Budget a blessing for city arts

By Rachel MacNeill

The recently announced city budget has given the city’s arts groups what they lobbied for. The City of Ottawa will be funding arts groups $2.5 million over the next four years.

Over this year, $1.5 million will be handed out to several different performing and visual arts groups. The two following years will see $400,000 donated and the fourth year, $200,000. This will increase Ottawa’s per-capita arts funding from $3.84 in 2006 to $5.94 in 2010.

“We can do a lot of things with this money,” says Liko Yamane, general manager of the National Capital Suzuki School of Music. The school is a non-profit organization that teaches youth orchestral music. Yamane said she hopes that new funding will help attract more students and allow groups from the school to travel and perform more over the next year.

The funding increase will help bring Ottawa up to par with cities of its size in Canada, says Somerset Ward Coun. Diane Holmes.

Holmes worked with other councillors on the budget aiming to lower tax increases to the promised zero per cent, while giving groups, including local arts ones, what they requested.

“It was a priority for me,” she says. The councillors recognized how far behind Ottawa was in arts funding when compared to similarly-sized cities in the country.

“They got what they asked for,” Holmes says. The city’s arts groups have lobbied council for years, and prepared an in-depth package for the councillors.

Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Ottawa Council for the Arts, says that the money will help Ottawa stand next to other cities in arts funding. “It’ll allow us to compete on a level playing field.”

Nicole Zuger, the city’s arts program manager, says that the increase in funding from the city will help get more funding from the federal and provincial levels of government.

“We have a lot of catching up to do,” she says.

Holmes says the increased municipal funding could bring in up to $12 million in funding from the other levels of government.

“If we don’t fund our groups, then the provinces and the feds aren’t going to either,” she says.

The new budget was an opportunity for the municipal government to recognize the importance of culture, Zuger says.

“The council should be congratulated for realizing that culture is intrinsic to our city, and really is a basic service.”