BC Liberals try to mask the disgrace of BC’s $6.50 per capita spending

BC Liberals MLA Don McRae – deceptive language

It has come to our attention that the BC Liberals are attempting to paper over the embarrassing fact of BC’s last-place position when compared with per capita arts funding in every other province. And they’re doing it with a dishonest abuse of statistics. Most of you know by now that the national provincial arts funding average is $26 per capita. BC is a distant last in Canada at approx. $6.54 per capita. Now, there are other ways of tallying arts funding in each province, and some take into account ALL levels of funding including federal and municipal, as you will see below. The BC Liberals are here doing a very clumsy, blatant version of apples vs. oranges, in an attempt to hide the fact that their provincial funding is glaringly low. And even by their model, adding in all other federal and municipal funding sources, BC is still last. How could it be otherwise, considering the nearly nonexistent provincial funding level? This is a deliberately deceptive communication tactic to say the least.

Here is BC Liberal MLA Don McRae, member of the Standing Committee for Finance that is currently touring BC collecting public submissions for next year’s budget.

Via Hansard:

D. McRae: Well, I just want to preface. I’m a big supporter of the arts and culture, and I’d like to see more dollars go in. But one of the things that we see at this committee oftentimes is the fact that we are spending $6.54 per capita as compared to Alberta. You know, it is lower per capita in that way.

The Arts Research Monitor says that in British Columbia, when you look at all levels of government, we actually spend $194 per person in British Columbia on arts and culture. Now, maybe that’s still not enough, but the reality is that how we delegate our dollars provincially, federally and municipally might be a little bit different if we just look at it on that level.

I don’t know how the municipalities contribute to arts in other jurisdictions. For that reason, I’m a little curious as to how that would level the playing field or not. So if you could provide some information — not today, necessarily — about…. When you take all three levels of government into arts funding, does B.C. really stand far below the rest?

Response from Keith Higgins, President of the Pacific Association of Artist-Run Centres:

“If some members of the finance committee would like to argue that a larger investment by a handful of municipalities somehow absolves the province of responsibility for investment in culture throughout the province, it shows a real lack of responsibility.

The question that comes to mind in response is: Even if the “mix” [federal plus municipal added to provincial] provides adequate investment (and it doesn’t; I’ll come back to that) how exactly is government going to address the Metro/non-Metro disparity in access to culture? If the finance committee would like to find a way to encourage municipalities who are not providing adequate (or any) investment — and there are many — to do so, it would of course be welcomed. If they have some other way to increase federal and private investment, let’s see that strategy.

By the way, the issue of Hill’s Arts Research Monitor that is being referred to is 8:6, November 2009. The complete passage is:

“On a per-capita basis, spending on culture by all levels of government was $266 per Canadian in 2006-07. From highest to lowest, per-capita spending by all levels of government was as follows in each province:

Quebec ($335 per capita);
Prince Edward Island ($272 per capita);
Saskatchewan ($257 per capita);
Ontario ($245 per capita);
Nova Scotia ($234 per capita);
Manitoba ($231 per capita);
Newfoundland and Labrador ($224 per capita);
Alberta ($219 per capita);
New Brunswick ($210 per capita); and
British Columbia ($194 per capita).”

See http://www.hillstrategies.com/docs/ARM_vol8_no6.pdf

Look who is last! So, the quoted statistic is an extremely cynical tactic. I will address this in a written submission to the Finance Committee. Any presenters still scheduled to appear before the committee should be alerted to this.

We should thank MLA Don McRae for raising the Hill Arts Monitor as a reference, since it confirms many arguments that arts presenters have been making, especially that the province’s historically low investment has prevented BC from getting a fair share of investment from federal sources. Read the entire issue at the link above; it’s quite illuminating.

61% of Vancouver Island Gaming “Arts and Culture” Grants Bound for Other Purposes

Photo: Bill Horne

Below is the full press release from a group of concerned arts supporters on Vancouver Island:

61% of Vancouver Island Gaming “Arts and Culture” Grants Bound for Other Purposes

For immediate use

From: Bill Jamieson, Connie Foss More, DolaDubé – concerned members of the Arts community

Date: September 16, 2010

Contact: Bill Jamieson, CA,     phone: 250-370-1067  email

(others, if needed, are Connie Foss More  here and Dola Dubé  here.)

