Victoria to look at relief for arts and culture

Victoria city council will decide Thursday whether to approve a variety of relief measures for the arts and culture sector hard hit by COVID-19 and the associated economic crisis.

Coun. Jeremy Loveday and Mayor Lisa Helps have proposed a series of steps aimed at helping organizations survive despite the cancellation of festivals and other large gatherings.

“Many of them were relying on ticket sales from seasonal events that occur in the spring and summer to sustain their yearly operations,” Loveday said in an interview. “Those ticket sales aren’t occurring. And so we have many organizations that will be lucky to make it through this time, and we will be lucky as a community if they do make it through.

“So I’m hoping that the city will step up to support the cultural sector, just as we are for many other groups, through these challenging times.”

Loveday and Helps want the city to reactivate parts of its Create Victoria master plan that were put on hold when the pandemic hit, including filling a new staff position and launching a $100,000 grants fund aimed at preventing the loss of arts venues.

Even before COVID-19 hit, many studios, galleries and other cultural spaces were in danger of shutting down due to rapidly increasing land values and skyrocketing rents, Loveday said. With their revenues now in free fall, many of those places are at even greater risk.

He said the grants program, although relatively modest, will allow cultural groups to unlock additional money from provincial and federal governments.

“Those granting programs from upper levels of government look very fondly upon proof of local support.”

As well, Loveday and Helps propose that city staff report on options for a separate set of grants to kickstart events that allow people to come together while still obeying health directives on physical distancing.

Once those restrictions are lifted, the grants would support events to bring people back downtown, helping small businesses in the process.

“There’ll be a cost for a new round of grants for sure, but I think there’s going to be a bigger cost if we do nothing,” Helps said, noting that the city is already facing the bleak prospect of a summer without many of its signature events, including JazzFest, Victoria Symphony of Splash and the annual Canada Day celebrations.

“So I think we have a role to step in to provide small amounts of funding so that the arts and culture community can create something.”

Doug Jarvis, administrator of the Pro Art Alliance of Greater Victoria, said it makes sense for the city to activate the Create Victoria plan, which was developed after extensive consultation with the arts and culture sector.

“This community’s already done this work and the Create Victoria plan has elements there to build upon,” she said. “If we just keep it moving and get back to it being implemented, well then, we should be in good shape.”

Loveday and Helps also recommend sponsoring an award at the annual Pro Art Regional Arts Awards through a $5,000 grant to alliance.

Loveday said it’s particularly important to support the arts at a time when people are relying on everything from books and movies to podcasts and online tours of museums to cope with physical distancing rules.

“The way that people have turned to arts and culture to get through this time of being isolated shows the value of arts and culture in terms of the connectivity and community that it builds,” he said.