Julianna Yau’s blog

This is in response to the article Make the case for culture to ordinary Canadians, artists told from the CBC.

I’m disgusted by the fact that politicians believe we need to make a case at all, and that they don’t understand why we’re outraged by the arts budget cuts.

The spending on the arts was approved by Parliament, and so were the programs receiving the funding and the amount of funding being allocated to the programs.

The budget cuts were done in secret, without approval by Parliament, without consulation with the arts community, without clear, specific and direct explanations on why the particular cuts were made, without formal announcement to the public or the arts community, and without clear and direct information on where the excess of $60m was being redirected.

If the government really cared about arts & culture, they would already be aware of the many reports and studies on the importance of arts & culture. So-called “ordinary Canadians” live and breathe art & culture all the time; if they are not happy with the way the money is being spent on the arts, it’s either because of a lack of understanding of the jury process or because we need to improve the process with consultation with the arts community. I know of no other sector where funding is cut, without consultation with the stakeholders, because “ordinary Canadians” or ideologically-threatened policymakers don’t like the product. How do we allow cigarettes to be freely marketed, but arts funding to be cut at the whim of a minority government?

So, to those who need a case presented to them, here is a short list of resources which show why art & culture is important:

• Hill Strategies Research
• Cultivating Demands for the Arts (pdf report)
• Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy (pdf)
  
• Art classes improve diagnostic skills of medical students (CBC article)
• Canadian Tourism Commission
• Status of the Artist legistlation
• Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy (report)

Please post any other resources in the comments.

Update: See the Canadian Conference of the Arts’ breakdown of the cuts, which are more accurate than the chart below.

I’m doing some prep work for my letter to my MP et al regarding the recent cuts to arts funding. Anyone out there willing to check my numbers for me? The chart I put together isn’t getting to the $40-million or $44-million number being quoted, even by the article from which I pulled the numbers (which quotes $44.8-million).

Also, The Globe & Mail indicates that the cut to Trade Routes is a $7.13m cut, while others (Canadian Conference of the Arts, DOC and CBC) indicate it’s $9m.

The internet has been raging with bill C-10, which seems to have become the new media baby now that the government is dragging its feet with releasing the proposed copyright legislation.

Geist is surprisingly brief on his coverage of the activity, with a mere mention and pointing people to one of the anti-C-10 Facebook groups.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts issued a press release on the matter (I’m linking to my own blog because I can’t find it on their website), as did ACTRA and the Directors Guild of Canada.

Trying to read through the entire bill is a nightmare, and I’m grateful to “FF Canuck” for finding the relevant text in the bill. The offending text, in short, is that “public financial support of the production [of a Canadian film or video] would not be contrary to public policy”.

While I agree with some criticisms that this isn’t necessarily or specifically a censorship clause, anyone who reads between the lines (or any of the articles covering the issue) knows its intent is to facilitate censorship. It’s chillingly familiar to the undertones of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and it’s no wonder everyone is aghast.

Just what exactly is “contrary to public policy”? What exactly is “public policy”? Who decides what “public policy” is and whether a work is contrary to it?

Surely the Canadian government shouldn’t be allowing hateful propaganda, but where do we draw the line…and, more importantly, from where do we draw the line? As others have noted, other provisions are in place to ensure that works which violate human rights are not allowed to be distributed. Is it really the place of the governmental branch in charge of tax credits to determine whether a film should be funded?