Ottawa still lags in funding for arts among big cities

By Jonathan Migneault

Local arts groups lobbied municipal election candidates to increase arts funding at a meet-and-greet late last month.

Ottawa ranks last in arts funding among Canada’s seven largest cities, Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa, told the candidates. The council represents local artists and lobbies the municipal government to support the arts.

Colleen Hendrick, director of Cultural Services and Community Funding for the City of Ottawa, agrees with Honeywell’s assessment.

“We rank last in terms of how municipalities are supporting their local arts and festivals organizations,” she says.

A 2003 study by the city’s cultural services and community funding branch estimated Ottawa’s per capita spending on the arts at $3.41. Vancouver spends the most on the arts with more than $9 per capita while both Toronto and Winnipeg are in the $6 range.

“The Ottawa City Council has not been a strong supporter of the arts,” says Diane Holmes, incumbent for the Somerset Ward and past chair of the Regional Arts Advisory Committee.

She says the city has not supported the arts because it felt that federal support would be sufficient. She adds that local government must support the arts first. A solid local base gives federal government incentive to increase funding.

Holmes says she has always been a strong supporter of the arts.

“If we want to be a city that does well in this 21st century we need to have creative people,” she says.

George Guirguis, also running in the Somerset Ward, says Holmes has not supported the arts downtown. He says he would like to get more arts programs in the schools if elected.

Sean Curran, a young candidate for the Capital Ward, says the city should take a more informal and passive stance towards the arts. He says that if the city gives artists the freedom to create they can contribute more at a grassroots level.

“All the city of Ottawa should be a gallery for any artists wishing to express their views,” he says.

Curran says the city should not constantly harass street artists who do chalk drawings and graffiti art, for example.

To address arts issues the city has started an arts investment strategy committee. The committee will seek out chances to increase cultural partnerships and boost private sector sponsorship.

The committee has just started to hold focus groups, says Hendrick. Their recommendations will help create a report on arts funding due next February or March.

Honeywell, who sits on the committee, says a multi-level strategy that includes all three levels of government and the private sector could move Ottawa forward in the arts sector.

Hendrick says the report could help give government the incentive to raise current municipal arts funding levels, which stand at $4.5 million.

Honeywell says he believes a strong artistic base helps support a creative economy. It is those creative economies, he says, that will make cities competitive for years to come.

“It’s constantly an upward battle to bring some of the thinking around that the arts are not a frill, that they are central to every individual’s life,” says Honeywell.

That battle has seen some recent victories.

The Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre, for example, will house the Great Canadian Theatre Company in the fall of 2007.

The state-of-the-art building, to be located at 1233 Wellington Street, has received $9.4 million in government and private funding.

Plans for a world-class concert hall at 150 Elgin Street have received commitments from the municipal and provincial governments. The venue still needs federal and private sector support to secure its $27.6 million price tag.

Despite these new additions, Honeywell maintains that the city’s downtown core needs more affordable facilities for the arts.

He says the national arts institutions, namely the National Gallery of Canada and the National Arts Centre, are great but do nothing for local artists. Most artists are not at a level where they can use such venues.

“National institutions are wonderful but they’re presenters,” he says. He added they cannot nurture artists at the grassroots level.

“If Ottawa does not embrace the arts it will be the loser in the end,” says Honeywell.