It wasn’t long after the city released its 2004 draft budget that signs reading “Raise my Taxes, my Ottawa Includes Culture” began sprouting up on lawns and appearing in store windows.
Proposed cuts to the city’s cultural funding would have whittled its spending on the arts to a meagre 57 cents per capita— a stark contrast to Montreal’s $26, according to CBC reports.
This year we didn’t see the same controversial cuts, but Ottawa’s spending on the arts is still abysmal, according to some local artists.
Last year there were rallies in front of City Hall.
The local media were all over the story. Ottawa’s arts community voiced its dissent loud and clear and at the end of the whole debacle, city council listened.
On the arts front, the 2005 budget incurred much less attention than did last year’s. There were no lawn signs, buttons or mass protests. The budget passed Feb. 7 with little protest from the arts community.
“We were there, but not as visible as last year,” says local artist Adrian Göllner, who was part of last year’s “My Ottawa Includes Culture” campaign.
He says this time the arts community changed its tactics because the budget was not so “contentious, so rancorous” as it was last year.
The contention and rancor of last year’s budget talks may have dissipated, but there remain a few significant issues with the way Ottawa spends on the arts.
For 20 years Ottawa purchased pieces of contemporary art from local artists to display in municipal buildings. But council cancelled the $150,000 program in last years budget and carried that decision into this year’s budget as well.
Sixteen members of Ottawa’s arts community addressed their concerns before council at the end of January. Göllner, who was among this group, says the problems stemming from the collection’s cancellation are twofold.
Local artists rely on the sales of their work to make a living. With one major buyer now out of the picture, Ottawa’s visual artists now have one less place to display their art. The visual arts community needs this money. With the city’s corporate art collection on ice for the second year in a row, where are they going to get it?
Secondly, the art brings a “look of refinement” to city buildings, according to Göllner. The art that has accumulated in City of Ottawa buildings over the decades, like the paintings hanging in City Hall, helps tell the story of our community. Discontinuing the funding would result in a gaping hole in the collection, thus compromising its value.
The city does have bigger fish to fry. Why spend hard-earned tax dollars on the beautification of buildings when roads need repair, emergency services need funding and transportation needs revamping?
How high should a city’s art collection really rank on its list of priorities?
Of course, local artists, like any interest group, will always want a bigger slice of the city’s pie than it currently has.
And the city won’t always be able to meet its demands.
I don’t deny that all of the basic necessities need to be taken care of first, but we mustn’t underestimate the importance of maintaining a city’s artistic capital.
Art and culture are what draw people to our city and what define the character of our community.
As Charles McFarland of the Great Canadian Theatre Company told council Jan. 24, “When our descendants look back from the vantage point of Ottawa’s 200th anniversary, what will they look for as a record of who we were and how we lived and thought?”