Home | Resources > Newsletter | Synergy - March 13, 2006

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I have spent the past 3 days attending the Chalmers Conference and the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) policy conference on behalf of our members.  Over the years there have been many conferences that focused on the state of the arts and artists in Canadian society and how best to advocate for the sector. This conference was one of the most frustrating and fruitful of any I have attended. 

Frustrating because many of the old arguments were trotted out again, fruitful because out of that frustration a desire was born to try a different approach -- one that sees the arts community working cohesively as a sector, then branching out to other sectors.

Keith Kelly former Executive Director of the CCA wrote in the Blizzard newsletter, “There is a great need for clarity and consistency in our representations to the federal government. We must revisit our fundamental assumptions as well as the language we use to describe our expectations of government and of each other. We must be able to step back sufficiently from our own sub-sectoral sets of interests to identify what is required for the good of the greater number.  We must be able to demonstrate that as a sector, we recognize the scope and nature of changing relationships within our ranks.”

Each person is a cultural citizen and each has the right to access a full range of arts and cultural experiences. We in the arts and culture sector provide those opportunities. By recognizing the cultural rights of the communities we work in, and by partnering with other sectors, business, health, education and municipal governments, we can create a culture of appreciation for the arts in every community and point to that support when we are advocating for adequate and stable funding for the sector.

In the short term, the Canadian Arts Coalition is working to ensure that increased funding to the Canada Council is on the new government’s political agenda.  If you have not already done so please write to your MP, congratulating them on their election and reminding them that the increase to the Canada Council has all party support and that it is critical for an increase to be included in the upcoming budget. Remember that in a minority government all party support is important. Click here to access a sample letter to inspire you.  Please cc your letter to the Alliance, The Minister of Heritage, Bev Oda and the Prime Minister. Click here for contact information.   

Provincially, we have the opportunity as a sector to bring clear and consistent representation to the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Arts at a summit taking place on April 11, entitled “Arts and Culture: Building BC’s Creative Agenda”. Due to limited space, participation in the summit is by invitation, however the arts and cultural sector will be well represented. 

In order to prepare for the summit, the Alliance is interested in gathering input from, and building consensus within, its membership and other interested citizens. Therefore we are hosting a meeting on March 23 at 6:30 pm at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. Please RSVP to info@allianceforarts.com or 604.681.3535 ext. 201.

The most pressing issue in Vancouver is of course the budget. Securing the second $1 million increase for arts and cultural grant programs is part of a long-term plan to develop operational capacity and programming as Vancouver moves towards 2010 and beyond. The Alliance has sent out a survey to gather evidence of the impact the 2005 increase had on artists, audiences and visitors.  Please let City Councillors and the Mayor know the $1million in new funding is critical to Vancouver’s future as a creative city.  Click here for contact information for your elected officials and please remember to cc a copy of your letter to the Alliance.

City officials are moving forward with the development of a naming rights policy. A “Community Advisory Committee” is being formed to provide input to make recommendations on the policy.  The Alliance has been asked to sit on this committee and would appreciate any input you may have on the subject.

It is a busy time for all of us and also a critical time for moving a creative agenda forward at all three levels of government. There is a wonderful momentum right now and it is a great time to take action. Let the arts burst forth with the flowers and trees of spring.

Arts Advocacy Action Items:

 1. Write to your MP, the Prime Minister and the Heritage Minister about the necessity of the Canada Council funding increase.

 2. Contact Vancouver City Councillors and the Mayor to express your support for arts funding.

 3.  Record your comments on Vancouver’s budget choices by filling out the City Choices Questionnaire at  http://vancouver.ca/citychoices_wa/index.cfm by Wednesday, March 15.

4. Send your comments on Vancouver’s budget to citychoices@vancouver.ca.

5. Attend the public meeting regarding the 2006 budget at Vancouver City Hall on Wednesday, March 22 at 7:30 pm

6. Attend the pre-Arts Summit meeting hosted by the Alliance on March 23 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre at 6:30 p.m.

Heather Redfern
hredfern@allianceforarts.com
604.681.3535 ext. 209

A word from the Editor

The importance of art in our public spaces was recently confirmed for me at a Canadian Music Centre’s “New Music in New Places” concert in Stanley Park. The performance, a stunning flute and soprano duet, was set deep in the park on a chilly Sunday afternoon. I was there with a handful of others expressly to take in the performance, but there were others who simply wandered by, drawn in by the sound of the music floating over the lake and trees. A father and his three young sons, a group of exchange students, a young duo of skateboard-toting boys and a gray-haired man leaning on his cane and a tree trunk looking up at the sky with his eyes closed. I saw expressions of surprise and delight in the passersby’s. In offering art on an average day in a public setting, the Canadian Music Centre made the performance of Canadian works by Vancouver musicians a widely accessible and moving experience.

