Liberals, NDP pledge to bolster arts

Ontario’s Liberals and New Democrats are promising to bulk up spending on the arts sector, whose funding they say was already being whittled away before the COVID-19 pandemic closed galleries and cancelled concerts.

The NDP platform pledges to “stabilize annual funding for the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Media Development Corporation,” while the Liberals said they would “restore funding” for arts, music and culture.

“The arts sector does really give a lot of our communities their sense of character, the kinds of things that we love,” Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca said during a campaign stop in Milton on Saturday.

The Liberals peg the cost of restoring funding at $25 million each year starting in 2023-24, in addition to $5 million for the Indigenous Culture Fund, which the Ford government scrapped in 2019.

The New Democrats have yet to release costing for their plans, but their platform says the party would establish a $50-million fund over the course of five years to “match TV and film industry investment in new studio space.”

The arts sector does really give a lot of our communities their sense of character.

STEVEN DEL DUCA ONTARIO LIBERAL LEADER