According to a Press Release issued by the B.C. Gaming Branch on September 3, the government has restored funding to Arts and Culture groups on Vancouver Island through B.C. Gaming’s “Arts, Culture and Heritage” programme. “Pipers and painters, choristers and curators will share $662,740 in Community Gaming Grants supporting youth arts and culture, fairs, festivals and museums on Vancouver Island,” states the Minister.

Refer to: http://www.hsd.gov.bc.ca/gaming/news/index.htm

However, even the most cursory review of the list of successful applicants suggests otherwise.

Cont’d…..

CBC Interview: Kevin Krueger

“Spin” does not begin to describe Minister Krueger’s misrepresentation of facts in this CBC interview. It’s hard to know where to start with the transcript, but let’s begin with the Minister’s representation of his meeting with the Alliance. Present were Minister Krueger, the Alliance for Arts and Culture’s ED Amir Ali Alibhai and an Alliance board member (not their “legal counsel” as Krueger calls her), and twelve or so executive directors of major BC arts organizations. The purpose of the meeting was to try to communicate to the minister the severe infrastructural damage his cuts would soon cause to BC arts and culture. During the meeting the Alliance board member stated that if the disproportionate cuts to arts were not reversed, the Alliance, in support of its members, would be forced to appeal to their huge audience for help, as well as to organize in ridings across the province. Minister Krueger chose to hear a threat and in this interview calls here calls this “extortion.” Clearly this is not extortion, and it’s actually defamatory to say so. What it is, in fact, is the normal course of democracy. Minister Krueger’s attempt to actually criminalize even mild disagreement is anti-democratic. The irony of course is that the Alliance has treated Minister Krueger remarkably politely throughout this whole devastating year. In fact, the Alliance has been so uniformly cordial with the minister that a proportion of the province’s arts organizations, shrinking or dying due to cuts, began asking the Alliance to be much more aggressive with him. Calling the Alliance “vicious” would be comic were it not such a disturbing untruth. What really happened that day? Minister Krueger, whose government had handed down draconian cuts and programs without any adequate consultation with the arts sector or with the BC Arts Council, was patronizing and seemed impervious to the arts sector’s concerns throughout. His communications during what was a multicultural meeting amounted to paternalistic admonishments couched occasionally in quotes from Christian scripture. Yet somehow the assembled arts sector remained civil throughout. That Krueger now claims he was a victim of viciousness indicates that he can dish out draconian cuts but not take dissent; it indicates that he is simply incapable of stewarding this sector. The arrogance of a government that does not consult with sectors before mangling them, and then clamps down on dissent with intimidation and spin, is of course not unique to the arts sector. The HST was rammed through with the same arrogance. It’s interesting that the tourism sector, also under Krueger’s stewardship, was hit with the HST disaster after zero consultation and substandard communication from the same minister.

Secondly, there’s the issue of Minister Krueger’s glaring self-contradiction when he claims ‘we don’t have money for arts’ and then says ‘here’s $30 “new” million over 3 years, if you stop what you’re doing and instead start a February festival in celebratory memory of the Olympics.’ This contradiction has been fully exposed and criticized in the media, yet Krueger dares to keep trotting it out. Of course there is also the related point that this “Spirit Festival” idea amounts to blatant political interference in BC arts and culture. CBC’s Kathryn Gretsinger tries to address this issue in the interview, but Minister Krueger repeatedly skirts it.

Lastly Jane Danzo has made clear to the arts community and the public that she resigned because as Chair of the BC Arts Council she could no longer work under this government’s unbearable political interference. She did not resign—as Minister Krueger unbelievably claims here—because she was finding it hard to be pressured by artists. When she returns from a month’s holiday she will confirm this.

To sum up, Minister Krueger contradicts himself through the interview and plays a dishonest, anti-democratic game, as well as an inept one. Its only virtue is that it so blatantly reveals his hand. Read for yourself. To hear the interview, listen to the CBC podcast.

CBC Early Edition
26-Aug-2010 07:13

Kathryn Gretsinger: The separation of art and state is a debate that we’ve been chewing over for the last week or so. It all began with Jane Danzo. She resigned her position as head of the BC Arts Council last week.

Jane Danzo: It was made very clear, in fact, the board of council has no independent voice from the government, and therefore I believed very firmly that in order to serve actually both government and the arts sector better that I should step down.

