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B.C. government report on socioeconomic impact of the arts removed from arts ministry Web site
The B.C. Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts has removed all links to a report on the socioeconomic impact of arts and cultural organizations from its Web site.
The report, Socio-Economic Impacts of Arts and Cultural Organizations in B.C., written in 2006 by G.S. Sandhu & Associates, was commissioned by what was then the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and the Arts.
Among its findings was that in return for spending $9,569,009 in grants to 300 arts and cultural organizations through the B.C. Arts Council, the government received $10,040,674 to $13,008,696 in provincial taxes—a figure often referred to by arts supporters as: every dollar invested in the arts generates between $1.05 and $1.36 in provincial tax revenues.
The study also found that for every dollar of initial expenditure, additional spending in the range of $0.57 and $0.87 was generated in the B.C. economy; and that for every direct job in the arts and cultural sector of B.C. between 1.32 and 1.52 jobs were created in the whole economy.
A ministry spokesperson confirmed that the report was removed approximately nine months ago from the government Web site. The explanation given was that the report was a number of years old and removed as part of regular web maintenance.
"You can only have so much information at any one time," said the spokesperson. "We try to keep it as up to date and current as possible. The government creates numbers of reports all the time and we can't post them all on the website. They are still public documents and are available at any time upon request."
However, the Web page on which the original report was listed still lists a 2005 report from the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Expressions.
Even though it no longer appears on the ministry Web site, a cached version of the Sandhu report is currently available online here.
One: Your spokesperson told the Straight, "You can only have so much information at any one time." Why? I'm familiar with the workings of the Internet and this doesn't make sense. From a technical stand point, your spokesperson's claim is false. Space on the internet is incredibly cheap, especially for an organization that spends as much on advertising as the B.C. Liberals.
Two: Your spokesperson told the Straight, "We try to keep it as up to date and current as possible. The government creates numbers of reports all the time and we can't post them all". Following this logic, is it the Ministry's opinion that news organizations should purge their Web sites of all news articles older than nine months?
Since it doesn't take up much server space, these questions can be answered in the comment field at the bottom of this article.
http://www.straight.com/article-257340/why-do-arts-matter?#comments_here
An embarrassing report contradicts their own policy so, of course, they have to remove it. Not reply. Not argue. Not counter. Remove.
The fundamental question remains a simple one: lottery profits are up. Lottery grants are down. What have the Liberals done with the difference?
If not in support of the arts and education, gaming has no moral legitimacy in our province.
http://tatlin.com/bcartworkers/?p=72
I would suggest that any citizen of BC who has the ability to copy and post this report somewhere do exactly that.
You mean like when he directly questions the report's claimed rate of return?
In any event, you two are indeed talking about two different things. Your train of thought seems to be encapsulated with the statement about "tax dollars returned from economic activity". You're talking about an economic concept called fiscal multiplier, while he's looking at spending and returns from an accounting perspective.
For what it's worth, I do lean towards his opinion, so I guess I'm his sock puppet... the report doesn't mention time at all, and doesn't seem to be actuarially certified (what is G.S. Sandhu and Associates?). I am open to change my mind, but realistically, if the government had a way to generate money even easier than borrowing it from the Bank of Canada, I can't see them ever turning it off.
I have no idea what PAB means, though, so I don't work for them. The one thing I do find personally annoying, though, is that all this arts-cuts talk gets all sorts of media coverage, while the paramedic strike is getting almost no mention. I mean, seriously, where are our priorities? For those of us that could care less about the Olympics and public arts, but are watching our tax money thrown away on our behalf, it's not going to be fun spending the next decade paying back those debts and the interest on them.
In 2008/09, on average, full-time Primary Care Paramedics earned over $64,000 and Advanced Care Paramedics earned over $91,000 in regular pay and overtime.
Judging from these statistics the paramedics are not hurting for cash, so perhaps people aren't as concerned about the strike as you'd like them to be? (You'd certainly never see artists complaining if they made as much as $64,000 a year! Or half of that...)
Incidentally, I've seen numerous articles about the paramedics' strike, but this isn't one of them, this is part of the arts blog, which might explain why they aren't mentioned here.
I took Keith's suggestion and stored the PDF in my blog called Decimating the Arts in Canada. The BC government will try to cover their tracks, rewrite history to make themselves the heros. But they've made a lot of people's lives miserable since they came to power, and I hope those people won't forget.