Election battle over arts support heats up

B.C. Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, Bill Bennett, today announced it was granting $390,000 to the latest round of the Aboriginal Arts Development Awards—an increase of $141,000 over last year.

A news release credited the BC150 Cultural Fund for the increase in funding, although it noted that an additional contribution of $140,000 came from the New Relationship Trust, an independent non-profit organization created in 2006 with a B.C. government donation of $100 million. Revenues from the BC Arts Cultural Fund, a $150-million endowment created in March 2008, were projected in this year’s provincial budget to fall from $8.33 million last year to $3.3 million.

Perhaps today’s announcement was meant to divert attention from arts support in the NDP’s 2009 platform, released Thursday (April 9). Among Carole James’s promises were pledges aimed directly at the arts community: restore the 2009 funding cuts to the arts, increase the budget for the B.C. Arts Council (though no exact figure is given), and provide a new $50 million capital fund to be administered by the B.C. Arts Council for investment in projects that support professional and community arts, culture, and heritage sectors.

While cynics may charge that in the 1990s, arts and culture funding under the NDP provincial government ranked among the lowest per-capita funding in the country, the Liberals have had trouble defending their three-year budget-planning document, released at the February 17 budget announcement.

General arts and culture funding was reduced from $19.5 million to $11.8 million this year (with a one-time $15 million boost from money left unspent from 2008-2009), with further cuts projected over the next two years: down to $9.6 million in 2010-2011 and $9.8 million in 2011-2012.