If you care about the arts, vote
Just two more sleeps until the municipal election. You’re planning to vote, right?
My sense is that most people involved with arts, culture and heritage in a sustained way do. Which means that, given the low turnout in local elections, if we voted as a block we could determine the outcome of most any race.
We don’t, though. We also avoid asking tough questions and making clear demands. Which may be all for the best.
As it stands, a vibrant arts scene is something almost everyone agrees is a worthy objective. Presented in vague, general terms, it’s a feel-good issue.
Specifics could create rifts. An arts-centred phalanx of voters with firm, clear demands would likely soon be met with opposing forces.
Back in the day, the Arts Council used to run an elaborate “ArtsVote” program for municipal elections, complete with all-candidates sessions and a questionnaire. Responses were evaluated with letter grades: “F” was a more common score than “A.”
The problem is, for the next four years you have to deal with whoever wins. Anyone branded as lacklustre during the campaign is likely to perform precisely that way as mayor, councillor or school board trustee.
Twice over the three times ArtsVote Waterloo Region happened there were threats of legal action from candidates unhappy with their grades. Fortunately, nothing more happened. The question is, can antagonizing someone in such a severe way ever yield productive results?
A clear, firm promise can make trouble for a candidate. A couple of weeks ago, CBC Radio’s “Sunday Edition” replayed an interview with
Peter Herndoff, former CEO of the National Arts Centre, who is known for “his uncanny ability to convince politicians to fund the arts, even when budgets are tight.”
What struck me were Herndoff’s reflections on the Harper years, and his view that we tend to “misread to some degree the way the Conservatives operated when they were in office.” In fact, he contends, they “… were reasonably generous to the arts across the country [and] … certainly very sympathetic to the National Arts Centre … Stephen Harper didn’t want to speak much about his support of the arts because it didn’t particularly play well to his base.”
These thoughts came to mind during the “Creative Industries — Economic Drivers” panel discussion at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery last Tuesday, when someone mentioned the discrepancy between the $25 per capita dedicated to supporting the arts in Toronto and the 62 cents per capita invested through the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund.
The gap isn’t quite so ridiculous. The figure is for all arts funding, so a better comparison would be with the Toronto Arts Council granting program, which has a budget of $17.8 million — roughly, $3.35 per capita. Now Toronto is a singletier municipality, and TAC grants cover more than just projects, so it’s still not a straight comparison. But let’s imagine a platform that proposes tripling the current Arts Fund allocation, rounded out to an even $2 per capita.
Which would not be an unreasonable proposition. But if a candidate for Regional Chair or Council announced a firm promise of investing just a toonie from each of us to make art happen in our communities, it would almost certainly backfire. Without lengthy and careful explanation — far more than can fit on a campaign flyer or in a three-minute presentation at an all-candidates forum — a million dollar pledge would come across as reckless.
An election campaign is not the time for detailed cultural planning. And it would be better to look for champions among the elected, rather than among those seeking election.
On Monday, I’m voting for candidates that: • are capable of visionary leadership, as David Marskell of TheMuseum recommends in his op ed piece in Monday’s paper (which to me means being able to recognize something truly visionary when it emerges from the community);
• show fortitude, which includes being able to inspire and reflect the confidence we have in ourselves, individually and collectively; and
• have open and generous minds.