Eight mayoral candidates discuss the arts
Mayoral candidates talk of reworking city’s controversial policy at debate
The first official debate of the municipal election campaign saw Calgary’s eight declared mayoral candidates grilled on their commitment to growing arts and culture in the city.
The packed forum at Theatre Junction Grand touched on a number of topics, including the city’s public art policy and funding for local arts companies struggling in the downturn.
Some of the front-runners, including Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who is seeking re-election, said they would be in favour of tweaking the city’s public art policy following the unveiling of the city’s controversial new installation, Bowfort Towers.
“I think that the system needs to work much better,” Nenshi said. “I would like to see a program that is more flexible in terms of geographic placement of the art, and also in terms of what the art is: is it temporary exhibits? Long-term exhibits? And I would like to see, yes, more public engagement.”
Lawyer Bill Smith said he’s hearing complaints about the Bowfort Towers installation on the doorsteps and called the city’s public art policy “flawed.”
“I think it’s given the arts community a black eye,” Smith said of the $500,000 project. “We had an opportunity to fix (Calgary’s public art policy) in 2013, but due to poor leadership it wasn’t done and that’s frustrating.”
The forum saw Nenshi joined by seven challengers, including Smith, Coun. Andre Chabot, Shawn Baldwin, Emile Gabriel, Paul Hughes, David Lapp and David Tremblay.
WordFest CEO Shelley Youngblut, who served as debate moderator, pressed candidates to discuss their commitment to arts funding beyond just the much-debated public art policy.
Last July, city council approved $2 million in bridge funding for some of Calgary’s larger arts institutions suffering from declining donations and corporate sponsorships.
Chabot, who voted in favour of the bridge funding, said Calgary should continue working with provincial and federal governments to support local arts.
“Let’s see how we can work with not just the community and private sector donors, but also other orders of government to maximize on the ability to fund our arts organizations,” Chabot said.
Some critics of council’s bridge funding decision have pointed out the funding only went to 10 of the city’s largest arts organizations and call it a Band-Aid solution that did little to address ongoing shortfalls in arts funding.
Numbers compiled by Calgary Arts Development suggest municipal arts grants in Calgary rank among the lowest in Canada at $6.50 per capita. That compares to per-capita funding levels of $13.54 in Edmonton, and $19.36 in Vancouver, the highest in the country, according to the 2016 data, which excludes capital investments.
Nenshi said while he’s in favour of revisiting the funding model for local arts companies in next year’s budget cycle if he’s re-elected, he doesn’t think Calgary should necessarily be competing with the per-capita funding levels in other municipalities.
“It’s clear that we have to have a shift in terms of how we fund the large organizations. They’ve been very, very reliant on large corporate sponsors and they’ve let their muscles atrophy on smaller fundraising,” Nenshi said after the debate.
“I think we can find a made-inCalgary solution that will likely mean more money in, but it will also mean a more thoughtful way of thinking about all the various ways in which the arts are funded.”
Mark Hopkins, with Swallowa-Bicycle Theatre, said he was a little disappointed that many of the candidates weren’t able to offer detailed positions on issues of importance to the arts communities.
“I was disappointed to hear a lot of platitudes — ‘Art is great, film is great, I love murals’ — without any specifics about how that art will be paid for,” Hopkins said.
“Calgary as one of the least-funded per capita major cities in Canada is very, very true and being felt by all the artists that work here.”