“New voices and artists from diverse communities stand to get a much bigger share of funding from the Canada Council for the Arts, according to an open letter from council director and chief executive officer Simon Brault,” writes Robert Everett-Green in Monday’s (11/14) Globe and Mail (Toronto). “The letter, which was distributed on Monday, provides the first details of how the federal agency plans to deal with a doubling of its parliamentary allocation by 2021. Nearly two-thirds of the council’s grants [go toward] long-term operating funds for well-established arts organizations. By 2021, Brault says, those ‘core’ grants will drop to just half of what the council gives out. The other 50 per cent of available money will be disbursed through a competitive project-grant process that will be open to anyone, with some priority given to first-time applicants…. The council has been talking for at least a decade about doing more to reflect the changing nature of art-making in an increasingly diverse Canada…. The total for open-competition project grants [will increase] by 224 per cent…. The council will also triple the amount devoted to its programs specific to self-identified indigenous artists and organizations, from $6-million now to $18-million by 2021.”
Posted November 17, 2016
