A couple of weeks ago, I was directed to a webpage of the City of Greater Sudbury to “have my say” to help shape municipal budget priorities.
I wanted to say something about the importance of properly funding the arts, but of the categories I could choose from that one wasn’t listed. To express my support for a wide and varied array of art forms and practices within the city, I was relegated to an open-ended “other” category at the very end of the survey.
Working in the arts myself, (or over-working may be a more apt description), I only had the energy to peck out six words into my smartphone: “More funding for arts and culture.” When the results of this citizen survey are presented at council, I am not holding my breath that more support for the cultural sector will emerge anywhere on that priority list.
I’ve worked in the arts in Sudbury these past 10 years. I’ve served on several juries, had/have an arts practice, and more recently, I’ve been engaged as an arts administrator. Perhaps most significant of all, I’ve enjoyed and been nourished by the arts my entire life.
When I meet folks from out of town, it is noteworthy how often visitors, including out-of-town filmmakers, comment on the vibrant arts scene in Sudbury. From the murals of Up Here to the gritty bands making a pilgrimage the Townehouse, from Place Des Arts’ epicentre of Francophone culture, to not being able to take a backroad without bumping into another film or TV production — it is something Sudbury is known for, in the way of a “best kept secret” kind of way.
Yet, arts and culture are chronically under-funded in Sudbury and that has real consequences. In fact, there hasn’t been a raise in the actual dollars for arts and culture in Sudbury since 2016, not even cost of living.
This is how our arts and culture grants work: we have a graduated system of doling out arts funding to organizations. First, organizations may apply for small project grants (under $3,000), and after receiving so many of those, they become eligible to apply for a “large” project grant- any amount above $3,000.
After being approved for those grants, an art organization finally becomes eligible to apply for operating funding. Those of you with mathematical brains will already have beat me to the punchline: with no new money being added to the pot, the only way to incorporate new organizations is by cutting the funding of older ones already in the operating stream.
In addition to that glitch in the graduated model, there is no framework to differentiate between varying levels of operating needs. An organization that has one event annually one week or weekend of the year may receive more Sudbury arts dollars than an organization maintaining a public arts facility programming year-round.
I understand now, given the current framework, why years ago the Art Gallery of Sudbury opted out of the arts and culture grant stream and fought for its own budget line. Today, the dedicated budget line for the Art Gallery accounts for 23 per cent of its operating expenses and falls in line with the level of municipal support for other arts galleries across the country. Similarly, Place des Arts covered off 20 per cent of its operating costs through annual support from the city into its budget from the get-go, recognizing wisely the immense costs of running a building in relation to the public benefit such an arts centre brings to Sudburians and in celebrating Francophone culture and Franco-ontarien heritage.
As the organizer behind Sudbury Indie Cinema, the region’s first and only arthouse cinema, I admit we lacked that level of confidence or foresight to anticipate from day one that in order to maintain the high overhead costs of a public arts asset, with year-round programming and open to the public every day, we’d need more support than the current Arts and Culture Grants framework could afford.
Yet, after muscling our way through three years of the pandemic, opening when we could and in a manner consistent with whatever the ever-changing public health protocols were … at some point, being chronically under-funded catches up.
I say this even as our 2023 sales figures are double 2022, and 2022 numbers matched our pre-pandemic year of 2019-20. We are doing well in ticket sales, concessions, rentals, sponsorships, and memberships, but without adequate funder support, we can’t keep the lights on.
After-all, we aren’t playing Barbie and Star Wars movies; we are supporting the best in independent cinema from Canada and around the world. Seventy-five per cent of the films we bring are Northern Ontario premieres. Currently, our city support accounts for five per cent of our costs — nowhere near the 20-per-cent mark.
Sudbury Indie Cinema would like to be part of the discussion to increase arts and culture funding and to improve the current system for the city to distinguish between bricks and mortar/year-round programming vs. event or festival-based.
I don’t envy the city’s staff dedicated to supporting the sector when the funding support has stagnated for almost a decade. But in the meantime, for our independent not-for-profit cinema to survive, and the sector as a whole to thrive, economic development support from the City will be necessary as a stop-gap.
Beth Mairs is the lead programmer and former executive director of the Sudbury Independent Cinema Co-op.
