Nenshi, art community slams Demong’s plan to cut public art spending

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi is painting his own picture with regards to a councillor’s proposal to cut public art funding and it doesn’t look pretty.

Ward 14’s Peter Demong will submit a proposal Monday calling for a freeze to public art, which he says could save $2 million to $4 million this year, as the province deals with falling oil revenues.

“For one year, to restrain from doing public art, I don’t think is going to be causing us a crisis,” he told CityNews. “When you’re dealing with a beer budget, stop buying champagne.”

Demong said the money may be needed to complete projects if funding from the province or Ottawa doesn’t come through and that the City has to adjust spending habits during an economic downturn.

The motion would also the funding to be restored in 2016 with council approval, but Nenshi called the move “terribly shortsighted.”

“It’s based upon the changing economic situation, but the price of oil actually has nothing to do with how we fund public art, where the funding comes from and certainly that funding is not in any way at risk,” Nenshi said. “There’s a lot of nervousness out in the community about what’s going to happen to the economy and I’m not comfortable with using that nervousness as an excuse to go after a program that really it has nothing to do with.”

Nenshi added many contracts have already been signed for projects, so cutting off the funding would hurt the economy because workers would lose that work and we shouldn’t separate art from the completion of a major building.

“I would argue a major public building is not done unless you have public art there as well, so it’s not going to save any money, it has nothing to do with the price of oil, it’ll put people out of work and it may cause the City to have to break contracts, I don’t understand why you would do that.”

The mayor also pointed to the public’s ongoing push to have the lions on the Centre Street Bridge used for the West LRT.

“If this motion passes and that particular project goes away, well that means we don’t save those lions and to me that would be a real big loss and I think most people would agree with me,” he said.

The President and CEO of the Alberta College or Art and Design Daniel Doz said art isn’t just peripheral.

“In Canada in terms of GDP, creative industries has the same weight as oil, gas and mining extraction,” Doz said, adding one of the public art programs of one of the school’s alumni has generated over $5 million in direct employment.

He also said it’s critical for tourism and attracting and retaining talent to the city.

“You want the city to be thriving, to be really attractive, to be a world leader and arts and culture is core to that identity that brings those folks, and so I wouldn’t want to stop that even for a month, because this is really critical,” he said.