The 2006/2007 provincial budget includes $3 million for the Arts, Culture and Heritage line of the budget of the Ministry of Tourism, Sports and Arts. The $3 million increase will be used for initiatives such as feasibility studies, strategic planning, supporting communities in hosting major cultural events and developing plans to commemorate the province’s sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary.

 “In the Speech from the Throne the government said that arts and culture are the building blocks of innovation, invention and understanding,” said Heather Redfern, Executive Director of the Alliance for Arts and Culture.

“Unfortunately that sentiment has not translated into an increased investment in the BC Arts Council. The Council is the province’s best vehicle to deliver sustainable arts and cultural programming in communities across British Columbia.”

The Service Plan for the Ministry also revealed two new performance measures it will use. The first measure will document self-generated revenue as a percentage of total budget in 25 key arts and cultural organizations. The second measure will be the development and implementation of an Arts, Culture and Heritage Strategy. The plan will include strategies to ensure the sector is prepared to leverage opportunities related to the 2010 games. In addition, the provincial government announced a $40.5 million dollar contribution to establish a World Centre for Digital Media on the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver.

Three other infrastructure projects, an Asia-Pacific Museum of Trade and Culture, a National Centre of Northwest Aboriginal Art and Culture and a World Women’s History Museum will undergo feasibility studies.

Click here to view the budget.

Related stories...

More money for work and play: They may say this is a budget for kids, but ... this doesn't seem to do it for me'
The Vancouver Sun
February 22, 2006
By Petti  Fong

For the price of Carole Taylor's new Gucci shoes, Joecy Shepherd's daughters could be dancing.

Ms. Shepherd, a single mother of three in Vancouver, said she could participate more fully in what the Finance Minister calls British Columbia's strong economy if she had a bit more help for things like sending her children to after-school and weekend sports and arts programs.

"Doing stuff costs money," said Ms. Shepherd, a freelance script supervisor and photographer. "I was desperately trying to get back to work a few years ago and I was on a waiting list for a year to get into daycare and other programs."

Her two daughters -- 10-year-old Na-Ku-Set and six-year-old Nepewisk -- want to take dancing lessons, but the costs are too prohibitive for their mom. If she had the $600 Ms. Taylor paid for her budget-day shoes at Holt-Renfrew, she could start both girls tapping.

Ms. Shepherd said finding a way to get her daughters into a dance class would also give her a few more hours to work on her freelance business.

"For me, it's not about cutting taxes. It wouldn't make much difference to me if they reduce taxes," she said. "We would be further ahead if the government put money into things like increasing spending for cultural programs or sports."

Ms. Shepherd said yesterday's budget doesn't go far enough in helping her improve her situation.

"They may say this is a budget for kids, but I think there are a lot of people like me who hope that the government can really help them. This doesn't seem to do it for me," she said after the budget was tabled in the legislature.

But the Finance Minister defended her budget, saying that every single initiative helps families.

"When you put extra dollars into children and youth in mental health, that helps. When you put extra dollars into families that have children with disabilities, that helps," she said. "All of those initiatives inevitably help families."

The budget's focus on children was exactly what Jess Howard, of Cobble Hill, outside of Victoria, was looking for. Ms. Howard has four children, including one who requires a speech therapist.

"The more help you get when your kids are young, the less money you have to spend in the long run," she said.

The family used to live in Vancouver, but moved to Victoria and then to a rural area. The money saved in housing expenses and other costs of urban living has been offset by reduced services, she said. Her son has to share his speech therapist with other students from several schools. The family has started to pay for private therapy because the government-offered service does not provide enough help.

"I'm a mother so education is important to me and so is health services," Ms. Howard said. "Because my son is in speech therapy, those kind of services have been so drastically cut over the years that any help in those areas would be a huge help."

Ms. Taylor said the Liberal government will put more money into one-on-one support and part of the $421-million to be spent during the next four years will go toward enhancing services for children. Most of the money will be spent on more social workers, counselling services and improved help for aboriginal children, and support for extended family members caring for children.

But some of that funding will also go toward improving services such as physical, speech-language and occupational therapies.

