reportonbusiness.com: Harper defends cuts to arts programs - The Diigo Meta page

• 29 Aug 08
  

  Yule Heibel

  G&M article on recent announcement of cuts in arts funding, which co-incided with the Conference Board of Canada's report on the significance of the arts to Canada's economy.

  globeandmail steven_harper canada cultural_support funding conference_board_canada arts_funding

  • Prime Minister Stephen Harper defended $44.8-million in planned cuts to arts-and-culture programs for the first time yesterday. At the same time, the Conference Board of Canada released a report attesting to the economic benefits of investing in Canadian culture
  • echoed recent assertions by his communications director, Kory Teneycke, and Canadian Heritage Minister Josée Verner that the government has managed to walk a tightrope, trimming the fat from its culture portfolio while simultaneously increasing overall spending.

    • 

      Yule Heibel on 2008-08-29

      - this article is unclear: is it a cut of nearly $45m or is there an overall increase in spending??
  • 2 more annotations...
  • • “Some programs in arts and culture have increased in funding, others have gone down – in total it's gone up.” Federal investment in culture for the 2007-08 fiscal year was $3.4-billion, up from $3.2-billion in 2006-07.

    • The Prime Minister's comments come in the wake of a recently released report from the Conference Board of Canada, in collaboration with the federal government, that confirms high economic returns on cultural investment. The report, entitled Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada's Creative Economy, calls the cultural sector's role “as a magnet for talent, an enhancer of economic performance, and a catalyst for prosperity” a universal phenomenon.

      
      

      
      The Conference Board estimates Canada's cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada's GDP, in 2007. The sector's total impact including “indirect and induced effects” on other sectors leaves an economic footprint of $84.6-billion, or 7.4 per cent of GDP, the report states. Those revelations paint a picture of industry stability: Statistics Canada reported culture accounting for an identical 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2006.

      
      

      
      The report put 2003 employment in the cultural sector at 616,000 jobs.

      
      

      
      Including direct and indirect contributions to employment, the report estimates that culture accounted for 1.1 million jobs in 2007.

      
      

      
      Canada's culture sector is being driven by growth in digital technology and expanding Internet use, the report states.

Public Stiky Notes

• 
  Yule Heibel on 2008-08-29
  - this article is unclear: is it a cut of nearly $45m or is there an overall increase in spending??

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