Conference Board and Michael Geist weigh in on Harper's War on Art

The Conference Board of Canada released a report today which it called the "most comprehensive look at the arts and cultural industries yet". According to CBC News the report found that

"Arts and culture contributed $46 billion to Canada's economy in 2007, but the overall impact of the sector was a much broader $84.6 billion"

That the above amounts equal " 7.4 per cent of Canada's gross domestic product"

"It attributes 1.1 million jobs to arts and culture or to spinoff industries, such as tourism"

That "culture has less tangible benefits, such as helping people of diverse backgrounds understand each other"

and that

The "creative economy" is a "key driver of economic growth in the future."

Also today Ottawa University Law Professor Dr. Michael Geist, who has spearheaded the campaign against Harper's Bill C-61 (which would criminalize most consumers of art and media), weighed in on the cuts to the arts. Geist pointed out the double standard that appears when comparing the "creative economy" to other sectors:

"Few people argue for a market-only approach for the sale of airplanes, largely because public support is recognized as a necessary pre-condition to global commercial success. The same may be true in the cultural industries. As we move from a world of scarcity (limited bandwidth and access to culture) to one of abundance (near unlimited access to culture), Canadian policies must shift from unworkable regulations that limit access to foreign content toward efforts that back the creation and promotion of Canadian content. In other words, cutting off funding for promotion is not just bad cultural policy. It is bad economic policy."

He also criticized cuts to programs that provide for the digitization of cultural heritage:

"the announced cuts move Canada in the opposite direction. For example, just as the government was cutting $11.7 million to the Canadian Memory Fund (which gives federal agencies money to digitize their collections and post them online), the European Union - which is currently led by the Conservative French President Nicolas Sarkozy - was committing nearly $200 million next year alone toward digitization and efforts to provide online access to Europe's cultural heritage. The European Commission has urged its member states to increase their digitization budgets, as Europe works toward the creation of a massive European Digital Library."

An emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage was called for this afternoon to discuss Harper's attack on arts, culture and the economy, though I have yet to see any official reports on results from that meeting.

p.s. not sure who to credit with the above photo - if it's yours, let me know.