Arts missing from the federal campaign
New champions in government are needed, writes Karl Schwonik.
“I just don’t fit in.” Countless parents and teachers have no doubt heard this phrase as we begin another school year and young people manoeuvre to find their place both in the classroom and in social circles.
Similarly, the arts community is looking to see how it fits into the looming federal election. Trying to decipher opaque party platforms and sifting through the limited time parties give to riding candidates (while drowning in the exhaustive time given to party leaders) can prove a futile exercise to those looking for concrete answers.
For many Albertans, the arts are important and play an integral part in their families’ lives. The annual report entitled Arts Impact Alberta, published by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (the provincial public funder that allocates north of $25 million annually to the arts), states that 85 per cent of adults in the province attended an arts event last year and tens of thousands more volunteered for the arts. These are significant numbers. Surely similar figures exist around the country as millions of Canadians participate in, volunteer for, donate to and generally value the arts every day.
So why are the arts not fitting into the priority list of political debates and local stump speeches? Quotes like those seen recently from chairman William Adams of the National Endowment for Humanities (one of two U.S. federal public arts funders) certainly do not help: “It’s been difficult to make arguments for incremental funding (increases) when the total size of the federal budget has been flat….” The arts community, on both sides of the border, begs to differ. Examples of compelling arguments to increase support of the arts abound in everyday life, from our kids’ activities in school and the intersection of business with the arts, to the grand opera stage and glamorous opening galas on Friday nights in cities across Canada.
Indeed, there are a few causes for excitement for the arts around the country. For the first time, Canada’s most populous province, through its provincial public funder the Ontario Arts Council, is looking to implement a strategy on the arts and culture. The Canada Council for the Arts, under renewed executive leadership, transformed itself from a federal granting body with an alarming 147 programs to having a concise and innovative six. Not to be outdone, ever-aspirational Calgary has two new shrines to the arts: the impending National Music Centre and the newly christened Bella Concert Hall at Mount Royal University. There are simply not enough current goodnews stories such as these.
We need new champions for the arts; ones who, unlike chairman Adams, are passionate about and can easily make the case for more emphasis on and funding through government policy. Canada has had several examples of these, notably the late Joseph L. Rotman, former chairman of the Can- ada Council for the Arts, and Alberta’s own retired senator, Tommy Banks. However, the names of current elected officials, or federal party leaders, that could be added to this list are few and far between. I would like to believe that our political parties value the arts and have a substantial plan to support individual artists and organizations so that they can thrive in the sector. This view may be overly optimistic, however, considering the record of broken and/or obscure campaign promises made to the arts community — including a couple of recent examples in Alberta.
The arts fit into the daily lives of every Canadian and engage society via countless mediums and genres. We need more champions of the arts in our government and more attention paid to the arts in this federal campaign because, as chairman Adams says, “it’s been difficult.”