Master's in digital media takes off: $40.5 million committed to Canada's first graduate program
The Vancouver Sun
February 22, 2006
By Gordon Hamilton

A $40.5-million commitment in the 2006 budget to fund Canada's first master's program in digital media was described Tuesday as a crucial step in developing Vancouver as the Hollywood of the digital world. Graduates of the program will have an education that combines technical expertise and the arts with an overlay of business skills, said Lynda Brown, president of New Media B.C., an association of 300 new media companies in the province. She expects to see the school pumping out some of the world's best digital game creators and movie makers.

"This has been a long time in the making," Brown said. "Vancouver is one of the largest game-development centres in the world and in order to get to the next level of our development, we are facing a real talent crunch. There is no graduate program like this in Canada and there are very few of them in the world. "We see B.C. becoming the Hollywood of the digital media industry."

The province already has a skilled pool of people working in new media but has not had a training facility to boost talent to the next level: a master's degree. Brown described the degree as the artistic and technical equivalent of an MBA in business.

The program is to be offered in a new building to be constructed at the Great Northern Way campus, a partnership between the University of B.C., Simon Fraser University, the Emily Carr Institute and the B.C. Institute of Technology.

The one-time government funding is to be used to fund the program, contribute to the capital costs of constructing a new World Centre for Digital Media at the campus and provide an endowment that will be used to defray operating costs. New media companies in B.C. are also contributing an additional $8 million in funding.

2. Report shows BC home to many of Canada’s most artistic small municipalities

Artists in Small and Rural Municipalities in Canada, a new report from Hill Strategies Research, finds significant concentrations of artists in small and rural municipalities across Canada. The study is based on a custom data request from Statistics Canada’s 2001 census, conceived of and commissioned by Hill Strategies Research. The full report and regional summaries are available for free from the Hill Strategies Research website (http://www.hillstrategies.com).

 A key finding of the report – that there are significant concentrations of artists in small and rural municipalities across the country – demonstrates that the arts contribute to the quality of life and the social and economic vitality of many small and rural communities in Canada. Particularly in small and rural municipalities, a strong artistic community can lead to “pride of place” and can therefore enhance the whole community’s well-being. A strong artistic presence can also help to draw new residents to communities, including artists and others who are stimulated, inspired and entertained by the arts.

The B.C. municipality with the highest artistic concentration is Squamish-Lillooet D Regional District Electoral Area (largely situated between Vancouver and Whistler), which has 45 artists among a total labour force of 480, for an artistic concentration of 9.4%. This is second only to Cape Dorset among Canadian municipalities. Other B.C. municipalities in the “top 10” list are: Comox-Strathcona K Regional District Electoral Area (or “RDA”, 8.2%); Bowen Island (6.6%); Nanaimo B RDA (5.8%); Capital F RDA (5.2%); Lions Bay (4.8%); and Cowichan Valley G RDA (4.4%).

Read the full report here.

Related stories

Small-town BC leads nation in artistic endeavours, study shows
The Vancouver Sun
February 15, 2006
By Kevin Griffin

Small-town life in B. C. is more artful than in other parts of Canada. A national study of where artists live and work has found that B.C. has seven of the country's 10 most artistic small and rural municipalities. In fact, three of the top 10 are neighbours: the Squamish- Lillooet regional district that includes Whistler is ranked as the second most artistic at 9.4 per cent followed by the Howe Sound communities of Bowen Island at 6.6 per cent and Lions Bay at 4.8 per cent.

But Lions Bay mayor Max Wyman disputes the study's numbers a wee bit. Based on Lions Bay residents doing their own count, he figures Lions Bay should be a little higher: up around 5.5 per cent.

"The great thing is I've always known that this region is a hotbed of creative activity," he said. "This just goes to prove it."

Asked why the area known as Sea to Sky country should have so many artists, Wyman said he didn't have a definite answer.

"I don't know why it is. Perhaps it's the location. All these places are places where you can get away from the hustle and bustle of the city and let your creative juices flow. That's the magic of Lions Bay: we have the sense of living in the wilderness, yet we have the city a half an hour away. It's a glorious spot."

Wyman, a former critic and editor at The Vancouver Sun is author, most recently, of The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters. He is also president of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He said the study sends a message to policy makers that the arts need to be nurtured.

"As far as I'm concerned culture is a pillar -- not a frill," Wyman said. "It's as essential as hospitals and roads."

The study by Hill Strategies of communities of less than 50,000 people found that the most artistic community in the country is Cape Dorset, Nunavut where 22.7 per cent (110 of 485) of adult residents are artists -- mainly carvers and printmakers.

The report said Cape Dorset, a village with no paved roads, has produced Inuit art that's "probably the best-known face of Canadian art on the world stage." The other top artistic communities in B.C. are Comox-Strathcona, Nanaimo, the Victoria area that includes Saltspring Island, and the Cowichan Valley.