Gretsinger: That’s Jane Danzo, the former head of the BC Arts Council.

Today we have the opportunity to hear the government’s side on this story. Kevin Krueger is the provincial minister in charge of tourism, culture and the arts, and he joins me on the line.

Good morning.

Kevin Krueger: Good morning, Kathryn. A warm good morning and hello to all your listeners.

Gretsinger: Thank you very much for taking our call. We do appreciate it. What role, Mr. Minister, do you think the province should play in making decisions about prioritizing arts funding?

Krueger: I think that the relationship with the arts community, arts and culture community around British Columbia, the government and the arts community has been greatly facilitated by the BC Arts Council, and the arrangement is working very well. I have read the transcripts of your interviews with the past and present chair, and I think that they both said that well.

There have been some false allegations that government has stepped in and steered funding to organizations over one another. They both made it very clear. Jane didn’t say that when she resigned. That’s never been true, and she’s been categorical about that, and I appreciate it.

So this is a process that works so well. There are only one or two, generally an average of one complaint per year that go through the full complaint process because it’s a peer review system by juries that are selected from the community in the various disciplines as I know the chairs have outlined to you works well.

Gretsinger: I guess what I want to just make sure of is that there’s a few issues on the table here. One of them has to do with funding and the way that it’s distributed. Another one is to do with the fact that there’s been dramatic cuts to funding. So let’s take them apart individually, if we can. Jane Danzo says that she does not think that the BC Arts Council has enough independence to make decisions outside of the government realm. How do you respond to that criticism?

Krueger: I think that Jane was expressing a profound frustration that she feels in a worldwide recession. That frustration is shared by billions of people around the world, and I’m one of them. It can’t be helped that Canada and British Columbia close to last of all got dragged into this whirlpool of a recession. I think we’ll be out of it faster than anybody else, but in the meantime Jane and I and Mr. Hamilton and all of us in government and in the organizations that work for government, including health authorities, have experienced this barrage of concern, that, “Please don’t cut in our areas because we just can’t stand the cut,” and that’s very legitimate.

Gretsinger: That’s the funding question, though, Mr. Krueger. That’s the funding question. But I’m asking you, first of all, about independence. She does not feel that as the head of the BC Arts Council she had enough independence to speak her mind about what the government was doing with regard to arts funding. Is there a problem with not having people be able to speak freely when they sit on the council?

Krueger: Well, I think that the acting chair, Mr. Stan Hamilton, answered you very clearly on that. If a person wants to be completely free to criticize anything you want, we all have that right. But if you are an organization that is helping to make crucial decisions in a very tough time about where funding goes and you’re heading that organization, then you are trying to do your best, and Jane Danzo is a very competent individual and I think very highly of her, trying to do your best to make sure that you’re doing the best you can for all sides.

Now, if you come out swinging against one of the sides, then you’re not remaining in the role that you were. So she wouldn t do that. She was too ethical to do that. I know that there are some people in the arts and culture community that are actually quite vicious, and they have been grinding on her really hard and on me and on the government and on their MLAs. Jane came to a meeting that I had because I’ve had a lot of round table meetings around the province. We had one in Vancouver where I was actually threatened. It was like an extortion process by the time they got down to their legal representative, summing up what they planned to do if we didn’t come up with more money. She was horrified, and it is hard for a classy, principled, gentle person like her, earnestly trying to do the best for the arts, to put up with that. That group was way over the line.

Gretsinger: Well….

Krueger: Just let me finish. That’s the situation she was in, and she finally reached the point where she is saying if what the arts community really expects from me is full-on advocacy, she’d never attack people like that group did, but she had had enough of that, so she stepped aside to say what she said.

Now, let’s get back to the other half of your question, which is the Olympic legacy funds.

Gretsinger: Yes.

Krueger: This is a marvellous thing.

Gretsinger: And this is something that is causing a lot of concern not just in British Columbia but the Canadian Conference of the Arts is speaking out about this too. If you not only peel back a budget but also provide a smaller budget and then say that it needs to be spent on a certain thing, are you not trying to control the way decisions are made?

Krueger: No, and it…different budget. And I need to…. You’ve given me something else I have to address in asking the question that way. When you say that we have peeled back a budget, that just isn’t true. There’s an appropriation each year to the BC Arts Council to be distributed to artists and arts organizations throughout the province, and they have a lot of clients and that’s what they do. And as I said, they do it very well.

