20
The Conservatives are out on the hustings saying they spend more on the arts than did the Liberals. The Liberals are pledging to restore recently axed arts-and-culture programs, and accusing the Tories of cultural insensitivity.
So, wherein lies the truth?
The Globe and Mail has parsed the budgets and crunched the numbers to reveal the true trajectory of Canada's support for the arts in recent years.
A close look at federal budget documents suggests that nearly $45-million in recent federal funding cuts are symptomatic of a larger trend under the Conservatives that has seen dollars gradually shifted away from arts and culture, and funnelled instead into other branches of the Department of Canadian Heritage that focus on the department's social mandate.
The analysis also calls into question the rosy picture the Conservatives have sought to paint about their support for the arts: Although there is some truth to the government's claims, they derive their force from a vague definition of “culture” – which can comprise everything from piano recitals to ESL classes.
In an exclusive interview with The Globe last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that his government “has increased funding for the arts” – and he cited a rise in the Canadian Heritage budget as an example.
His claim is valid in a broad sense: The overall cultural budget, combining funding for the Department of Canadian Heritage and its agencies and Crown corporations (such as the National Gallery of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Arts Centre), has increased since the Conservatives took power in early 2006. In 2004-05, the Liberals spent a combined $3-billion overall – compared to about $3.3-billion that the Conservatives planned to spend this fiscal year.
But the largest apparent boost to arts funding in recent years – which, thanks to Ottawa bookkeeping practices, was credited to the Conservatives in their first year in power – overstates the Tories' commitment to arts funding, as a soon-to-be-published report from the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) explains.
Federal budget documents show the Conservatives spent $3.2-billion in 2006-07, and suggest that Liberal spending had dipped to slightly more than $2.9-billion the previous year. But the Conservative figure includes money spent by the Liberals in 2005-06. The reason: Such figures are meant to include the government's main estimates, offered when the budget is unveiled, and its supplementary estimates, which add small amounts spent as the year unfolds. In late 2005, Parliament was dissolved before the supplementary dollars spent by the Liberals could be reported – and they were instead tacked onto Conservative estimates for the following fiscal year.
For an even clearer picture of the changes that have happened to arts funding under the Tories, it's necessary to recognize, as well, the distinction that Canadian Heritage makes between its two so-called strategic outcomes.
The first, SO1, which supports Canadians in expressing their cultural experiences to each other and the world, details spending on arts and culture. The second, SO2, promotes Canada as an inclusive, diverse society, focusing on such objectives as intercultural understanding, citizen participation and sports. Although this second arm undoubtedly deals with “Canadian culture,” broadly defined, it's at best misleading to include those dollars in Harper's proclamation about funding “the arts.”
In fact, when the two outcomes are examined separately, a striking trend emerges.
Funding for SO1 during the Conservatives' first year was greater than in the previous Liberal budget, but the actual size of the increase may not be quite what it seems, thanks to the budget anomaly brought about by the election call in late 2005. Meanwhile, as the Tories have continued to govern in the years since, contributions to SO1 – the bedrock of direct federal arts-and-culture funding – have fallen from $817-million to $759-million.
Over the same period, funding for SO2 has increased each year, from $567.7-million in 2006-07 to $631.6-million in 2008-09. In the Conservatives' first year, SO1 accounted for 59 per cent of spending by Canadian Heritage. It now accounts for just 54.6 per cent. What's more, should the Conservatives remain in power after next month's election, it is expected to account for even less next year – when the government transfers the $45-million saved through strategic review to Olympic and official-languages initiatives, which fall under SO2.
Spokespeople for Canadian Heritage confirmed, when approached by The Globe this week, that every program cut under strategic review has come from the department's arts-and-culture arm, leaving untouched the branches devoted to sport, youth, citizenship and identity, and diversity and multiculturalism. Such a revelation certainly hints at a targeted approach to arts cuts, which would contradict the government's assertions that programs were axed based on simple efficiency reviews – and without ideological motivation.
“The analysis seems to point to a very worrisome trend, which is the federal government moving away from investing in arts and culture toward more societal aspects of the mandate of the Heritage Department,” says Alain Pineau, national director of the CCA. “I'm not against that – but it's not new money. We're taking away from Peter to feed Paul here, and that is really worrisome.”
As for the agencies and Crown corporations that fall under Heritage, each one saw at least a small increase during the first year Harper's Conservatives were in office – most notably the Canada Council, which has become the Conservatives' favourite example of their generosity to the arts. (Still, the windfall for the Canada Council paled in comparison to a Liberal promise, made in late 2005, to double its budget to $300-million – a promise the Conservatives initially pledged to honour, and later abandoned.)
But, again, such increases need to be taken with a grain of salt, thanks to that spending credited to the Conservatives that in fact had been undertaken by the Liberals. As well, any Conservative largesse was also likely driven, at least in part, by the large surplus they inherited from the Liberals.
Subsequent years have seen a series of minor increases and decreases to the budgets of Heritage's agencies and Crown corporations, the result being an overall level that has remained, roughly, unchanged. And as the souring economy and successive cuts to the GST have eroded government wealth, overall cultural funding, as well as the Canadian Heritage budget, has declined slightly in the current fiscal year.
As for the future of arts-and-culture funding, that's murky at best, primarily because the federal election has yet to be decided, but also because of the spectre of expiring programs that must seek renewal in the coming years. Sharp drops in future funding estimates are misleading because they don't include funds currently allocated to programs scheduled to sunset. Most such programs are, in fact, expected to be renewed, but guarantees are few and far between.
The CCA's Annual Analysis of the Federal Budget for 2008, published in June, highlighted several programs facing uncertain futures. Many such initiatives that the government said it would “seek to renew” have since been cut or reduced, including the National Training Program in the Film and Video Sector ($2.5-million) and the Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program ($3.5-million). The Canada New Media Fund ($14.5-million) is one among several programs awaiting word on their fates.
Pineau says the declining funding for the first strategic outcome, when combined with relatively static overall funding for agencies and Crown corporations in recent years, raises concerns about the larger vision of the federal government.
“It's also worrisome, particularly, because it is by investing in arts and culture in the traditional sense that we are investing in the creative economy,” notes Pineau. “And that's a very important aspect of the role of the federal government: to support the creative economy.”