The study, based on the 2001 Census, said that with 24,100 artists, B.C. has the largest percentage of its labour force in the arts of any province: 1.1 per cent. Nationally, there are 130,700 artists across the country: 0.8 per cent of the workforce.

"A key finding ... that there are significant concentrations of artists in small and rural municipalities across the country -- demonstrates that the arts contribute to the quality of life and the social and economic vitality of many small and rural communities in Canada," the report says.

"A strong artistic community can lead to 'pride of place' and can therefore enhance the whole community's well-being. A strong artistic presence can also help to draw new residents to communities, including artists and others who are stimulated, inspired and entertained by the arts."

 

3. New Heritage Critic announced

The Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Bill Graham, has named Ontario MP, Mauril Bélanger as the new Canadian Heritage Critic. Mr. Belanger was  Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage from 1998 to 2000.

In the previous Liberal government Mr. Bélanger was the Deputy Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Minister responsible for Official Languages, Minister responsible for Democratic Reform and Associate Minister of National Defence. In May 2005, the Prime Minister asked him to assume additional duties as the Minister for Internal Trade. He has chaired the Standing Committee on Official Languages and co-chaired the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Group. He has also served as member of the Standing Committees on Industry, Citizenship and Immigration, Canadian Heritage, and of the joint Senate and House of Commons special committees studying bilateral constitutional amendments for Newfoundland and Quebec. He was also a member of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Urban Issues.

Bélanger represents the largely francophone riding of Ottawa-Vanier in eastern Ottawa has been a noted advocate for the rights of Franco-Ontarians.

View the complete list of Liberal critics.

View Mr. Bélanger's website.

Read the shadow cabinet announcement.

4. Elizabeth Ball and Heather Deal appointed to City Creative Task Force

On Tuesday, February 14, Vancouver City Council approved the appointment of Councillor Elizabeth Ball and Councillor Heather Deal as liaison councillors to the City Creative Task Force.  

The Creative City Task Force is comprised of city councillors, community representatives and city staff to undertake a stakeholder consultation process to identify strategic goals, directions and priority objectives together with recommendations for the city’s role in development of the arts, culture, community celebrations, and special events.

Click here for more information.

5. Vancouver Parks Board letter to arts and culture stakeholders

6. Pre-Arts Summit meeting

The Province of British Columbia is holding an Arts Summit on April 11, 2006 in order to develop a framework for cultural policy and a vision for the future of the arts in BC. The summit is a provincial gathering of political, arts, cultural and heritage representatives and will provide the Ministry of Tourism Sports and the Arts with objectives to guide the development of an action plan and budget projections. The Alliance for Arts and Culture will be a participant at the Summit.

In order to bring your issues and ideas to the table, the Alliance for Arts and Culture is inviting you to join a facilitated meeting on March 23, 2006 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre (677 Davie Street) from 6:30  to 9:30 p.m. The Alliance is holding the meeting for our members and stakeholders in order to gather your priorities and take your interests to the Summit.

Space is limited. Please RSVP to info@allianceforarts.com or call 604-681-3535 ext. 201.

7. Alliance Board of Directors meeting minutes now online

The Alliance for Arts and Culture will now be posting the minutes of  the Board of Directors monthly meetings online. Starting with the January 2006 board meeting, the minutes can be found at http://www.allianceforarts.com/about-us/boardminutes.html.

Minutes from previous years are available at the Alliance's office.

8. New program comes out of BC Arts Renaissance Fund

As part of the BC Arts Renaissance Fund, a new program has been created to support planning and organizational development initiatives. The MEDICI program (Management, Endowment, Development, Implementation, Capacity and Innovation) will support activities that assist arts and cultural organizations improve their capacity, market their offerings and seek out strategic opportunities. Priority for MEDICI program grants will be given to organizations that are working towards accessing the BC Arts Renaissance Fund’s matching endowment program. Further information can be found here.  

9. Over 14,400 authors receive Public Lending Right Commission cheques

A total of 14,441 Canadian writers, translators and illustrators received payments last week amounting to more than $8.9 million from the Public Lending Right (PLR) Commission. The PLR Commission, founded in 1986, remunerates Canadian authors for the presence of their books in the country’s public libraries. PLR payments are determined by sampling the holdings of a representative number of libraries across the country.

Read more.

10. Accessing gaming funds seminar

11. Kids Up Front program makes good use of unused tickets

12. Membership services: Did you know about Tickets Tonight?

13. Charities and Democracy Project says registered charities should be able to advocate

14. Industry News

15. Calls

16. Kudos