In 2008 we reached our high-water mark so far. I think we’ll get back to doing even better than that, but we were heading for what looked like a $3b surplus, and the government gave a lot of money to the arts and cultural sector, including a $150m permanent legacy fund for the BC 150 celebration. Nobody complained about that, and if they didn’t they have no right to complain about an Olympic legacy fund either, because that is new money.

The fact is we have had to take really tough decisions. The same people who complained bitterly that they aren’t getting as large a grant as they did last year would be furious if they or any of their loved ones, any of their friends couldn’t get the same wonderful health care that everybody else is getting in BC. We have to deal with these urgent needs, health care, education, social services. We have to also try and maintain all of these other relationships and important things we’re doing, and our government has demonstrated very faithfully that arts and culture are very high priority to us. We know they’re integral to who British Columbians are, all of us. They help us deliver health care and education and social services. They’re great economic generators, growth with the multiplier effect and tax revenues.

Gretsinger: How do you ensure, though, that when there are reduced dollars that you make sure that the arts community has independence to decide how that money should be spent?

Krueger: Well, nobody’s thought of a better way than the way it’s being done right now through the BC Arts Council. And again, I know that both Jane Danzo and Stan Hamilton have explained that to you. The fact is we don’t have as much money as we did, but we will, I expect, get back to providing more.

We’re actually providing more than quadruple the amount of annual funding to the arts and culture community than the government we replaced did. People lose sight of that, although not always, because the same round tables will say to me we would never want them back. It was an average of less than $13m a year that the NDP provided.

Gretsinger: All right.

Krueger: We are close to $60m a year.

So I want to answer your question if you’ll let me.

Gretsinger: We’re going to run out of time, though, for this morning, and if you can keep it very short that would be great.

Krueger: You bet. So we had a Cultural Olympiad, never been done before, a three-year Cultural Olympiad leading up to the Olympics, fabulous success. Well, 2.5 million people in total came out to watch the performances and participate, in pay performances and in free performances. We want to keep that spirit alive. We want to grow these arts organizations through their memberships who provide money to them, also through their audiences. The Olympic legacy fund is geared to do that…

Gretsinger: Okay.

Krueger: …and BC’s festivals are just one part of it. There’s a whole lot more. So we should talk again.

Gretsinger: That would be great. Thank you so much for taking our call this morning, and I appreciate your point of view on it.

Krueger: Thank you very much.

Gretsinger: Goodbye for now.

British Columbians deserve better government than this.

Letter to BC MLA Ron Cantelon systematically refutes government’s claims about arts cuts

Letter to MLA Ron Cantelon written by Sandy Garossino, Chair of the Alliance for Arts and Culture Advocacy Committe. Garossino’s letter is in response to Ron’s remarks in the Times-Colonist, Saturday Aug 21, 2010, remarks that indicate he does not have an informed understanding of the way in which BC culture functions. Upon being told that BC arts infrastructure, which has been built up over many decades of volunteer labour, audience support and toil, is being devastated by entirely unnecessary cuts, Cantelon replied “”They [B.C. arts groups] will come back in other incarnations.” Upon which a writer from Summerland on Twitter replied “yes, they will, Ron: as voters.” But to be serious, Cantelon does not grasp what communities all over BC already know: the arts may be key to our identity as a province, but they’re also a business sector like any other and must be treated like one.

Garossino’s response to Ron’s remarks:

Dear Ron,

I have just read your comments about arts cuts in the Victoria Times Colonist.

Normal business practice–which is my background–would strive to achieve proportionality between savings and sacrificed services. Ideally the prudent budget process would seek minimal impact for maximum savings–or the closest thing to it.

In the case of arts cuts, the savings have been negligible–less than one-thousandth of the provincial budget. Yet the inherent structure of the non-profit arts model will result in severe damage across all BC communities. This is a complete inversion of rational governance.

It’s plain that the government believes that the impact will be small, contained, and limited to the arts sector only, rather than the public at large. This belies a failure to grasp what is at stake. Organizations that fail will not reappear. Communities across the province will lose longstanding beloved emblems of their local character.

