Arts funding in Canada: what's the dealio?

Lately I've given some thought to the arts funding debate, scanning both Web & newspapers for details & any recent developments worth noting. Blogger & literary editor Curtis Faville has summed up a position (though from an American perspective) that, except for a few minor points, almost exactly mirrors my own. In fact, it was his own reflection on government support for artistic activity in the States that prompted me to look more closely into my own views on this important issue. But in doing so I've had to make important exceptions & qualifications.

Citing the 1989 case of Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" photographic image (of the crucifix placed in the author's own urine) as a case of egregiously offensive work that should never have gotten any National Endowment for the Arts funding, Faville states flatly that "Government support of the arts is by its nature backward and oppressive. It should never be permitted. Not one tenth of one percent of the public's treasure should be given to it." I agree with the spirit of his comment, but where I do differ from Faville is in the percentage figure (stated for rhetorical effect, presumably): I'd be content rather to reduce the real total of public monies given to arts funding to about a significant one-third. What third am I referring to? And why do they alone, in Canada, form the exception to my anti-arts funding rule?

Supporters of subsidized arts & culture normally usually give two-pronged attack against their opponents, making the historical and economic case for arts funding. Firstly, the iconic The Massey Commission document of 1951 established the creation of Federal agencies (the biggest being the arm's-length Canada Council for the Arts) whose primary mandate is to give financial help to writers, musicians, dancers, painters, architects, actors and the Aboriginal arts. Section xv, in particular, is oftentimes cited as justification for the need to support creative individuals who would languish without direct government assistance. The role they play in maintaining a healthy democracy through independent thought & artistic forms of expression is too important to ignore :

No novelist, poet, short story writer, historian, biographer, or other writer of non-technical books can make even a modestly comfortable living by selling his [or her] work in Canada. No composer of music can live at all on what Canada pays him[/her] for his[/her] compositions. Apart from radio drama, no playwright, and only a few actors and producers, can live by working in the theatre in Canada. Few painters and sculptors, outside the fields of commercial art and teaching, can live by sale of their work in Canada.

Secondly, if Enigma Research Corp. specializing in economic impact studies is to be believed, there are the obvious financial benefits to had from government subsidies (coming mostly from the $20 million Celebrate Ontario fund) awarded to special events such as Pride, Luminato and the Toronto International Film Festival, direct boons to the economy measured mostly in terms of tax revenue and employment. Pride alone is said to have generated $29.7 million to Toronto's GDP in 2009. Researchers at Deloitte & Touche have also made recent comments about the benefits of the CBC to the Canadian economy, benefits ranging in the billions of dollars.

Other events have done as well, according to Enigma: the Toronto Film Festival, for example, is expected to generate $200 million by 2012. Caribana, and Shaw and Stratford theatre events have also given back to the public impressive spin offs to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) is said to have helped artists win as many as 69 Juno nominations. Other success stories could presumably be told, though in more modest terms, for the hundreds of other smaller arts & culture venues. It's estimated that about10,000 funding requests go to Canadian Heritage annually.

Now, of course, support for special events comes from private and public purses but its the taxpayer-funded portions and the government agencies responsible for them that get the most press. And with good reason. There is such a thing as arts for profit only: arts & culture events that are run on a purely for-profit basis, relying exclusively on public support.The Rozsa Arts Management Awards in Alberta, for example, gives generous cash prizes to the most profitable arts ventures & arts management entrepreneurs. I think of "The Aeolian Performing Arts Centre" in London, Ontario, created by cultural entrepreneur Clark Bryan, that's also run for profit, a place of music, dance & performance poetry undistracted by the politics of funding.

In determining who gets funding I'll apply a steadfast principle of proximity: the closer the event, art and exhibition to the people, the more culturally significant. If you're going to fund the arts, democratize the process at least. My idea of a significant third comprises of performances by professional artists, cultural festivals, art galleries & museums and live performing arts. Among the culture and heritage projects & events worthy of public support are, to take a few recent examples, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto, (the new home for the National Ballet of Canada), & the Francophone Games in Sudbury, The Near North Mobile Media Lab in North Bay and theYarmouth Seafest.

I do applaud, however, the government's recent decision to cut cultural programs in areas where this desirable proximity is lacking. The Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada, the Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund &National Training Program in the Film and Video Sector are some of the programs recently cut, government subsidies aimed at promoting activities with little or no direct public participation or general interest. They're seen as frivolous or as supporting small niche groups of musicians, experimentalist poets and filmmakers, & no one is sorry to see them go. How can a $4.7 million artists' travel support fund have ever been justified in the first place? Or postdoctoral fellows exempted from taxation? Or Canada Heritage funds be given to a Canadian punk band CD with an image of a risen Jesus figure made of excrement?

It costs about $1-billion annually to fund the CBC but it's an expenditure justified in terms of the quality of programming and news reporting it provides (though lately some have decried its lack of commitment to the arts in general). Recently Sun News Network has pilloried Order of Canada laureate and interpretive dancer Margie Gillis & her dance company for having received $1.2 million dollars over the past 13 years directly from Canada Council: but, again, it's grossly unfair criticism given the appeal of her performances to many over the years. I don't, however, have much pity for the plight of small publications, mostly literary mags like Arc Poetry Magazine and elitist academic periodicals with circulations under 5, 000. If people aren't reading them, government ought to stop the funding.

Not entirely comfortable with the notion of subsidized culture I do see the need for governmental assistance where popular support for certain arts & culture programs is particularly strong & ongoing. There are just some things too nationally defining (like ballet, theatre and music) to leave to market forces. I'd prefer myself to see all artistic enterprises to be of the run-for-profit variety (such as the "Aeolian" in London): the belief that the arts ought to rely solely on the largesse of an enlightened public has always seemed indubitably true. Perhaps the messiness of the politics of arts funding has lately compromised some of that certainty for me.