Andrew King

Jane Needles of the Quebec Drama Federation, whose career has been devoted to the arts, referred to Quebec as the “signal ship” of arts in Canada. “The arts denote the soul and culture of a country,” she said.

Earlier in the summer the Conservative government committed to cutting arts funding by $48.5 million, which has pushed the arts to the forefront of voters' minds leading up to the election.

Needles said the arts world is often neglected because it isn’t the economy and often doesn’t involve full-time salaried positions, or as Stephen Harper said, doesn’t affect “ordinary” people. However, she pointed to a recent report from The Conference Board of Canada that told a very different story.

Published in July, the report revealed that Canada’s arts and culture sector contributed $84.6 billion or 7.4 per cent to the GDP in 2007 and employed more than one million people. Needles said that the numbers stress how important it is to put the arts at the top of the agenda.

“It’s not a popular subject, the arts are just kind of there,” she said. “It’s through the arts that you’re going to get the message across.”

Joining Needles was Patrick Goddard of the Main Line Theatre and Montréal Fringe Festival who passionately shared what it means to receive support to pursue his passion.

“I am an ordinary Canadian,” said Goddard, who compared the Harper cuts to that of a military attack to silence artists' voices and divide Canadians.

Westmount’s Visual Arts Centre executive director Victoria Leblanc said the cuts will have a negative effect on all artists and arts venues, including the Centre, even though it receives its funding from private donors and fundraising events instead of government support.

“The minute you start, as a society, not showcasing your artists and underlying the importance of culture, in people’s ordinary minds they stop thinking it’s important,” she said. “So [the cuts] indirectly affect the entire culture community.”

Leblanc said that because of the cuts people won’t think of signing up for a class and slowly the arts will leave the social consciousness.

“It’s not just about, you know, having beautiful things around, it’s about art telling us who we are. Culture tells us who we are.”