The 2010 BC Budget effectively cut 50% from arts funding

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In the new BC budget we see cuts deep enough to damage an already fragile BC arts ecology. BC arts funding was already virtually the lowest in Canada, before these cuts, and now it’s far and away the lowest in the country. The BC Arts Council, our arms-length funding body, has been cut in half. Funds for community arts from gaming money have also been cut by approximately 50%.

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By now it’s well-known that all arts funding comes back immediately to government coffers, so we know this was not an economic move  on the part of the government. It  has nothing to do with deficit or recession, either, since the arts would actually function to increase BC’s profitability. The government’s own studies prove these facts. We are left to conclude that this budget contains a purely anti-cultural stance. Dismissive and noticeably ill-informed remarks by Ministers Coleman and Krueger confirm this stance.

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The biggest and most pressing issue? The government’s “new” $10 million is not new. The BC Arts Council has been cut by approximately that same amount. This money, removed from arms-length administration, has reappeared as part of something called a “2010 Sports and Arts Legacy” fund that so far looks very much like a political slush fund. The governments has not yet announced how this is to be administered, but there is no guarantee that it won’t be directly distributed either by ministry bureaucrats or another not-so-arms-length agency, rather than by the efficient, arms-length BC Arts Council. And no guarantee it won’t be strategically given out to interior constituencies as tourism-based community fairs, say, for political advantage. Furthermore, its monies are apparently only available to programs “for children,” even though it’s obvious that children cannot properly learn art in a province with a crippled arts sector.

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We demand that this 10 million be distributed by the arms-length body of the BC Arts Council, to prevent accusations of political interference in art.

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Let’s not witness the devastation of our BC arts infrastructure, so long in the making. Consequences will include brain drain (which has already begun), loss of profit in associated industries, and further loss of matching funds. Corporate and foundation funds for art are matched to provincial funding. Cut provincial funding, and everything else falls away.

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Help us maintain the quality of arts and culture in our province, and prevent our culture from becoming nothing more than a short-term, commercialized job creation paid for by a political slush fund. Publicly funded art, while proven excellent for our economy, does not work on a business model.

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BC culture belongs to all British Columbians. It’s where we produce our shared identity, and that can’t be wholly dictated by the marketplace. No great art tradition has ever been sustained that way.

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Please stay tuned for things you can do to help in this next phase of the fight for a true BC arts policy, similar to that enjoyed by all other BC provinces.

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The Winter of Art’s Discontent, by Laura Trethewey

Article originally appeared in Broken Pencil magazine. Reprinted with permission from Broken Pencil and writer Laura Trethewey.

During a recession, governments both federal and municipal are on the hunt for places to cut costs and the arts seem to be an easy target. Laura Trethewey followed the carnage of arts funding cuts across the country to see the effect on local artists and, ultimately, our culture.

“I think when ordinary working people come home, turn on the TV and see a gala of a bunch of people at, you know, a rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren’t high enough, when they know those subsidies have actually gone up — I’m not sure that’s something that resonates with ordinary people.”

- Stephen Harper, September 2008

Hot in the pursuit of a majority government in the midst of the 2008 election, Stephen Harper landed in Saskatoon. The Star Phoenix predicted a talk on crime and justice, but in between the tough-on-crime rhetoric came a now infamous diatribe against arts funding. No one, least of all artists, expected the arts to become a serious election issue. But in retrospect, Harper’s ill-advised aside may well have slowed his party’s momentum and contributed to the last minute slide that led to their second minority win.

The comment also led to the rarest thing of all, an actual debate about our cultural life, one that pitted those committed to the funding of the arts against those obsessed with fiscal restraint and the wisdom of the free market. Now, a year-and-a-half later, it’s like that conversation never happened.

“Fill Your Opening Ceremony with Arts, then Cut Them”

Emily Carr, 1936. Why the black eye? 90% cuts to the arts give BC – both its citizens and its artists – a black eye in the eyes of the world. To join the Black Eye campaign, click here.

By Mark Leiren-Young, February 15, 2010. Reprinted from The Tyee.

Thanks for the show, artists — now get lost. BC to slash 90 per cent of culture funding.

As k.d. lang mesmerized the world with her magical rendition of “Hallelujah,” I couldn’t shake the image of Gordon Campbell as the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, hearing the joyous carols from Whoville, his heart growing ten sizes as Leonard Cohen’s lyrics soared to the roof of BC’s giant marshmallow tied to a kitchen chair.

