Feds slash museum funding
By pieta woolley
Publish Date: 28-Sep-2006
MOA’s Cathy Bond tests for pesticides: the pilot project’s funding is threatened.
A poisonous coating of lead, mercury, and arsenic covers many of the Museum of Anthropology’s wooden West Coast art pieces. The toxic treatment—professionally abandoned 30 years ago—protects objects on display from rodents and bugs. That pesticide preservative is less desirable, however, when those pieces come back to life, according to Museum of Anthropology conservator Heidi Swierenga.
“The dancing objects are the most dangerous,” Swierenga told the Georgia Straight. “Say it’s a mask, and you’re wearing it and moving around, sweating, it’s making abrasions on the skin….We want to know what’s been affected [when we lend or repatriate the 2,500 tested objects back to First Nations]. .Our next hope is to work with industrial hygienists and find out what the risks are.”
That hope dwindled on September 25 when the federal Conservative government cut $1 billion in spending, a promise it made during Budget 2006. Half of the annual budget of Heritage Canada’s Museum Assistance Program—$4.6 million—got chopped. Local programs, such as MOA’s pesticide-detection pilot, which is supported entirely by the MAP project grants, may lose future funding. Heather Redfern, the executive director of the Alliance for Arts and Culture, said the arts community did not anticipate the slash.
“It’s carnage,” she told the Straight. “We’re really, really nervous.”
In 2004–05, the MAP spent almost half a million dollars on museums in the Lower Mainland. Projects included the Takao Tanabe exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Collection SOS at the Vancouver Police Historical Society, and the business plan for the Vancouver Maritime Museum to move into a new $30-million home near Lonsdale Quay. The MAP is the most obvious arts loss in this round of Conservative “savings”, but more cultural cuts appear imminent.
The Department of Canadian Heritage, which administers most of Canada’s national arts programs, lost $1.1 million in “operating/program efficiencies”, $500,000 from its loan-loss reserve under the Cultural Investment Fund, and $9.7 million when the Canadian Volunteerism Initiative was eliminated. The Canada Revenue Agency lost its 12 advisory committees, one of which was a film industry–led group advised the CRA about tax credits. The Department of Foreign Affairs lost $11.9 million for the Public Diplomacy Bureau. Part of the PDB’s mandate includes promoting Canadian arts and culture overseas. In addition, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada lost $55.4 million in youth-employment programs that provide temporary staff to museums.
“We had no warning,” Redfern said. “Except there were a lot of ominous things said in the House over the last few days by the minister of Canadian Heritage.”
On September 20, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Status of Women Bev Oda told the House of Commons that “this government got elected because it wanted to deliver accountability and value for taxpayers’ dollars….We must also ensure that we are not going to just continue the survival of organizations but that we are going to help those we are intending to help, not only women, children, our creators, filmmakers, and producers. So much of that money was wasted.”
In July, she defended her government’s arts position to the House by pointing out two Conservative initiatives: a $50-million increase to the Canada Council for the Arts and the elimination of the capital-gains tax on publicly traded shares donated to nonprofit organizations. She claimed the latter privately raised $80 million for arts in just weeks.
Redfern pointed out that Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty promised to chop another billion dollars in spending next year. “There was that increase to the Canada Council in the last budget,” she said, “so at least someone in government is onboard and understanding the importance of the arts.”
In the absence of MAP money, Swierenga said the pesticide-detection project can go on, but slowly, when staff have time. The MAP was pivotal in funding the hand-held device that allows conservationists to test for toxins without damaging museum objects, she noted, and MOA has the only museum-based one west of Ontario.
Swierenga noted that the most important MAP grant has yet to come: the one that lets the museum share what it has learned about pesticide residue and object safety with other museums and First Nations.