A year after threats to the city’s arts funds, Ottawa residents are still advocating to keep the needs of the arts community at the forefront of discussion.
In 2009, city lobbyists defeated a budget measure to cut $4.1 million dollars from the arts that would have crippled 286 arts groups.
This was not the first time the arts community had to fight vigorously for their cause. In 2004, an 80 per cent slash to arts funds was proposed, but city lobbyists rallied and had them dropped.
“That was a very difficult and dark time,” says Peter Honeywell, executive director of the Council for the Arts in Ottawa. “This year it seems the message has really gotten through.”
Honeywell, who over the years has organized a number of initiatives to support the arts in Ottawa over the years, says arts groups can do things now that they would not have been able to do before.
They now have the time and resources to take on projects and approach corporate sponsors they wouldn’t have dared to touch in the past.
“We are seeing better quality and professionalism in everything we do,” he says. “In other years we were racing around and scrambling for every dollar.”
Work to have the voices of the arts heard and sustain community creativity is still in motion.
On Jan.27, Paul Dewar and members of the arts community gathered at the Fox and Feather on Elgin Street to discuss Dewar’s “Arts and Minds” report that resulted from his November arts summit at city hall.
Dewar spoke to the packed pub about his plans to encourage the rest of the municipal government to continue to support and fund the artistic community and their endeavors.
“We have to elect a council that gets it,” Dewar says. “Promoting the arts and finding public and private places for the arts is something that people still identify with.”
The collaborative report details the federal and municipal government’s history of targeting arts funding during economic crisis and outlines some of the remaining integral concerns of the arts community. Some of the things discussed included promoting art education, developing Ottawa’s arts and culture reputation and support for senior artists.
Honeywell expanded on the latter issue, saying that taking care of senior performing and visual artists must be something Ottawa works toward. Residential facilities for senior artists, like ones in Toronto and Vancouver, where they can continue working and mentoring are extremely beneficial, Honeywell says.
Lise Ann Johnson, artistic director at the Great Canadian Theatre Company, reiterated that although this situation has improved, there is still work to be done.
Johnson says it would be nice to see blossoming independent companies become permanent ones. Although much headway has been made in the last year, there are still aspects of the arts community that need nurturing, Johnson says. But Johnson pointed out that years of rallying for the cause has at least one perk.
“Although it is a battle, we have overcome a lot as a community and it has really brought us together.”