In Search of the Creative Economy: Analyses of the Provincial and Territorial 2015-2016 Budgets from the Perspective of Arts, Culture and Heritage

Abstract

It was another tough year for the Canadian economy in 2015. After the collapse of oil prices and the Canadian dollar in 2014, the country slipped into a brief recession in the first half of 2015. There were signs of modest recovery in the last half of the year, as Statistics Canada reported a 0.6% increase in GDP in the third quarter of 2015.1 But the hope that the manufacturing sector in Ontario and Québec would take up the slack as the engines of the economy did not immediately materialize, and it was only toward the end of 2015 that exports of manufactured goods started to pick up. Faced with the grim statistics outlined above, provincial governments took a variety of measures to trim expenses and increase revenues, and this restraint had an impact on the cultural sector. But, at the same time, many provinces and territories also began to seek ways to diversity their economies to boost tax revenues and create jobs. A growing number turned to the cultural and tourism sectors as possible engines of growth and as drivers of a new type of creative economy.

Keywords: culture, arts, heritage, budgets