It started with uncomfortable calls from bankers and bookkeepers. As 2023 progressed, Canada’s cultural institutions began to realize that the money coming in was down and the money going out was up. Way up.
“There’s a real feeling that the current models aren’t serving us any more – and that a new deal is needed,” says Brad Lepp, executive director of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres . This past March, PACT published a startling number from the Canadian Arts Data statistics database: Theatre attendance was down 46 per cent from 2019 across the country. A mix of factors is likely to blame. A recent RBC report tried to unpack why consumer spending is much higher right now in the U.S. than Canada.
Julien’s research has led him to a few non-monetary theories, too. With so much culture consumed digitally starting in March, 2020, and with digital services desperate to keep users on their services with if-you-like recommendations, he believes that all this algorithmically served-up culture keeps reinforcing society’s pandemic habits. Meanwhile, so much working from home has made travel – such as to cultural events across town – seem more cumbersome.
Executive director Anita Gaffney says that Stratford’s costs last season were up 25 per cent over 2019, and that her team has cut the 2024 budget by 3 per cent over last season in ways they hope won’t interfere with artistry and audience experiences. So far, that’s meant trimming digital content, marketing consultant fees and even cutting down on printed materials wherever possible.
The richest Canadians, whose gifts can make or break an organization’s financial well-being – and are often tied to tax incentives – have also spent the past year warning that changes to the federal tax system could lead to fewer significant donations to charities, including in the arts. Non-profit arts organizations don’t always have the budget or prestige to hire on full-time fundraising staff. “High-achieving fundraisers are needed in the other not-for-profit subsectors,” says Oliver Armstrong, producer with One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre in Calgary. It would be nice to hire fundraisers with the right contacts and skillsets, but often, “we just can’t afford it.”
Burton began reaching out to artists and administrators across other disciplines in Montreal – dance, theatre, film, writing, visual arts and beyond. Everyone was shocked at the number of declined grant applications and felt disconnected from the national granting body. In late November, they published an open letter to the Canada Council, asking for greater transparency, more community involvement with major decisions, more discipline-specific juries and a renewed focus on mid-career funding.
Some of the major recent changes to the Council’s rules, such as reserving funding for first-time applicants, have helped make its grants more accessible for a wider range of artists, Johnson says – in particular those from diverse backgrounds. But the increased demand is harder to deal with.As baseline funding for some of the country's biggest arts councils remained largely stagnant since 2019, the cost of living has risen by 18.1 per cent as measured by Consumer Price Index growth.
MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCES: ANNUAL REPORTS, AUDITED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, GOVERNMENT BUDGETS AND E-MAILED CONVERSATIONS WITH CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS, CONSEIL DES ARTS ET DES LETTRES DU QUÉBEC, ONTARIO ARTS COUNCIL, ALBERTA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS, AND THE BC ARTS COUNCIL; STATISTICS CANADAAs baseline funding for some of the country's biggest arts councils remained largely stagnant since 2019, the cost of living has risen by 18.
When governments don’t nurture arts-funding bodies in tandem with other major policy decisions, the consequences can be difficult. Consider how the grant-supported Artist-Run Centres and Collectives Conference, a federation of more than 180 visual and media-arts centres across the country, plans to handle Ontario’s coming boost to minimum wage from $16.55 an hour to $17.20.
But granting systems are crucial in a country as spread out and thinly populated as Canada, where there isn’t always an obvious commercial market for artists hoping to launch and sustain careers. “If I didn’t get arts grants, I wouldn’t have been able to finance my early work,” says Atom Egoyan, one of Canada’s most well-recognized filmmakers. Some of his earliest grant money paid for film stock. “It meant that someone like me could actually start making short films and build up a body of work.
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