Recent cuts by the federal government could jeopardize Canada’s high-profile involvement in an internationally recognized craft festival held in South Korea, the executive director of the Crafts Association of B.C. says.

Yvonne Chui told the Straight that Canada has been selected as the official guest country for the 2009 Cheongju International Craft Biennale, an event that will feature more than 3,000 artists from 50 nations. But the country’s participation is at risk after the axing of grant programs that funded exploratory work on the project.

On August 8, as reported on www.straight.com/, news leaked that the $4.7-million PromArt program, an arts and culture travel grant administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, will end March 31, 2009.

On August 11, the Department of Canadian Heritage announced that Trade Routes, a $9-million grant program, will also be terminated next March. And late last week, further cuts were revealed when the government quietly posted notices on Web pages announcing that the $27.1-million Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program’s Stabilization Projects and Capacity Building program, which provide financial and administrative support to arts organizations, will not be extended beyond 2009.

“A lot of our funding is at the provincial level, and the foundations and corporates want to see matching funds from the federal government, or at least some support from the federal government,” said Chui, who noted that the CABC received $20,000 in 2007 from PromArt and Trade Routes for an exploratory mission to the festival.

Other local art and cultural groups say they, too, will feel the pinch of the program cuts. Jim Smith, producer of the cultural management agency Eponymous, said the loss of PromArt and Trade Routes will directly affect touring dance groups, including Holy Body Tattoo and Kidd Pivot.

“Just as the Vancouver dance community is starting to come into stride, future international touring possibilities are going to be much more challenging in terms of actually being able to finance them when they come along,” he said.

Magnetic North Theatre Festival, which alternates between Ottawa and a different Canadian city each year, had its largest-ever event this past June in Vancouver, and artistic director Ken Cameron said the loss of the travel grants will be strongly felt by his organization.

“What we’ve been using the funding for is to bring international presenters into Canada to see Canadian work,” he said by phone from Edmonton. “Thirty-seven percent of the plays that have been presented have received an invitation to tour internationally. That’s huge, and…none of that will be happening, thanks to these cuts.”

Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles, executive director of the Alliance for Arts and Culture, told the Straight that arts groups across the country are mobilizing in response to the cuts. “What we think we should be doing is…saying we need a longer-term strategy here,” he said. “If these aren’t the right investments to make, let’s look at better investments.”