Arts Notes | Notes from the arts world | Straight.com

Campaign aims to raise arts funding
The Alliance for Arts and Culture is asking the public to contact MLAs to voice support for an increase in funding to the B.C. Arts Council. Under the banner of Arts Future BC, the alliance–joined by Pro Arts in Victoria, the Assembly of British Columbia Arts Councils, the British Columbia Touring Council, and individuals from other arts groups–is calling for an annual increase in B.C. Arts Council funding from $14 million to $32 million in the 2008 provincial budget.

The campaign coincides with the legislative committee on finance and government services completing public hearings across the province held between September 17 and October 12. The committee will file a report by November 15.

"When you consider that the projected surplus for the province is $1.6 billion, $18 million [the amount of the increase being lobbied for] is 1.12 percent of that. That's not very much," Andrew Wilhelm-Boyles , executive director of the alliance, told the Straight .

Last year, a similar campaign was launched prior to the 2007 provincial budget. Despite a unanimous recommendation by the cross-party committee that the government increase arts council funding, the government chose not to do so.

"If there is a will on the part of the minister of the arts, if there is a will on the part of the minister of finance, the recommendations of this committee certainly strengthen their hand," insisted Wilhelm-Boyles, who noted that arts funding in B.C. is among the lowest in the country. Saskatchewan, with a population of less than one million, recently doubled its arts-board funding from $4.5 million to $9 million, which represents more than $9 per capita in arts funding. By contrast, B.C.'s arts-council funding amounts to just over $3 per capita, putting it ahead of only Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland.

The last time funding for the B.C. Arts Council was increased was in the 2005-06 budget, when it was raised by $3 million, to $14 million.

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