TONAC & Money

Yesterday I travelled to Kelowna for the annual Thompson Okanagan Network of Arts Councils meeting. A typical meeting, we gave our reports and noted the absence of more than half of the Arts Councils. Nice to see that the Kelowna group is getting some youth action, having done a very cool installation event in an old motel, the "Mad Hatter," in March with a bunch of UBC-O art students. The issue of the moment is how BC Arts Council distributes provincial money. Our per capita grant has been cut in half as of last year. Apparently they are putting more of that money into the performance grant (money for ACs that do a good job fulfilling their mandate). But I think it's all smoke and mirrors. When you change a formulated funding system, you can easily reduce the total and no one really notices. Except, of course, the little guy at the end of the line who wonders why they have to cut back their programs in order to survive.

Then we discussed the recent Christie Clark announcement "hey everybody! gaming grants are coming back!" Whee! Oh, wait a minute. Are we suddenly eligible again? That's how they dumped us two years ago, by changing the eligibility requirements to youth-only programs. Funny, but I can't seem to find that information. I'm not sure I'm willing to spend two weeks writing a gaming grant application only to get zero and find out we still aren't eligible. A little clarity would be nice, Premier Clark.