By the time the Alberta Ballet left the stage, WO Mitchell had been quoted, Ashley MacIsaac stopped fiddling, the spirit bear puppet took its bow, the First Nations dancers finally dropped from exhaustion and Shane Koyczan slammed out his last syllable about zippers and zeds, I hoped our Premier would realize what he’d been waving his flag for all month long, what was prompting this epic outpouring of hoser pride from Sea to Sea to Sea and why all those hearts around the world were glowing.

All the singing, dancing, drumming, pretty costumes, exotic designs and fancy words being intoned on the loudspeaker by Donald Sutherland is what government funding bodies call “arts and culture.” And that would be the part of the provincial budget the Liberal Government recently decided to brutalize.Ninety per cent cuts? That’s not “belt-tightening” — that’s premeditated murder by strangulation.

Artists came through

The next time a Liberal MLA — or anyone — goes on a rant about the value of arts and culture, skip the stats about how the arts return $1.30 to the economy for every government dollar invested. Don’t mention the fact that culture creation is genuinely green. Don’t bother pointing out that pretty much every other industry in Canada has some sort or subsidy, incentive or tax break attached to it. And forget the reality that if our galleries, museums and theatres start to close, our tourism industry will be about as inviting as a Stephen Harper smile. Ask them what Canada decided to show off when millions of people tuned in from around the world to find out what our country was all about.

Unless I missed something, there were no spectacular shots of our highways, no visits to mills or mines — and, with all due respect to our Greatest Canadian, Tommy Douglas, there wasn’t any footage of someone on the Olympic stage receiving affordable health care.

The Canadian heroes chosen to share the world stage with our Olympic athletes weren’t our politicians, lawyers, or civil servants and our military presence consisted of General Romeo Dallaire, who was introduced as an author. Oh, right, they also threw in an astronaut to represent non-artsy Canadians.

For the next few weeks we’re not showing the world our banks, our office towers, or our tar sands — we’re pointing at inukshuks.

If you took all the arts and culture out of the opening ceremonies — that would include the choreographed torch fun run as the hydraulics performed their scene from Spinal Tap — all you’ve got left from the scheduled event are a couple of political speeches, a thanks from VANOC, the athletes entering — without music — wearing non-distinctive, undesigned uniforms, and Wayne Gretzky in the getaway truck. I’m sure NBC would have loved that.

Not bashing the Olympics

I’m not one of the people protesting this party, pretending these are Gordon’s games when the torch was originally lit by three NDP premiers. I’m not buying the argument that every dollar spent on the Olympic Village was taken from artists, Downtown Eastside improvements and starving children. The Olympics brought in federal money B.C. never would have seen to fund projects B.C. governments have wanted to fund for years. All these skaters, skiers and snowboarders have the potential to generate tourism and investment dollars for decades, which is why leaders from Gordon Campbell to Larry Campbell were willing to sell out the stores on Cambie Street to bring the five ring circus to Vangroovy.

I spent two hours in line to watch the opening ceremonies on the big screen TVs at Livecity. I’ve mortgaged a kidney so I can watch Belarus battle for hockey gold. I’m not waving a flag, but I have no trouble wearing my “Team Canada” toque. As a result, I wasn’t looking to bitch about the games until I saw the man who decided B.C. didn’t need arts funding basking in the reflected glory of B.C.’s finest artists.

And since the artists participating in the Olympics aren’t allowed to publicly comment on anything beyond how much they enjoyed the show, I thought I’d say what I hope k.d., Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado and most of those soon to be unemployed dancers, actors, designers, scenic painters, stage managers and technicians who did their best to make the show spectacular were thinking in those moments they weren’t demonstrating the artistic version of faster, higher, stronger — “Shame on you, Gordon.”

Stand up for our funding

What’s really tragic is that Campbell knows the arts matter — so why is he pandering to the pinheads in his party? Why isn’t he asking them if they were proud of their country when the world was welcomed to our province by artists who were nurtured by Canadian content rules, the Canada Council and the CBC — and also the B.C. Arts Council they’ve just ransacked.

Canada asked our artists to host this party — and Gordon Campbell told them to leave by the back door, change out of their good clothes, put on their waiter outfits and mop up after the guests go home.

It’s time for Premier Grinch to get on the bobsled to Whoville, reinstate the funding, address the impact of the HST and the gaming cuts, and admit that he’s not returning stolen presents. Arts and culture are “an essential service” because those songs, stories, dances and images are what make us proud to be Canadian.

