As a volunteer director of a number of arts and culture organizations like Global Vision Festival and Punjabi Cultural Association, I know the arts have the power to transform lives and our communities. 

Our city’s artists, cultural institutions and festivals make our streets, neighbourhoods and public spaces come alive. The arts are also an economic driver – in 2019, the arts brought nearly $80 million to the local economy, with nearly $60 million in wages going to over 1,500 jobs.

That is why supporting artists and the arts and culture sector, including our city’s rich multiculturalism and Indigenous cultures, is imperative as we move forward in the coming months and years. 

Elevating the Arts with a Mayor’s Arts Advisory Committee

The arts are such an important part of Edmonton’s civic identity and so central to our progress as a city, we need to always be listening carefully and meaningfully to the community as it changes. 

The arts need to be elevated to the attention of the Mayor’s Office. In my first year in office, I will convene an advisory committee that will provide updates on Edmonton’s evolving arts ecosystem, and communicate the needs of artists from all backgrounds, at all levels and in all disciplines.

This Committee will focus on diverse representation and perspectives, communicating the needs of artists from all levels and communities, and ensuring they always have a place at the table to speak directly to the mayor. It will provide the Mayor and Council with up-to-the-minute information, continually working and evolving, just like the artists themselves and the art they create. 

Re-Committing to Our Current Arts and Heritage Plan

I will work with Council and administration to refresh the existing City of Edmonton 10-year arts and heritage plan, which remains relevant and is aimed at elevating the whole arts and culture ecosystem. 

This will include supporting the Plan’s clearly outlined accountabilities to maintain Edmonton’s strong and long standing arts and culture communities.

Funding for the next phase of the 10-year plan will come before Council next term. I will work with the community, particularly the Edmonton Arts Council and Edmonton Heritage Council, to identify the important building blocks and projects for the next stage of this plan, and to ensure we find funds to move critical work ahead.

Making Artists a Key Part of Our Economic and Recovery

The City of Edmonton should be proud to say there are no starving artists here: artists enrich our lives and communities and should be able to earn a decent living.

In the next budget, we will create a $1.2 million Arts Recovery Fund for 2022 that exclusively supports the hiring of artists to perform and create works, split into thirds to maximize impact. I will strive to leverage this city commitment to garner provincial and federal funding, as has been successfully been done by City and DBA during this pandemic.  

• One-third of the funding will support neighbourhood level arts such as community concerts. Community concerts and performances have been one of the ways we’ve made the best of the pandemic’s impact – let’s continue to provide those unique chances for people to enjoy art right where they live.
• One-third of the funding will support artists and events downtown. The Downtown Business Association has been doing a fantastic job bringing people downtown to engage in exhibits and performances as part of the downtown recovery. Dedicated funding will make artists an essential part of bringing people back downtown and supporting businesses. 
• One-third will be dedicated to supporting equity-seeking and emerging artists and artistic forms, communities often overlooked by traditional granting opportunities. We can use these grants and this platform to build the profile and experience of new artists with perspectives we need to hear. 
• Building on recent changes to the Percent for Art Program, we will make a small portion the fund available exclusively for artists and businesses to put up murals and instagrammable walls all over Edmonton. This will create wonderful points of interest and enliven our streets.

We will measure the number of events, artists and performances supported by this fund in the first year to determine if it should continue support for a second year, alongside arts and culture plan priorities, as we continue our recovery.

Supporting Social Inclusion Through the Arts

The City of Edmonton has many ways it can support the arts and our rich multiculturalism  as a way to welcome newcomers as well as equity-seeking communities. 

We will make better use of space, by both using available public spaces to share arts with the community, and finding creative solutions to provide workspace to community cultural and arts organizations so they can flourish.

I will work with City administration to measure and develop targets to increase the number of spaces for cultural opportunities in recreation and community service centres. I believe we can do more to find creative solutions whether in city-owned buildings, or private buildings that need tenants or repurposing. I will also work with Edmonton’s cultural communities to help identify both space and funding to support establishing cultural and community centres, which can provide Edmontonians from all backgrounds with opportunities to learn, connect, and share their cultures. 

We also need to promote Indigenous arts and artists, along with Indigenous culture and heritage. This support needs to be the first priority interwoven with all of our work in growing Edmonton’s arts and culture sector.

Encouraging the Easy Wins

There are small, easy fixes that can make things easier to grow our arts community and quality of life in Edmonton. These include:

• Responding to the needs of arts and culture organizations, sports venues and restaurants that operate beyond 9 to 5 through the creation of a Night Time Economy Director position. 
• Convening flagship arts organizations and established business development organizations to provide the best possible reach to promote Edmonton artists, arts and culture to attract tourism and business to Edmonton. 
• Including festivals in the City’s review on permitting timelines, whether for festival creation or expansion, to help them save time and money better invested in artists and audiences.  
• Examining property tax incentives that support the arts, such as incorporating a performance or studio space into a commercial space.
• Creating a new category in Edmonton’s Economic Recovery Grants that specifically provides grants to help venues and festivals cover the costs of opening safety and building confidence with their audiences.

For our economy,  our identity, and for our sense of community, we need to support artists, and the arts and culture sector, as we move forward in the coming months and years. I believe the actions outlined above, and those suggested by Edmonton’s diverse and knowledgeable cultural community, will support artistic and economic growth that benefits the whole city.