I just read Todd Babiak's article about the recent Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA) public meeting, where the Executive Director, Jeffrey Anderson, laid out the general direction of the cultural policy of the AFA. Note that I say "cultural policy," not arts policy. Hector Goudreau, the new minister in charge of the Tourism, Parks, Recreation and Culture portfolio has been cagey about how he defines culture. Apparently, the newly-formed ministry will celebrate a marriage of hobbies, recreation, sports and ethnicities, while treating music, literature, theatre, art, dance as the distant cousins who are only invited to funerals.
In Alberta, the level of arts funding has not changed in 20 years, remaining at the level of about $20 million per year. In comparison, the Government has subsidized the horse racing industry to the tune of $190 million since 2002. I’m not that great at math, but if my calculations are right, in just 5 years the horse racing industry has received about half of what arts have received in two decades.
The issue of arts funding in this province has always been a hot point. Case in point, Todd Babiak’s recent columns about the arts have triggered a flood of letters to the editor, attacking Mr. Babiak’s views. The general complaint that I’ve heard time and time again is the specious claim that people do not want their tax dollars spent on activities that they would not patronize. If we follow this logic, then I could argue that I don’t want my tax dollars going to repair or build roads that I’ll never drive on.
However, thanks to the Alberta Government, we don’t have to argue this point, because the money to fund the arts doesn’t come from anyone’s tax dollars. Instead, the money is generated from the lottery fund, so essentially our province’s gamblers are the ones who should have ultimate say about where their money should go.
So, what’s the issue here? Is it the fact that people want to censor what artists do and say? I’d like to think that our citizens have grown beyond this narrow-minded way at looking at the world. Judging by what I read in the letters to the editor pages, the freedom of speech movement is alive and well.
I think that the real issue is the urban versus rural division. With a few exceptions, most arts are centered in the urban centres of the province. The rural taxpayers have mistakenly believed that their money is going to the “city folk,” and the politicians aren’t going to correct this misconception because they can claim to be defenders of the rural voters against the anarchistic artsies in the cities. Meanwhile, the urban-based artists voice their frustration to the government in vain, mistakenly believing that we are marginalized because of our artistic bent, when we are actually being marginalized because we live in the city.
I remember a few years ago, some film producers tried to reinstate film and television funding. Rather than approaching the government directly, they urged the people in rural municipalities, whose economies benefited from film productions near their communities, to lobby their MLAs. The result was that the Government listened. However, while the film industry is mobile and can generate a lot of spin-off economy for rural municipalities, the other arts tend to stay in urban centres.
Here’s my pitch to the arts advocates. Forget trying to get the Government to directly fund the arts. Let’s advocate scrapping the AFA completely, so that Mr. Goudreau can build a Culture Foundation. Instead, let’s advocate that the government establish a community building foundation, which will grant monies to the municipalities to foster cultural activities. Urban centres like Edmonton may be forward thinking and put that money toward the Edmonton Arts Council to increase grant opportunities for the city’s artists. Maybe Calgary would follow suit, or they may develop their own model to support their city’s artists. Rural communities may choose to provide some funding for arts or they may direct all their money to building a curling rink. The money would still come from the lottery fund, but apportioned according to population rather than by riding. This would mean that urban centres would receive more than rural centres, but the argument could be easily made that sometimes rural folks do come into the city to enjoy the arts.
My point is this. In the last 20 years, the province has shown it is not a champion of the arts. Let’s stop pretending that they’ll be able to change their ways and find other ways to funnel the lottery money into communities so that the better-qualified people will be able to champion the arts (or culture if that’s their agenda).
If someone would like to argue that no lottery money should go the arts, then my suggestion is that the VLTs and casino operators should post notices on their machines and tables indicating that the revenue generated from their machines will go to either arts or culture, and leave the gamblers to decide which table or machine they want to support. That way, people have a choice where their gambling dollars go and no one will need to complain any more.
