This time it’s all about arts and culture with a series of BC Spirit Festivals scheduled for next February.

Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Stephanie Cadieux announced the handout this week.

“As proud hosts of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, B.C. welcomed the world to share our vibrant culture, our special sense of place, our spirit of enterprise and optimism,” she said. “By giving expression to the unique spirit of British Columbia, locally based artists and arts organizations will use their creative energy to help communities celebrate in their own way.”

Minister for Community, Sport and Cultural Development Stephanie Cadieux announced today that to commemorate the provinces’ 2010 Olympic success, 49- communities will share just over a million dollars.

The money is going to local arts and cultural organizations throughout the province to help communities celebrate in their own way.

BC Spirit Festivals will bring together artists, cultural organizations, creative industries and local citizens to celebrate the spirit of British Columbia. Featured activities will include visual arts exhibitions, public museum programs, publications, media arts, dance, music and theatre productions.

According to a news release, $1,077,224 will be dispersed to local arts councils, First Nations groups, and arts associations. The grants range from $2,000 each to the Chetwynd Community Arts Council Society and the Nicola Valley Community Arts Council, to $50,000 each to the Burnaby Arts Council; the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan; the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows Arts Council; the Arts Council of Surrey; and La Societe Francophone de Victoria. The only group in Vancouver to receive funding was the francophone Conseil Culturel et Artistique, which got $13,600.

The grants mark the first significant arts-funding announcement by new Minister for Community, Sport, and Cultural Development Stephanie Cadieux, who stated: “By giving expression to the unique spirit of British Columbia, locally based artists and arts organizations will use their creative energy to help communities celebrate in their own way.”

See also: BC community arts groups to get $1-m for Spirit Festivals

In a conversation with the Straight about the committee’s recommendations to return arts funding to 2008/09 levels (which would put the B.C. Arts Council’s budget at $19 million), the minister was decidedly noncommittal, and stressed the need to balance priorities within the government and within her ministry.

“I think it’s great…that there was support there for increasing our support of arts and culture in the province,” Cadieux said in a phone call. “That said, it’s all part of a lot of good recommendations [by the finance committee] to the province on a number of fronts, and all those things need to be balanced.” Asked whether she would be advocating for increased arts funding, Cadieux replied: “I certainly think it’s in my role to be advocating on behalf of arts and culture and sport and community. I, myself, have to balance the things that I want to be able to accomplish with the various communities that I’m representing.”

The three-year pilot will fund a maximum of $250,000 annually in grants to Burnaby-based non-profit groups, said a city staff report.

Applicants will have to demonstrate proof of additional funding sources as well as partnerships and community involvement.

Grant money awarded may be used for programming, administration and marketing, but not for capital works, equipment or events held outside Burnaby.

For the second year in a row, the committee called on the province to return arts funding to 2008/09 levels. It also recommended that eligibility criteria for community gaming grants be revisited, and that the government reinstate gaming grants for three years to provide stability.

In September, members of the arts community devoted a great deal of time and energy preparing submissions to the legislature’s committee on finance and government services.

The committee was holding hearings across the province as part of the 2011-12 budget-consultation process.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen had asked the bipartisan committee to seek input on how to allocate $650 million in “unanticipated revenues” next year.

In a submission to the committee, Hansen wrote: “What would you do with additional resources? Would you fund new programs and services, would you reduce the debt, or would you cut personal income taxes?”

The arts community saw this as an opportunity to make a case for greater provincial investments in the cultural sector.

But in the midst of that big-time belt-tightening, the B.C. Arts Council cut the conservatory’s grant to $55,000 this year from $110,000 last year. Then it restored $27,500, leaving a total shortfall of $27,500 Moreover, its gaming grant from the province was halved to $20,000.

The coincidence is “incredibly ironic” and “actually very sad,” says conservatory executive director Jane Butler McGregor.

The unpredictability of provincial support has meant that arts groups increasingly must grapple with grants taken away or reduced, then restored — partially or in stages. It’s confusing for the public to keep track of old money versus new, and the final tally after cuts versus reinstatements. It’s even tougher for most arts organizations on already stretched budgets to achieve stability in everything from rent to hiring performers for the coming year.

“I respect that they [the B.C. Arts Council] have a role that’s arm’s-length from the government,” Cadieux said by phone. “Government shouldn’t be in the business of determining artists’ merit.”

Cadieux, whose predecessor, Kevin Krueger, never agreed to interview requests submitted by the Straight, said she had spoken with arts-council chair Stanley Hamilton and would be meeting with him in person soon. “I like that there’s the peer-review process at the arts council that has that ability, with experts in the field and so on, to be distributing funding in a way that’s fair and accountable. I think that we want to make sure that they have the ability to do that job,” she said.

“As compared to other premiers in this province, and I’ve been around a long time, Campbell’s record hasn’t been that bad,” Howard Jang, executive director of the Arts Club Theatre, told the Straight. “You know, there has been increases for the past bulk of the 10 years [he was in office]. There has been investments in infrastructure….I remember him as a mayor, and he had strong values and positive values toward the arts and understood it. I think he always kind of gets it. I’m not sure what it’s like to be a premier, to be dealing with all the fires that are around all the time….For the most part, his track record, his mandate, has been fairly positive. We’ve had a rough go of it the last little while, absolutely. Do I blame him? I don’t really know.”

Added Heather Redfern, executive director of the Cultch: “Certainly I think one of his legacies is The Cultch, and capital improvements at The Cultch. That money came through during his time and it really is a beautiful, amazing legacy project. So I think that’s something he can be really proud of….If you don’t count the last 18 months it was great.” However, she noted, “The last 18 months have been abysmal.”

But she stopped short of committing additional funding to arts, culture and heritage groups in B.C.

“Money is a challenge,” Cadieux said during her address to delegates at the B.C. Museum Association conference in Nanaimo. “I’d love to stand up here and tell you that there is new money for heritage. I can’t do that yet.”

Cadieux, the MLA for Surrey-Panorama elected in 2009, was appointed Monday in a cabinet shuffle by Premier Gordon Campbell, replacing Kevin Krueger, the former Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts. It’s the first minister’s posting for Cadieux and the only promotion for a backbench MLA in this shuffle.

Application forms for project grants are also available by contacting city cultural services staff at 250-469-8811.

The deadline for submission of an application is 3 p.m. on Dec. 17.

“We encourage organizations that we know have great ideas and plans to consider this opportunity,” said Sandra Kochan, Kelowna’s cultural services manager.

The theatre will be approaching the District of North Vancouver for the same amount.

In his written report to city council, Ian Forsyth, director of The Arts Office, said Presentation House was facing major cuts to the upcoming season, and might even have to close.

“In 2009, the theatre lost its annual gaming grant of $38,000,” Forsyth wrote. “The province’s cuts were sudden and the theatre had little chance to adjust its budget or eliminate production costs in an effort to accommodate this shortfall in grants revenue.”