[BCMA] Written submissions welcome for 2024 BC Budget consultations

[Moderated BCMA subscriber listserv]

Every year, the Select Standing Committee on Finance
<https://www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentary-business/committees/42ndParliament-4thSession-fgs>
and
Government Services holds a public consultation on the next provincial
budget. British Columbians can share their thoughts, ideas, and priorities
through a variety of participation options.

All British Columbians are able to share their thoughts, ideas, and
priorities. The Committee will review all input received and make
recommendations to the Legislative Assembly for the next provincial budget.

The BCMA encourages our members to make the voice of our sector heard by
submitting a written submission. Written submissions are being welcomed
until Friday, June 16 at 2:00 pm. To submit, visit the 2024 Budget
Consultations website
<https://www.leg.bc.ca/content-committees/Pages/Finance-Budget-Consultation.aspx>
.

On Monday, May 29 BCMA Executive Director, Ryan Hunt, presented to the
Standing Committee in Victoria and made the following three recommendations:

1
Sustainable sectoral funding

Having witnessed two closures of cultural institutions this year, the
Bateman Gallery and Point Ellice House Museum & Gardens, it is clear that
BC’s arts, culture, and heritage sector stands on fragile footing as
society recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.

For decades, provincial arts funding has not kept pace with the
ever-increasing cost of living and now our sector is grappling with the
highest rates of inflation in the past 40 years. In order to keep up with
the cost of inflation over the past year, the BC Arts Council budget would
need to be raised from $39.61 million to $41.35 million. I recommend that
the Province of BC increase the BC Arts Council budget to $50 million
annually and work with the sector to create a sustainability plan to ensure
the future health and vibrance of BC’s arts, culture, and heritage.

The BC Arts Council is the primary funder of museums, galleries, and
Indigenous cultural centres in British Columbia and yet, only a tenth of
the more than 400 museums receive operating assistance funding. Without an
increase in funds, new museums will not be able to receive this essential
funding, and more irreplaceable sites will be lost.

Our sector is recovering from nearly 20 years of the Province of BC
investing less in culture than any other province in the country. While our
sector is deeply appreciative of the actions the Province has taken to
remedy this chronic underinvestment, the compounding impact of COVID, high
inflation, and a general affordability crisis threatens to erase any gains
we’ve made in the past five years.

2
Emergency response planning

In the past three years alone we have lived through a once-in-a-century
pandemic, more severe temperatures and rainfall than have ever been
recorded, and so many wildfires and associated smoke events that I’ve
honestly lost count. Two museums in Lytton were destroyed by the 2021
wildfires and it is honestly a miracle that more severe damage has not been
inflicted on our communities’ irreplaceable arts, culture, and heritage.

I recommend that the Province of BC fund the development of an emergency
preparedness and response plan that consults the arts, culture, and
heritage sector, Indigenous communities, and organizations like the BC
Heritage Emergency Response Network. It is an undeniable certainty that we
will experience additional disasters and we must learn from these recent
experiences to ensure that we do not continue to lose that which cannot be
replaced.

We commend the Province for programs like the Community Economic Recovery
Infrastructure Program (CERIP) and the BC 150 Time Immemorial Grants for
providing significant investments in new heritage infrastructure and
climate mitigation projects, but since both of these grants were
oversubscribed by tens of millions of dollars, there continues to be
significant unmet demand in the sector. Infrastructure is only one part of
a disaster mitigation plan. To safeguard the irreplaceable, we need funding
to strengthen infrastructure, a province-wide emergency preparedness
training strategy, clear systems in place for emergency response, and an
equitable plan for the timely administration of recovery funds.

Failure to plan for emergencies will result in a failure to respond.

3
Stable funding for Indigenous arts, culture, and heritage

We urge the Province to ensure that funding for Indigenous arts, culture,
and heritage is sustainable and reflects UNDRIP/DRIPPA.

Two examples of this would be ensuring that key organizations like First
Peoples’ Cultural Council have long-term funding for their heritage and
arts programs. Additionally, we urge the Province of BC to create an
ongoing fund that supports Indigenous communities in rematriating, or
returning, their stolen arts, culture, heritage, and ancestors.

Dan Smith, founding member of the BC Museums Association’s Indigenous
Advisory Committee and a member of the Wei Wai Kum First Nation in Campbell
River stated that “True, meaningful and lasting reconciliation must include
the return of our ancestors back to the Nations where they were taken from.
We must work together to realize this, and in doing so free our children
and their children from the sacred obligation we have for finding our
ancestors and bringing them home.”

While the repatriation funding offered by the Province in 2017 and 2020
made a tangible impact on communities across the province, British Columbia
has a moral obligation to establish dedicated, reliable, and accessible
repatriation funding that centres the autonomy of Indigenous peoples. The
2020 Repatriation Grants had more than twice as many requests than
available funding and since nearly half of the funds went to rematriation
research, this means that even more communities have identified the
location of their belongings and ancestors and are ready to bring them home.

By funding rematriation, the Province of BC takes tangible action in
supporting reconciliation and helps begin to heal the wounds caused by the
theft of belongings and ancestors. As the BCMA stated in our presentation
to the Standing Committee on Finance in 2022, even a modest annual grant of
$750,000 to support repatriation would be world-changing for communities
that want to heal wounds that have been left open for nearly two centuries.
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