­di­ture reduc­tion cut as part of the Strate­gic and Oper­at­ing Review. This is on top of the freeze to depart­men­tal admin­is­tra­tive costs stem­ming from bud­get 2010, which meant the depart­ment had to absorb some $2 mil­lion in sched­uled salary increases in 2010–2011. This applies for 2011-12 as well, so the Depart­ment will need to absorb a fur­ther amount of this scale owing to the freeze.. The depart­ment has already seen its staff reduced by 25% as a result of pre­vi­ous Strate­gic Reviews.

As noted in many pre­vi­ous bud­get analy­ses, the gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to approach cul­ture with­out a pub­lished long-term vision or clearly artic­u­lated pol­icy. In the absence of a clear sense of direc­tion for cul­tural pol­icy, will the sec­tor be espe­cially vul­ner­a­ble in the process of Strate­gic and Oper­a­tional Review? The ques­tion of the day remains: where exactly will the axe fall?