Gov’t funding of culture falling flat, says Canadian Conference of the Arts report

In May 2001, the Canadian government announced it would invest an additional $500 million in Canadian arts and culture over three years (CCR, May 10/01). More than a year after the announcement, the non-profit arts advocacy group the Canadian Conference of the Arts has examined the effect of the new funding. It concludes that program implementation has been slow, and that much of the money is being used to increase staff at Canadian Heritage, rather than flowing directly to the cultural sector. Below is an excerpt from the group's Investment in Canadian Culture report. …While the influx of new funds appears to bring federal government expenditures on culture back to levels comparable to those at the beginning of the decade, they are still well below early decade levels when considered in constant dollar terms, a more accurate measure which eliminates inflationary factors. Moreover, given that Canada's population is growing, per capita spending on culture is decreasing. These factors all indicate that the federal government is not adequately supporting its cultural objectives. Now that the first year in the three-year commitment has ended, it is time to take stock of how the new monies are being delivered. The following document has been crafted from program announcements, guidelines and other relevant documentation, as well as through discussions with members from the various sectors benefiting from the new funding and by interviews with government officials. The absence of an overarching national cultural policy, with a clear vision and guiding principles, means that these initiatives are pieces of separate puzzles, that are uncoordinated from a policy perspective. The risk is that the impact of these initiatives will be programmatically circumscribed…The federal government has called the influx of new money into the cultural sector an "investment," but unlike a typical investment, this one does not have clear articulated goals and yardsticks with which to measure its impact. It is therefore going to be very difficult to measure the full impact this new money will have on the sector...Without knowing the intended goals, it is difficult to undertake an analysis of the impact of the programs. This paper is essentially a process evaluation of how the programs are being delivered. …The funding was long overdue. Even though the Canadian arts and culture sector overall warmly welcomed the influx of new funding, it is also important to remember that the sector desperately needed the money after many years of repeated cutbacks. The new funds are perceived less as an investment, which is how the federal government has qualified this influx of funds, than as a "re-investment" into the arts and culture. Program implementation has been slow across the spectrum. The lack of prior Treasury Board approval seems to have been a contributing factor in getting the programs off the mark. Without approval, staff could not be hired, programs could not be designed, and monies could not be expended. Now that most of the last details have been settled, years 2 and 3 should be much smoother; the full impact of the new funding will only be felt over the course of the second year. The Department of Canadian Heritage is definitely staffing up. On the one hand, it means that considerable funding is staying within the department rather than flowing to the cultural sector. On the other hand, it offers hope that the programs will continue beyond the three year framework within which they were designed. A big question is: What will happen after the three years? ...Undertaking arts and cultural initiatives is not the equivalent of establishing a national cultural policy with a clear vision and guiding principles. The absence of such a policy means that these new initiatives were developed in response to programmatic imperatives, rather than policy ones. It is difficult to examine these initiatives in terms of their impact on the cultural sector without the existence of a national cultural policy that sets coherent objectives for the federal government's involvement in culture as a whole. These initiatives can thus only be examined individually, as separate pieces of separate puzzles.

Gov’t funding of culture falling flat, says Canadian Conference of the Arts report

News | 08/29/2002 4:00 am EDT

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