So the Tory government got a taste of backlash and confirmed last week that it’s going back to the drawing board on how to spend the $25 mil it set aside for the much-derided Canada Prize for the Arts and Creativity.
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Well, since the feds are looking at multiple proposals now, here’s mine: drop this ridiculous idea of a worldwide award and divert the bonanza to the kinds of cultural projects with a track record in putting Canada on the international stage.
The arts community was surprised two months ago when the Tories set aside millions in the federal budget for the project, the brainchild of Luminato co-founders David Pecaut and Tony Gagliano, who’ve already coaxed a remarkable $22.5 mil out of public coffers for their three-year-old 10-day fest.
According to early reports, the Canada Prize was slated to issue six-figure awards to international artists, writers, dancers and performers – a sore point for many struggling Canadian artists. The ceremony was to happen in T.O. (not a happy thought for Quebec’s cultural community), with the winners possibly receiving commissions at Luminato fests.
One of the main problems with the project is context: it comes after millions in federal cuts to programs prized by the arts community. Since being elected in 2006, the Conservatives have cut $4.6 million from a Museum Assistance Program that helped defray shipping costs for Canadian museums cancelled a National Portrait Gallery, wasting at least $6.5 million cut the $11.7 million Memory Fund, which helped put our museum collections online for worldwide access eliminated the $9 million Trade Routes program, which helped groups like Hot Docs do international promotion and axed the $4.7 million PromArt program, a travel grant administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs.
It seems highly unlikely that an untested $25 million international arts prize is going to prove more cost-effective in promoting Canadian culture than these axed programs (cost-effectiveness, of course, being the prime gov argument for cutting these programs in the first place).
Another reason to ditch the Canada Prize is existing private sector participation. If there’s one place the private sector has taken huge initiative, it’s in sponsoring arts prizes. The Sobey Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Diesel Discovery Award at TIFF and more already draw attention to our artists – with nearly zero cost to the public purse.
What’s more appropriate in the current context is support for institutions that have already given Canada multiple international breakthroughs. I mean artist grants, small-festival grants and program grants. (Sure, they’re far less glamorous than arts awards ceremonies, but wasn’t it the Tories who scoffed at arts receptions anyway?)
In their slow, trickle-up way, these programs and festivals have consistently given rise to the international-profile work that people outside our borders know about.
For instance, The Drowsy Chaperone, Canada’s most recent Broadway hit, was developed in part at the Toronto Fringe Festival. Cannes prizewinning director Denys Arcand sharpened his chops making docs for the now anemically funded National Film Board. Artist Jana Sterbak, whose work is in the collection of the Centre Pompidou, among other international museums, had her first exhibitions at artist-run centres like YYZ. And I’ll speculate that FACTOR money helped Feist pay the rent long before Steve Jobs, et al., started signing her rights cheques.
If the government really has extra cash, it should plow that stratospheric prize back into promoting existing Canadian talents and attractions. And if the feds balk at sending artists overseas to do it (see those PromArt and Trade Routes snips), they should spend money – or help coordinate funds from the AGO, the ROM, Luminato, Nuit Blanche and more to bring foreign press here.
Bottom line: when creative production and promotion of same are already well supported, it’s appropriate to fund new prizes, that visible top tip of the arts industry iceberg. Until then, let’s get back to our senses, and sensible use of public funds.
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