New Artsy Clean- Available only in Ottawa

Off-topic: Save the arts in Ottawa

From Ryan Anderson’s The New PR Blog

As part of next year’s draft budget, the city has cut $35 million. Of that, $26 million is for new projects that have not yet begun, and $9 million comes from existing spending. The trouble is, that $9 million isn’t spread across the board like cuts of this nature usually are. Almost half of that $9 million in cuts is set to come from local arts and culture, including 100% cuts to festivals and cultural organizations regardless of stability, sustainability or local impact.Whether or not you choose to spend your nights at the theatre, you have to understand that disproportionately attacking arts and culture in the city is not a recipe for long-term fiscal repsonsibility. Ottawa has close to 40 festivals, all of whom provide stimulus to the local economy. It is estimated that for every dollar invested in the arts, $7 is injected into local businesses. Besides that, these festivals and theatre companies provide valuable opportunities for young people to further their careers.

I could go on at length about the contributions that arts and culture makes to the local community, but frankly, it’s an argument I’m sick of making because it so often falls on deaf and ignorant ears. The reality is that investment in the arts is good economically (see Broadway) and socially (see countless research papers on the affect of arts education on youth crime). If you don’t see that value, then you’re welcome to live in the drab, lifeless bureaucratic city that you deserve.

Read Ryan’s full post: Save the arts in Ottawa

Ottawa Arts Presentations

Humanyms Blog post: 18-November-2008

City of Ottawa Council Chambers, pagehalffull on Flickr

The Ottawa City Hall Council chamber is a large room. Here’s about a third of it; all of it filled for the Arts Cut presentations from 8 speakers. Bottom line, returns on spending makes it more of an investment than an outlay. Festivals, fairs, museums, outreach programs, literary and drama programs rely heavily on volunteers. Meg Hamilton executive director of the Council of Heritage Organizations in Ottawa said that in her programs alone there were 42,000 volunteer hours last year.

Read the rest of the post on the Humanyms Blog: Ottawa Arts Presentations

Ottawa: An Axe For a Scalpel Job?

by Kwende Kefentse

Wed Nov 12th 2008

Ottawa’s 2009 municipal budget was just released, and the arts, culture, and heritage community is reeling. After realizing that the city would require an either $59 million decrease in spending or increase in revenue, Mayor O’Brien brought out the axe. It is not surprising that in a budget where the words ‘arts’ and ‘culture’ can be found less than 10 times respectively, buried on page 52 is a 42 percent cut to all arts, culture, and heritage investments as well as a complete retraction of festival and event investments. A close inspection of the budget reveals that the “adjustment to cultural services” is the most expansive, and highest impact (in terms of dollars) single-cut of anything offered in the 5-part Options for Reduction or Revenues package, other than adjusting underperforming bus routes. Yet while the rationale concerning the transit cuts enjoys a 5-page deliberation, the rationale for “Adjustment to existing services” – the category under which the arts, culture, and heritage cuts are relegated – is breezed through in less than a page, the final paragraph of which is:

All of the services identified for adjustments may be considered essential to individuals or specific groups in the city. However, compared to the multitude of services and programs the City provides, these proposed adjustments do not seriously impact the functioning of the city, nor do they compromise general public safety.

As a member of the Arts and Culture community in Ottawa, and author on this website, my opinion on the cuts won’t shock you. For all of the reasons that thinkers like Richard, Charles Landry, and Glen Murray have espoused, these cuts are a bad idea. The budget-in-question never once profiles the region’s rich cultural economy, nor does it consider expansion of its cultural industries in any of its economic forecasting, or leveraging the momentum that it’s been building within the global festival community. For having such an uninhibited willingness to cut arts, culture, and heritage investments, there doesn’t seem to be as great an effort from the city to understand arts, culture, and heritage contributions in any nuanced kind of way. One page certainly doesn’t do them justice. This kind of cut may save in the short term, but if money is the only currency being considered then the city is doomed to waste a lot of it.

Read the rest of the post on the Creative Class blog: Ottawa: An Axe For a Scalpel Job?