Toronto mayor Rob Ford went from famous to infamous last week after global news outlets picked up reports of a profane outburst he directed at emergency services representatives following an early-morning housecall from Canadian comedy mainstay Mary Walsh.
International coverage was largely limited to snarky filler-blurbs on back pages and closing segments, highlighting the awkwardness of the exchange and hypocrisy of a gravy-crusader calling 911 to report a decided non-emergency.
Frames for regional and national reporting, however, tended to be quite different. Of particular interest was Canadian media’s willingness to use Walsh’s CBC affiliation to highlight broader tensions between conservative interests and arts and culture groups over the past several months.
Indeed, Walsh’s blindside—gotcha posturing to some, typical entry into the East-coast comedy canon to others—would fit perfectly into a narrative that has been simmering on North America’s side burner for decades: are the dueling constructs of a sinister, activist liberal media and right-of-centres as sufferers of media-victimhood syndrome accurate? If so, is the relationship between them linear, bidirectional, or cyclical?
I am not necessarily interested in arguing for a specific causal model; I have heard convincing cases for each. What is clear, however, is that at least some part of the gap between token progressive and conservative positions on funding for arts and culture is a matter of rhetorical, not ideological, distance.
Take Mr. Ford’s example. Perhaps no one should be surprised that the Mayor’s gravy train would inevitably schedule a stop through Toronto’s arts communities. After all, what could be more on message from an administration intent on banishing all but the most core of services from city coffers?
The result has been increasing pressure on a variety of small institutions and community groups across the GTA to quantify their intrinsically unquantifiable contribution to the lives of Toronto taxpayers. Larger arts groups like TIFF and the COC have responded by trimming events and deemphasizing innovation in their programming.
For groups like these, operating in the cross-hairs is nothing new. Arts funding is invariably among the first sectors to be thrust upon on the federal, provincial, or municipal chopping block when times are tough.
What is worse, however, is that it is invariably met with the same tired opposition.
“We won’t have a forum to understand each other,” some say. “Our children won’t be intelligent,” others. More commonly, people stoke fear of an influx from a larger garrison: “We will lose our culture to Yorkville! Vancouver! America!!”
These arguments are not wholly invalid, but grassroots supporters of sustained arts funding must learn argue to the person in charge, not their like-minded barista. In the current political climate, the safeword is cash. And with culture, it should be a lock.
Imagine, for instance if this was the argument made to Mayor Ford:
“In 2007, the arts and culture contributed $85 billion to the Canadian economy, roughly 7.4% of our real GDP. This activity generated roughly $25 billion in taxes for all levels of government.
When compared to the $7.9 billion in culture spending by these same cabinets, the positive ratio is over 3:1. If you take into account Ontario’s stake as Canada’s centre of cultural production, and Toronto’s stake as Ontario’s centre of cultural production, the margins for City Hall are likely to be even higher.
Reports indicate these trends have held though the recession over the past 30 months, and forecasts predict the arts and culture industries will only accelerate as the economy begins to grow again.”
Case closed. Bam. The train has left the station.
To be fair, this economic argument is one which even the most progressive constituencies have been open to embracing. The problem is that it is normally tacked on as a footnote to a broader discussion of less quantifiable benefits. Creativity, quality of life, and the like.
Make no mistake, those benefits are key to our city, communities, and civic life. We should recognize them, cherish them, and stand by them. But let’s keep our eye on the prize.
Now more than ever, arts spending should be narrowly argued as economically stimulative, boosting not only the reputation of Canada as a desirable production hub but solidifying the existing market for local specialized and non-specialized supportive industries.
Tax credit initiatives should be seen as particularly effective, excusing large portions of the tax spending of elaborate projects which would not have been here in the first place. The result is hundreds of jobs for local tradespeople, caterers, and hospitality professionals, leading to millions of dollars in revenue for their prospective local employers.
For budding artists within the industry, the influx of work catalyses an experience-factory cycle, wherein today’s green-but-talented Toronto set builder becomes next month’s set designer, and next year’s production designer.
Just ask federal Minster of Canadian Heritage James Moore, who has thrived within his party after refocusing the case for arts and culture, whether an economic argument can be made to fiscal conservatives.
The conclusion? Simple. The overarching stigma of arts spending as a subsidy pit must be refuted. While there are a small group of ideologues to whom public spending on culture will never be acceptable, there is a much larger pool of fiscal conservatives to whom the right narrative has simply not been persuasively presented.
Supporters of a more creative Canada must remember that for those guarding the cookie jar, a data story is there. It is up to us to leverage it.
