'We'll lose our jobs': Arts, culture groups urge Halifax council to reject funding cuts

Thirty-six speakers asked Halifax city council’s budget committee Friday to reject the idea of cutting arts funding as a way to minimize any potential tax increase on residents.

As the city grapples with finding $13 million in savings for its next municipal budget, staff have outlined a list of possible ways to find that money.

That list includes more than 55 per cent in cuts to arts funding and eliminating $100,000 in grant money to the Dartmouth Heritage Museum.

During Friday's meeting, speakers urged city council to look elsewhere for efficiencies.

“If our $100,000 a year was cut, this would not only be a significant loss to the Dartmouth Heritage Museum,” said historian and Museum Society director David Jones. “It would no longer exist.”

The manager of the Dartmouth Heritage Museum, Joanne Pepers, says the funding cuts will jeopardize the museum’s future.

“Aside from the heritage and the educational losses, and the closure of both Evergreen House and Quaker house, there are human losses,” she said.

“We’ll lose our jobs, grant funded summer students will not have the opportunity to work at the museums as they have in summers past.”

“There are fewer arts spaces for us and provincial funding is still frozen,” said Sébastien Labelle, the executive director of the Bus Stop Theatre. “The mere thought that municipal funding to the arts could be cut at all, let alone in half, is sure enough to send us in a bit of a panic.”

One resident who attended Friday's meeting said slashing grants would drive people out of the city.

“I love living here, I want to keep living here, but I can’t keep living here if you cut arts funding by 55 per cent," said artist Lou Campbell.

Members of arts and culture organizations in the city each took their turn to emphasize the importance of their programs to the larger community.

“Investing in the arts is an investment across sectors,” said the artistic director of Mocean Dance, Susanne Chui. “It’s an investment in mental health, it’s an investment in safety, it’s an investment in wellbeing, and the economy."

Over the coming weeks, various municipal departments will present their budget requests to the city.

Municipal staff identified close to 100 reductions that could be made for the 2023/24 budget. About 40 have been incorporated into the plan, while the remaining 60 are put forward for regional council to consider.

Other cost-cutting suggestions include reducing transit service, sidewalk snow clearing and weekly green bin pickup, and career fire fighting staff at rural stations.

Last fall, staff recommended an eight per cent tax increase to deal with “significant economic headwinds” including skyrocketing inflation.

Council wants to limit that to four per cent

“But with that four per cent, we have to have cuts,” says city councillor and budget committee chair Paul Russell.

“And that’s a really difficult situation to be in, where you raise taxes and cut services."

Councillor Pam Lovelace says she’d like to find alternatives to cutting arts funding.

“I’ve been working in arts and cultural industries for 20 years,” she says. “So I would like to see an investment in arts. I am certainly disappointed in the lack of funding that we have.”

NDP MLA Susan Leblanc also appeared in front of the budget committee, not as an elected official, but as a former core member of performance company Zuppa Works.

“Before politics, I have been a professional artist, relying on government grants,” she said. “And it was a bright spot when Halifax started investing in professional art, and so I came to…say please, keep it up, and do not consider taking that away.”

At the meeting, Halifax Mayor Mike Savage emphasized no decisions have been made.

“We got asked to reconsider, we haven’t even considered yet, we haven’t even started to consider,” he said.

The budget committee will debate the issues and refer the resulting budget changes for a final decision March 29.

The approval of the budget by council is due to take place April 25.