NSCAD and the rest of Halifax's arts community await the federal budget Photo: Katherine Hudson

Arts community awaits budget

Supporters wary of Conservative promises hope spending will fuel provincial economy

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD), Halifax’s sole university devoted to the arts, is calmly awaiting the federal budget. With the current economic circumstances, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comments during the fall election that “ordinary people” don’t care about arts funding and his government’s $45-million in cuts to arts and culture funding, you’d think the atmosphere would be a bit more on edge.

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty will unveil the federal budget today, a budget that could make or break the current minority government. Heritage Minister James Moore says there will not be cuts to arts programs in the federal budget, but he has not commented on any new funding or reallocation of funds.

Linda Hutchison, NSCAD’s acting president, says she is waiting to see how the budget affects the provincial economy.

“Most of our crucial funding, our core funding, is provincial funding…There are larger issues around how the provincial economy’s going to come out with the impact of the budget. They’re all interrelated. But as far as NSCAD itself, the faculty, the students, we are really relying on the province at this point.”

“We’re an endangered breed”

Some interdisciplinary arts students, like post-secondary students everywhere, are more wary of what’s in store after graduation.

“I would for sure be happy if the federal budget announced [today] an increase in funding to the arts, but I think that the government is unlikely to do that,” says Emily Davidson, a fine arts student at the university.

“Artists already have a hard time making money with tuition fees the way they are. We’re graduating with $30,000 to $40,000 in debt already,” says Rachel Collyer, another fine arts student. “To continue removing funding is, I don’t know, we’re already an endangered breed.”

Neil Forrest, a ceramics professor at NSCAD, says the students who are not graduating immediately “have the luxury of waiting for the economy to rebound.” Forrest says the arts community depends heavily on government funding in Canada.

“We have tremendous reliance on the buoyancy of the economy and the favour of the government to succeed…In a time like this where it’s even more recessionary or difficult than it was when the budget was first announced to have some spending revisions in it, it’s a little unnerving.”

Arts playing a powerful role in politics

Andrew Terris, founder of the cultural research and consulting business Arts Nova and experienced artist, designer and advocate says he’s never seen the arts play such a powerful and influential role in an election as they did in the last Canadian federal election.

“It totally damaged the Conservatives…Now [federal Heritage Minister] James Moore is going around doing everything he can to suck up to the people who work in the arts community. In my opinion, everything I heard him say, I do not believe it. I want to see the numbers before I believe that. It’s all spin.”

Terris is well known throughout Canada for his work in cultural development and has worked informally with NSCAD faculty on advocacy matters.

“As a longtime observer of the cultural scene in Nova Scotia, I can say with certainty that [a factor] in the [arts] scene that is as lively and vital as it is today is NSCAD because NSCAD graduates end up everywhere in the culture sector. It’s not just in the visual arts; they’re doing graphic design, they’re in the film industry, music industry, they’re in crafts they’re all over. [It is one of the institutions] that turn out the artists and the creators of tomorrow.”

Statistics Canada reports that cultural industries generated $570 million for the Nova Scotia economy and employed 13,100 people in 2001, the latest year for which it has published data. Terris says that culture is a generator of wealth and that the government should consider investing in young artists.

“Once the grads are out there’s nothing to support them. To realize that potential is going to take investments.”

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