Liberals cut the arts adrift: Cancellation of festival funds and new youth policy make little sense
Things just seem to get worse for arts and culture in Victoria and the rest of British Columbia.
I’m not talking about the quality of the offerings, which often reach artistic levels that delight and surprise. Rather, it’s our provincial government’s mulish insistence on pretending the cultural industry in B.C. no longer exists.
The Liberal government’s message is: “We are no longer interested in funding the arts. Fend for yourself. If your product is any good, the market will support it.” Such an attitude shows, at best, a lack of understanding — and at worst, blind ignorance. It’s as if we’ve suddenly become a Third World country.
The latest head-scratcher is the government’s declaration that arts festivals will no longer receive gambling grants. This means, for example, that the highly successful Victoria Fringe Theatre Festival is cut off. About 23,000 people attended that festival last year — a 30 per cent increase from the previous season.
The Liberals had previously announced they would cut off annual gaming grants for arts companies. But (for some reason) they’d promised a reprieve for festivals run by such companies. Now, even that funding has vanished.
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