Written Submission for the Government of Canada’s Pre-Budget Consultations in Advance of Budget 2025  
By
The Independent Media Arts Alliance – L’alliance des arts médiatiques indépendants   (IMAA – AAMI)
Submitted: August 2, 2024

List of Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Increase funding to the Canada Council for the Arts and the Department of Canadian Heritage to assist arts organizations impacted by increasing inflation rates, and respond to the record high number of applications submitted by independent artists.

Recommendation 2: Expand eligibility requirements so that arts council funded media arts organizations are eligible to apply to the Museums Assistance Program (MAP) through Canadian Heritage for the preservation of work in their collections.

Recommendation 3:  Expand the existing Endowment Incentive to the Canada Cultural Investment Fund (CCIF) through Canadian Heritage to include arts service organizations and competitions as eligible recipients.

Recommendation 4: Provide a Federal Basic Income Guarantee for all Canadians, which will reduce poverty, stabilize incomes, and simplify the complex web of benefits and programs available to Canadians.

Recommendation 5: Update the Canadian Copyright Act to improve the financial situation of professional visual artists.

Context for Recommendations: 

Recommendation 1: The Media Arts Alliance (IMAA)  recommends that the Government of Canada fund arts organizations for increased operational costs and increase funding available to independent artists to ensure that the continued work being done to provide cultural opportunities for the Canadian public to connect is done effectively and reaches communities. IMAA supports the Canadian Arts Coalition in urging the government to permanently allocate at least 1% of its overall spending towards arts, culture, and heritage. To achieve this for the 2025-26 fiscal year, the Government should increase its allocations by $270 million, via: 

#1 An increase of $140 million to the Canada Council for the Arts; and
#2 An increase of $130 million to the Department of Canadian Heritage.

This funding would offer practical financial support to artists and organizations facing ongoing financial strains due to a general lack of funding and support. The cultural sector is facing challenges in recruiting and retaining staff due to insufficient support and funding, rising inflation, and increasing operational costs. This issue is also impacting the recruitment and retention of staff from diverse backgrounds, whose contributions are crucial to sustaining the ongoing work of increasing representation from equity seeking communities in museums, galleries,and arts organizations. Additionally, leadership burnout and concerns about the transfer of institutional knowledge are exacerbating these challenges. We urge the government to allocate additional funding through Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council for the Arts, specifically for salaries. This support will enable cultural institutions to hire and retain essential staff during this labour shortage and ensure the preservation of leadership and institutional expertise.

It is also critically important that Canada Council funding to individual artists increase to keep up with record-high demands for project assistance for research, development, creation, and production of work, as well as professional development for artists. Between 2017 and 2023, the volume of applications for the Explore and Create programs tripled. The increase in applications is a positive outcome of Canada’s history of investment in arts and culture. Despite this, only 16.6% of applications in 2023 were successful. Increased investment in artists is crucial to retaining Canada’s vibrant and diverse arts sector. 

We urgently call for all program funding at the Canada Council to be adjusted for inflation and cost increases to ensure these programs can fulfill their purpose and effectively support the cultural sector. While many visual arts organizations appreciate the renewal of multi-year funding, this support often fails to account for rising costs. Most operating budgets have been flatlined since 2020, and yet inflation increased 17.64% over the last 4 years. Current funding levels do not include increases in line with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) or Cost-of-Living-Adjustment (COLA), leaving organizations struggling to manage escalating operational expenses, which in turn affects the livelihoods of artists. 

Many funding programs at the Department of Canadian Heritage are currently highly oversubscribed. This has only been exacerbated by the reductions outlined in the Canadian Heritage’s 2024-25 Departmental plan. The continued increased investment proposed is crucial for an effective expansion of funding criteria for programs outlined in recommendations 2 and 3 that would not strain the programs further.  

