Canada Council increase will benefit literary and arts magazines

The Canada Council, without much fanfare, has increased its funding to its Arts & Literary magazine program in time for the March 1 round of applications. As a result many magazines may see their grants increase and magazines already in the program will not see their grants trimmed in order to welcome new magazines into the program.

"We are delighted to see the new funding," said Mark Jamison, CEOMagazines Canada."This is linked directly to the collective efforts of several artsservices organizations that successfully lobbied the Government ofCanada for an increase to the Council's base funding. Magazines Canada took a very active role in the advocacy campaign."

The Council will be releasing more details about the increase shortly, but the additional funding to magazines is part of a $31.5 million boost it has received: $30 million is new funding from the federal government and $1.5 million is from interest on Council investments. A minimum of 81% of the money (about $25 million) will be spent on increased grants to artists and arts service organizations.