Go Canada!

Chart offers clarity on B.C. Liberal arts cuts

Reprinted from The Georgia Straight, (virtually the only local media outlet consistently covering the near-elimination of all arts funding in BC):

By Charlie Smith
February 11, 2010

Since the last provincial budget was announced on September 1, none of the B.C. Liberal cabinet ministers responsible for arts funding has returned calls from the Georgia Straight to discuss this issue.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen, Tourism, Culture and the Arts Minister Kevin Krueger, and Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman have all gone into hiding.

Fortunately, the NDP Opposition has created a chart that paints a pretty good picture of arts funding in B.C.

The critic for the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Vancouver-West End NDP MLA Spencer Herbert, e-mailed it to the Straight today.

The next provincial budget is scheduled to be unveiled on March 2.

Margaret Atwood trumpets art to global elite at Davos

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 3:05 PM
By Jane Taber in The Globe and Mail

Margaret Atwood was poised to tell the world’s business and political elite today that politicians have “done their best to finish” off art. The renowned Canadian author was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Indeed, she likely had images of Stephen Harper in her head when she wrote and delivered that line – in the 2008 election campaign she vowed she would vote for separatist Gilles Duceppe if she lived in Quebec to stop the Prime Minister and his cuts to cultural programs. Her criticism, as well as that from others in the arts community, damaged the Tory campaign.

Ms. Atwood would not comment on that line, only to tell The Globe in an email: “An Artist Never Interprets Her Own Work.”

Coincidentally, Ms. Atwood and Mr. Harper are together in Davos this week. He is delivering a speech tomorrow; she received a prize today – the Crystal Award, which honours those who have used their art to improve the state of the world. But the speech she had planned to give was never given; time was a factor. So she sent the speech to The Globe:

“What is the place of the arts at an economic forum?” she asked in her speech. “Each of us views the world from a limited vantage point, so it’s natural for those connected with economics to try to work out an economics of art. … Is it useful? What does it contribute?”

She says that many people have “defended its intangible worthiness” but others – “politicians among them – have done their best to finish it off.”

And she wondered if art is in danger of dying. “Unlike the discipline of economics, and indeed unlike money – a lately-come tool we invented to facilitate trading at a distance – art is very old. The anthropologists and neurologists are now telling us how old – it’s as old as humanity. It isn’t a frill,” she said. “Art isn’t only what we do, it’s who we are.”

Ms. Atwood concludes that “any theory of humanity that fails to take account of human art fails indeed.”
And she waits with great interest, she says, to see what younger artists come up with, what the art of the future will be.

“I wish for these young artists what I wish for all of us: a cool head in a crisis; a knack of lateral thinking; grace under pressure; and a sackful of good luck. We will need all of them.”

(Photo: Christian Hartmann/Reuters)

Train drivers love a good line!

Train drivers John Howarth and Ibraim Ashow love a good line in books and live readings, as well as on the tracks. Photos and text: Bill Horne

Howarth has helped organize two “poetry trains” for VIA Rail. In 2003 a group of poets traveled from Winnipeg to Prince George with the train sold out. The 2004 poets traveled from Prince George to Prince Rupert. In both cases, they gave readings as they traveled west, and in small communities where they stopped along the way.

Howarth was involved with the 1999 CBC Fred Eaglesmith train as well.

“These were amazing trips,” he said, “and the passengers really enjoyed the experience. I think the BC government is underestimating the public’s appreciation of literature when it slashes arts funding.”

Ashow agrees. “John and I have the privilege of seeing a lot of BC and Canada through our work. It’s beautiful country, but it’s empty without stories, songs and poems that originate throughout the land.” Ibraim was a student at BCIT who now works as a conductor for the Hudson’s Bay Railway in Manitoba.

“I always read BC BookWorld,” says Howarth, “and I like to shop at stores like Books & Company in Prince George. Instead of cutting funding, though, the government ought to be increasing its support for our home-grown publishing industry, like it would the forest industry, transportation or any other sector of our economy.”

Engine #4019 was built in 1955 and has one 16 cylinder diesel engine with 1500 HP.

For further information, contact Bill Horne at Amazing Space Studio,
Wells, BC 250-994-2332 mazing at claireart dot ca