Recommendation 2: The Museum Assistance Program (MAP) at the Department of Canadian Heritage is crucial in ensuring that groundbreaking art is preserved and continues to be championed. Currently, the program remains accessible only to museums and galleries though those institutions are only a small part of the range of collecting organizations across the country. Indeed, arts council funded distributors, production centres and artist-run centers often hold large collections of media artwork that urgently needs attention and preservation. Time-based artwork needs to be maintained in order for the public to be able to continue accessing it effectively. This is a critical time to maintain a medium in which the government has invested in over the last five decades and which has yielded groundbreaking work. IMAA recommends expanding eligibility to all collecting institutions, including arts council funded distributors and galleries to ensure that all art forms are preserved. 

Recommendation 3: The Canada Cultural Investment Fund (CCIF) Endowment Incentives component at the Department of Canadian Heritage encourages private donors to contribute to endowment funds for not-for-profit professional arts organizations so they can access new sources of funding in the future and have a greater capacity for realizing artistic expression by supporting their long-term stability. However, the fund criterion excludes Arts Service Organizations (ASO)  and competitions (award funding). 

ASOs face unique financial challenges due to their role in providing essential support services rather than generating direct revenue. They often struggle with limited funding, rising operational costs, and the need for stable financial resources to maintain programming. Expanding the Endowment Incentive to include ASOs will ensure their long-term sustainability by providing a reliable funding stream, enabling them to plan and operate more effectively. Including ASOs in the Endowment Incentive will encourage funding diversification. By fostering endowments, ASOs can attract additional private and public investments, reducing their reliance on single funding sources. This strategic investment will enhance economic impact by encouraging greater cultural investment and philanthropy. Aligning with the strategic priorities of Canadian Heritage and the CCIF, this expansion will strengthen the capacity of arts organizations and support a dynamic cultural sector. IMAA also recommends restoring the CCIF Endowment Initiatives envelope to pre-2024-2025 cut levels and expanding it within the $130 million dollar increased investment for Canadian Heritage as a whole.  

Recommendation 4: The need for a Federal Basic Income Guarantee (FBIG) was raised by many panelists and delegates at the Minister of Canadian Heritage’s National Culture Summit in Ottawa May 2022, and little has moved since. This issue is urgent since  artists are at the forefront of building social cohesion across the nation and statistics show that artists generally earn 44% less than general labour.

Most self-employed and contract-based workers in the arts sector cannot afford to pay into the current EI model. Canada’s overall labour force rebounded to pre-pandemic levels, however visual artists and other freelance workers in the sector did not. On average, visual artists’ earnings are less than half of the average Canadian worker. A federal basic income guarantee would act as a safety net for Canadian arts workers by providing unemployed, underemployed, and precariously employed workers with income support.

Supporting the recommendation of the Canadian Artist Network, IMAA recommends that the Budget provide that professional artistic income up to $10,000 is eligible for a refundable tax credit of 15% to incentivize artists living from their work. IMAA also recommends that the Budget reintroduce a four-year income back-averaging system to ensure tax fairness for artists whose work can take years to produce and generate revenue. Income fluctuation between 50% and 100% year to year for artists is supported by data collected by Canadian Heritage in the 2021 Canadian Artists and Content Creators Economic Survey (CACCES).

Recommendation 5: Copyright is a significant form of income for visual artists, and several proposals have been committed by the Federal Government that must be acted upon immediately.

First, the proposal to adopt the Artist’s Resale Right must be adopted, so that visual artists will receive 5% of the value of their work that is resold for at least $1,000 through an intermediary (auction house, commercial gallery, etc) in the secondary market. In tandem, the Federal Government needs to ensure that all policy changes in the age of AI comply with the Copyright Act, and that the “3 Cs” principle (consent, credit, and compensation) guide the Government’s actions. Thirdly, Fair Dealing needs to be amended in the context of education, so they only apply to visual and literary works when they are not commercially available under a license by the rightsholder or a collective society.

The Independent Media Arts Alliance – Alliances des arts médiatiques (IMAA)  is a national arts service organization that supports independent media arts organizations and artists. Representing over 100 independent film, video, audio, and new media production, distribution, and exhibition organizations in all parts of the country, the IMAA serves over 16,000 independent media artists and cultural workers. IMAA strengthens the media arts sector through research, advocacy, communication, community engagement, and capacity building.