CanCult.ca

The Globe reports the Tories Gone Wild round of arts cuts is actually intended to free up money for the 2010 Olympics. No surprises there, I guess.

More than $40-million in savings the federal government will reap from controversial cuts to arts and culture funding will be redirected to the Vancouver Olympic torch relay and two other programs, exacerbating fears that replacement initiatives are not in the cards.

The Conservative strategy is apparent in a section of the 2008 federal budget that promises to “redirect all savings” from cuts to several Department of Canadian Heritage domains to pay for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic torch relays; the Road to Excellence program, which supports Summer Olympics athletes; and the Action Plan for Official Languages, which promotes bilingualism.

According to the budget, Heritage planned $61.9-million in cuts between February, 2008, and the end of the 2010-2011 fiscal year as part of its ongoing strategic review. Those funds, which include the trimmed arts and culture spending, will instead be used to pay for the $24.5-million torch relays and to provide $48-million to the Road to Excellence over three years.

Brilliant. As the world moves increasingly to an economy based on information and cultural innovation — an economy of “intellectual capital” — we’re axing funding to those industries to spend millions on moving a torch around the country.

I’m not a fan of the Olympics, but I’m also not anti-sports. I do believe it’s important to get people involved in sports and exercise programs. That said, I think supporting cultural industries and creating infrastructure for those industries is more important than funding someone to be a half second faster than anyone else in the world when it comes to extreme toboggan racing or whatever the hell the fad of the year is. We’re paying for the Olympics programs with those arts cuts now — cuts that have hit every cultural industry — and we’re going to continue paying for decades to come. I guess we get the gold medal for lost opportunities.

Previously:

• Tories slash arts funding… and then stab it a few times more for good measure
• A no-brainer indeed
• Wondering what those arts grants funded?
• Tories axe more arts programs
• “Counterintuitive and counterproductive”
• “Support for arts and culture are among the most efficient investments a government can make”
• Have the Tories written off the cultural sector?
• Tories Gone Wild: Barely funded
• What exactly are the arts good for?