Federal Arts Advocacy Pays Off ... we hope!

From Arts in Guelph- date, 2006

Recent advocacy efforts by the Canadian Arts Coalition appear to have paid off!

On November 23, 2005, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Liza Frulla, announced that the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts would be significantly increased over the next three fiscal years. The proposal includes a stepped increase in funding for the Canada Council, effectively doubling the Council's current budget by the end of the third year.

In the backgrounder accompanying this announcement, the Department of Canadian Heritage noted that, with these new financial resources, "the Canada Council for the Arts will be able to:

• better support our most creative arts organizations of all sizes in all regions
• greatly increase resources for domestic and international touring
• expand support for the work of individual artists in more communities across the country
• increase the resources of the Public Lending Right Program, which compensates authors for access to their works provided by public libraries
• better honour the highest achievements of Canadian artists."

This is indeed welcome news to the arts community, which, under the leadership of the Canadian Arts Coalition, worked very hard over the summer and fall to contact MPs across the country. Among the messages that arts groups conveyed was the fact that, although the Canada Council for the Arts each year currently supports 2 100 arts organizations and a similar number of individual professional artists like writers, musicians, actors, painters and sculptors, at the same time "12 000 eligible arts organizations and artists must be turned down for support, resulting in the loss of enormous creative potential for Canada." Advocates also pointed out that, since 1988, Canada Council has seen "a 50 per cent increase in the number of applications from arts organizations and a 30 per cent increase for individual artists."

Guelph Arts Council was pleased to have participated in the work of the Canadian Arts Coalition by communicating with area MPs Brenda Chamberlain, Guelph, and Michael Chong, Wellington-Halton Hills, both of whom were receptive to the message that artists and arts groups are chronically underfunded, always scrambling to make ends meet. Both MPs also clearly recognized that the arts make a vital contribution to our community.

Of course, in the interval since the Minister's announcement, a federal election has been called for January 23, 2006. However, it remains the fervent hope of the arts community that the new government, no matter what its political composition, will honour this commitment which is "so vital to the health and sustainability of the arts in Canada."

Special thanks go the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA), the national forum for the arts and cultural community, which keeps the arts community up to date through a series of regular and informative bulletins. For more information, contact Guelph Arts Council at (519) 836-3280 or gac@sentex.net. Or visit the website for the CCA at www.ccarts.ca or the Canada Council for the Arts at www.canadacouncil.ca.