Save Arts and Culture in NS!
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Dear Artists, Arts Organizations, and VANS Members,
Thank you for your continued engagement and advocacy during this challenging time. The proposed provincial budget includes a 30% cut to operational funding for (already underfunded) arts, culture, and heritage organizations and a $14M cut to discretionary funding within Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage (CCTH). These cuts will be devastating to the arts. You can see the 13 pages of budget cuts here.
You can read VANS Budget Response here.
Get more advocacy tools and see VANS advocacy in action here.
What is happening?
The NS government just gutted funding for arts, culture, heritage, and social programs. The provincial budget includes cuts that disproportionally impact the cultural sector and that will hurt artists, arts orgs, and programs supporting artist working in schools and communities, and equity deserving communities. At VANS, we will be directly affected by a 20% funding cuts and the complete defunding of all the Artists in the Schools programs – including PAINTS.
What is being lost?
- 72 grant programs fully or partially cut in Communities, Culture, Tourism & Heritage, including many L’nu and African Nova Scotian arts and cultural programs
- Arts Nova Scotia funding down 30 %
- $130 million in grants completely cut. This devastating for the arts community and the economy (but represents less than 1 % of the $18.9 billion budget)
- 50% cut in the Arts Equity Funding Initiative
- 100% of funding for the Artists in Communities grant program, Nova Scotia Art Bank purchases, and the Artists in Schools program (including PAINTS)
- jobs in art, culture, and heritage
Visual Arts Nova Scotia exists to support visual artists throughout every stage of their careers through mentorship, professional development, providing employment and exposure, exhibitions, advocating on their behalf, and more. A 20% reduction across the board, especially in funding to non-profit arts organizations is a major blow to our operations. Besides the cut to operational funding, the government also cancelled a grant funding stream for one of our core programs, Professional Artists in the Schools (PAINTS). This is a program that has been running for 20+ years, providing the only supplemental visual arts programming in schools across the province by professional visual artists who live in the communities that they serve.
How can you help?
THE BUDGET HASN’T PASSED…YET. VANS, along with the NS Arts Coalition and arts organizations around the province, is mobilizing the community and our allies to implore the government to reverse the cuts to our sector. Arts and Culture adds $989 million to the province’s GDP and accounts for more than 14,000 jobs, employing more people than farming, fishing and forestry combined. Act today to help save NS arts!
Write and call your reps
Call and email the premier and your MLA today to tell them to stop these cuts and save NS arts! Template letters you can use to send to your MLA can be found here: nsarts.ca and here: visualarts.ns.ca/advocacy-
The contact info for all MLAs can be found here: https://nslegislature.ca/members/profiles. It is especially important that anyone who lives in a Conservative riding writes to their MLA with this information, or asks to speak with them on this topic!
Show up in person
Please bring as many people as you can! Let’s raise our voices together and say that Arts and Culture are part of what will make Nova Scotia strong, economically, and in every other way.
MARCH 3
Shoulder to Shoulder Rally: Call on the Houston government to respect Mi’kmaw rights on Tuesday, March 3, 12 pm at Province House, 1726 Hollis St, Halifax
MARCH 4
Halifax Rally for the Arts: Stop the budget cuts to Arts and Culture on Wednesday, March 4, 12 pm at Province House, 1726 Hollis St, Halifax.
Wolfville rally at the Clock Park at 12pm. Meet at 11:30 at University Park.
Annapolis Royal rally at Kings Theatre at NOON.
Truro rally at Civic Square (740 Prince St) at 1 pm.
Yarmouth rally at 396 Main St at NOON.
Shelburne rally – Meet at The Ross Thomson Museum at NOON (Then walking to MLA Nolan Young’s office at 164 Water Street)
Sydney rally at 360 Prince St at NOON.
Antigonish rally 325 Main St, Suite 222 -NOON
Liverpool rally Perkins House Museum, 105 Main Street -NOON
New Glasgow rally on 342 Stewart Street at 5:00 pm.
Fill out this Impact Survey
We need information from you ASAP (today or tomorrow) in this short survey so that we can outline the impacts these cuts will have in all ridings if they are not reversed. It’s important.
Share your voice on Social Media
Please see the NS Arts Coalition’s pool of social media graphics here and post online right now to show your solidarity! From personal accounts and organization accounts.If not reversed, these cuts mean no more artists and writers in schools, programming and productions will be cut, and cultural workers will lose their jobs. Further, this loss of funding will drive artists out of our province to seek opportunities elsewhere.
Arts and culture are vital to our province!
Thank you all very much. Let’s keep the fight going – it’s not over until it’s over!
VANS Official Statement
We join our colleagues in the Arts, Culture and Heritage sectors to express our utmost disappointment and concern with the proposed budget that outlines significant cuts in program grants and funding by the Nova Scotia government. This is more than just a hit on our sector – this would have a devastating ripple effect in our communities, as other non-profit organizations are also scrambling to figure out their sustainability, let alone being able to keep up with the day-to-day.
The Arts, Culture, and Heritage sector will be disproportionately affected by the provincial budget cuts – cuts that will do very little to fix the provincial deficit, but will undo decades of building a vital, supportive, and sustainable arts community. The impact of these cuts will be far-reaching and permanent, as arts organizations will dissolve, artists will leave the province, tourism will drop, and communities will suffer.
Visual Arts Nova Scotia (VANS) exists to support visual artists throughout every stage of their careers through mentorship, professional development, sharing work opportunities, exhibitions, advocacy and more. A 20% reduction across the board, especially in funding to non-profit arts organizations is a major blow to our operations. This essentially means cutting a core part of our human resources, which deeply affects our program and service delivery, support for artists, and community outreach. Besides the 20 – 30% cut to operational funding, taking away the funding stream “Artists in the Schools” (funded by both Arts Nova Scotia and the Department of Education) would eradicate one of our core programs, Professional Artists in the Schools (PAINTS). This program has been running for almost 20 years and provides visual arts programming in schools across the province by professional visual artists who live in the communities that they serve. Thousands of hours have been spent with PAINTS artists directly working with students and teachers. So much of the other support for art specialists has already been removed from our schools. With a relatively small financial contribution from the province, we are able to offer moments of connection and inspiration to kids and teachers in our communities. And we, like all arts organizations, do a lot with a little. There is no fat to trim. These cuts mean real losses of staff and programs.
This budget also ignores that artists are small business owners. We at VANS want to emphasize that artists are indeed entrepreneurs, and we bring revenue into the province through many avenues such as tourism, export, and film/television. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s recent report, Artworks: The Economic and Social Dividends from Canada’s Arts and Culture Sector highlights that every dollar invested in the arts generates $29 in economic activity.
Also of great concern is how the cuts will impact equity-deserving groups, who already experience a disproportionate lack of access. Taking away support from the Office of L’Nu Affairs and Office of African Nova Scotian Affairs, and their stakeholders is a blatant disregard of the work that is being done towards Reconciliation and Reparations.
We request a meeting with you, alongside our colleagues at the Cultural Federations of Nova Scotia (CFNS), to discuss the implications that will go along with these proposed changes. We urge you to evaluate your priorities and your constituents’ overall well-being as you go through the budget process. These cuts are harmful to communities that are already having a hard time. This budget as presented will create an irreversible, negative impact- and it is already starting to unfold. It does not “Defend Nova Scotia” – it fails to recognize the very things that make Nova Scotia unique, valued and revered. It’s not too late to do better.
