On September 19, we reported on The Greater Halifax Arts and Culture Coalition‘s campaign to HRM candidates. The Coalition, made up of representatives from 19 professional arts and cultural organizations in the city, highlighted the shameful discrepancy between arts funding in Halifax compared to the rest of the country ($0.55 per capita, less than 10% the national average of $5.71 per citizen), and asked candidates for their thoughts, to share their backgrounds, their values and detail their commitment to the arts in HRM.
The Coalition heard back from over a third of the hopefuls (28 out of 65) and have released their statements on their website (greaterhalifaxarts.org) to coincide with Culture Days (Sept 28-30).
Unsurprisingly, all of the candidates were in favour of the arts and increased cooperation from the city. While some were less verbose or more anecdotal, there were many thoughtful and interesting responses that are well worth a read. Click here to read them and post your own comments.
The Coalition asks that voters keep these issues—and candidates statements—in mind when contacted or at the All Candidates Debate on October 15, hosted by Neptune Theatre. It’s up to us to make sure the elected officials aren’t just paying lip service.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2012.
We don’t have a lot of money here.
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We like to think we don’t have a lot of money here so we don’t feel like we have to do anything. We spend it on our massive bureaucracy instead.
interesting that other atlantic canadian cities didn’t make it on that chart, nor did really anything except Ontario. Winnipeg is a good comparison, but some western cities and maybe NL or NB representation would give us a clearer picture… jussayin