Viewpoint: Ottawa artists making more — but not enough

By Alexandra Mazur

The Community Foundation of Ottawa recently published statistics verifying the age-old trope of the starving artist. The organization collects data on various aspects of life in Ottawa, and in December released numbers on the city’s arts and culture scene. The findings are, unfortunately, not surprising.

In 2011, Ottawa was recorded as having the highest median income for artists (after taxes) compared with the creative communities of every other major city in Canada.

The Ottawa-Gatineau area was pushing close to $25,000 a year for its artists, edging out Toronto, with a median income of $22,000, and Montreal of $21,100.

But seeing as the poverty line in Canada is about $20,000 per person, Ottawa’s No. 1 status for arts income seems like a pretty slim win.

The CFO’s classification of the “creative and performing arts” covers directors, producers, conductors, dancers, musicians, actors and visual artists. Some artists could be self-employed or fall under another category, and therefore wouldn’t be counted in these numbers.

The foundation said the median income for Ottawa artists could be higher because higher funding for national projects might sometimes find its way to local artists.

But other numbers suggest Ottawa artists are getting lost in the national shadow. The two largest federal bodies for funding artists are the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts.

In 2015, Ottawa received about $8.50 per capita from Canadian Heritage in grants, and only about $4 from the CCA. Compare that to Montreal’s $40 per capita from Canadian Heritage and Vancouver’s $23 per capita from CCA, and it becomes clearer, perhaps, why only 0.5 per cent of people in Ottawa and Gatineau have chosen to be full-time artists.

All in all, the numbers paint the picture — in Ottawa and elsewhere — that artists in Canada don’t have much incentive to follow their dreams, at least not to do so full-time.

And yet creative industries have benefits twofold. First, they add to the social cohesion of a place, allowing for cultural identity to form and flourish.

And they bring in the bucks. According to Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism and Culture, the province’s “creative cluster” — arts and culture institutions — constitute the fastest growing component of Ontario’s GDP. In 2010, creative industries accounted for 12.2 per cent of this key indicator of economic power, which is higher than Ontario’s energy, agriculture, forestry and mining sectors.

It sometimes seems as though the City of Ottawa has really only paid lip service to this potential. In 2013, the municipality implemented a highly anticipated five-year plan to invest in the arts, heritage and culture in the city. And yet local artists haven’t seen much of that money.

Citywide arts funding increased minimally from $8.7 million in 2012 to $9.3 million in 2015, about $9.70 per capita —which to be fair, is a number on par with most Canadian cities. But compare that to Montreal’s 2015 arts budget, more than $23 per capita, and it’s not much to talk about.

Earlier this year, Mayor Jim Watson was criticized by local artists about the lack of funding. He then cited the $41 million Ottawa Art Gallery expansion and Arts Court redevelopment project — which will be completed later this year — and a special $500,000 investment in local arts for 2017 celebrations.

But, big spending on an unfinished building and a very specific funding window for Ottawa 2017 events doesn’t really help put food on the table long-term for Ottawa’s starving artists.