By Peter Koven
In Ottawa, the Senators grab most of the headlines and public attention – but it may be the arts that actually provide the bigger economic boost.
A 1996 Statistics Canada survey suggested that the direct economic impact of the arts in Ottawa is $800 million annually. By comparison, a 1999 study conducted by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) found that it would take 10 years for the Senators to create about $750 million worth of local economic activity.
Despite these numbers, it’s hockey that gets the headlines in Ottawa, much like the rest of the country.
“To be blunt, more people like sports,” says John Palmer, an economics professor at the University of Western Ontario who has studied the economic impact of the arts and sports. “Look at the attendance at sporting events compared to the arts. You put an opera on the radio, people turn the dial. You hear a hockey game, you stay on it.”
Some experts like Palmer believe that the arts is a greater economic benefit than professional sports because more of the money it generates comes from outside the community and that, in general, arts spending creates more economic activity, while spending on sports is money that already would have been spent elsewhere in the community.
“With pro sports, so much of the money goes to player salaries and they end up spending it outside the community,” says Palmer. “Some have argued that Winnipeg’s economy actually improved after the Jets left. There was virtually no economic activity while they were there.”
Sarah Jennings, a vice-chair of Opera Lyra Ottawa and supporter of the National Arts Centre, agrees. “Arts gives better bang for the buck,” she says.
She says she believes that Ottawa has what she calls “a rather anti-cultural attitude.” She points out that the proposed budget reductions would have seen municipal per-person spending on the arts fall to 57 cents – the lowest value by far of Canada’s largest cities.
Montreal, by comparison, spends $26.62 per person. As it is, funding is currently only $3.89 per person, one of the lowest levels among major cities in the country.
She says that the creation of the NAC in 1969 spoiled the city with very high quality arts for a very small price, and thus arts spending never really became a focus in the community.
Another great benefit of the arts that hockey doesn’t provide is local spending by outside visitors. Thanks to successful festivals such as the Ottawa Jazz Festival, tourists spent $57 million in Ottawa in the summer of 2003 alone, creating $93 million in total economic activity. Conversely, spending on hockey comes almost completely from within the community.
“I love sports,” Palmer says, “And yet it seems to me that relative to the economic activity they provide, they demand an outrageous amount of attention every day.”
The preference for hockey can be seen everywhere, particularly in the Ottawa Citizen, where the Senators are a daily and prominent fixture, and local arts coverage rarely finds the front of the paper, and actually has to compete with other mainstream entertainment news for space in its own section.
“Ottawa is full of artists, musicians, and painters who deserve more coverage,” says Citizen arts editor Peter Simpson. “We do as much as we can. We wish we could do more.”
But Simpson acknowledges that while many of the paper’s readers want to see more local arts coverage, “some would rather read about Angelina Jolie.”
The OCRI study on the economic benefits of the Senators was conduced in 1999, a time when the team’s future in
Ottawa was in doubt.
It concluded that, should the Senators leave town, about $400 to $500 million in economic activity would go with them.
The public outcry against the team leaving at that point — and last year, when the team faced bankruptcy before being purchased by Toronto billionaire Eugene Melnyk — was enormous.
The proposed arts cuts, meanwhile, which were potentially far more damaging to the economy, were a buried issue in city council meetings among countless other proposed cuts.
“I’m not interested in the whole hockey versus the arts issue,” Jennings says.
“It’s all part of the same fabric of society. But… the value that the arts gives (Ottawa) is not given the full credence that it deserves.”