Evaluating Federal Arts Funding

The 1950's were great years for policy innovation. But maybe it's time to try something new.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m an incurable cultural philistine. Or at least an incurably free market cultural philistine. I believe that the finest art and literature should serve - or even inspire - organic consumer demand. Public funding for the arts introduces perverse incentives. And besides, do we really want government deciding what we’ll get to read and watch? (And anyone who thinks that the government isn’t calling the shots has never filled out a grant application.)

But I’m just one of millions of Canadian voters and taxpayers, so my personal opinions are hardly the last word on the subject. Still, I’m not sure there’s ever been a truly public conversation about the shape our support for the arts should take; I certainly can’t remember any election having been fought on the issue.

This is not to suggest that we should eliminate all arts funding, or necessarily even reduce it. But as citizens, we do have a right and responsibility to know what our money is buying. To that end, it might be helpful to understand the arts ecosystem a bit better by talking about:

• How three-quarters of a billion taxpayer dollars are spent each year on arts funding

• Who’s picking the winners and losers

• How Canadians are actually benefiting from all that spending

• And whether there might be a better way to achieve our legitimate cultural goals

Where Does Canadian Arts Funding Go?

Here’s a breakdown of at least some of this year’s arts funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage:

And all that’s not counting the CBC.

Grants, by the way, are typically awarded based on eligibility criteria and the recipient’s ability to meet the objectives of the grant program. They usually involve less oversight and fewer compliance requirements than contributions. But both grants and contributions represent non-refundable federal spending.

Let’s understand a few of those funding organizations a bit better.

The Canada Media Fund was formed in 2009 with a mandate to “foster, promote and finance Canadian content, across all audiovisual platforms, and help share it with the world.” In other words, they cover at least a portion of the production costs for films and TV shows. The fund itself is partly underwritten by industry players like Bell, Rogers, and Telus. But the $154,146,077 figure above represents the government’s share.

The Canada Music Fund provides financial assistance for the "development of Canadian artists, the promotion of their music and the expansion of their audience". They also spend money to "help Canadian artists and industry professionals gain a greater profile at home and abroad, increase their artistic and business skills, and build their export-readiness and overall competitiveness."

The Canada Book Fund exists to help Canadian publishers produce more books by Canadian authors. A largely positive internal evaluation of the program back in 2018 observed how the fund could provide “no performance data to establish a link between marketing activities and demand for Canadian-authored books”. The review also gave us this hilarious formulation:

"After revising its sales target, the Program was successful in achieving the revised target between 2014-15 and 2017-18. The program experienced an overall decline in its domestic sales of Canadian-authored books by 14% in 2017-18, when compared to 2012-13."

George (“chocolate rations have increased from 30 grams to 20 grams”) Orwell would have been right proud of that one.