B.C. culture ministry cuts 100% of BCAMP funds as part of "literary clearcut"

The B.C. Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture, cut $20,000 in funding from the B.C. Association of Magazine Publishers (BCAMP) on Tuesday. The cut, which represents 100% of the funding that BCAMP receives from the ministry, is effective January 1. Word came in a phone call from the arts & culture branch's executive director Andrea Henning. The cuts are the latest fallout from a budget that was passed in September and effectively gutted arts funding in the province.

Similar total funding cuts were made to the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia (which lost $45,000) and BC BookWorld newspaper (which lost $31,000).

“We know there is a recession, and perhaps cuts can be expected,” says Rhona MacInnes, BCAMP executive director, “but 100 percent is shocking. By the province’s own reckoning, the arts sector offers a healthy return on investment, so there needs to be a fundamental shift in the way this government assesses value. Sadly, these Draconian measures are just the beginning. We’ve all been given notice to expect severe cuts to the BC Arts Council.”

MacInnes said that the funding was extremely important to the association -- which represents 82 member magazines -- and is roughly 20% of the organization's budget. BCAMP operates a very small, two-person office. Conversations will be held with the board to see what can be done to cope with the shortfall. Meanwhile, the beleagured literary organziations have formed the Coalition for the Defence of Writing and Publishing in British Columbia in an effort to fight back against what it describes as a "literary clearcut".

“Thus far they have chopped off three heads,” says Alan Twigg, publisher of BC BookWorld for twenty-one years, “but indications are that more heads will roll.”

The 50-member Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, founded in 1974, is the largest regional affiliate of the Association of Canadian Publishers. It does extensive business, marketing, promotion and awareness programs.

“Our B.C. publishers are reeling,” says ABBPBC executive director Margaret Reynolds. “It is an absolutely bizarre decision. Governments across the country, federal and provincial, recognize the importance of culture to the lives of their citizens. Why invest in this infrastructure then unceremoniously withdraw it?”

BC BookWorld is a quarterly, distributed to more than 900 outlets around the province and reaching approximately 100,000 readers per issue. It has been identified by the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing—in a report commissioned by the BC government—as “the most important cog in the infrastructure” that supports writing and publishing in B.C.

“BC BookWorld generates 70% of its own revenues,” says Twigg, “So Arts & Culture has chosen to sabotage something literary that is genuinely popular, public-serving, non-elitist and educational. It boggles the mind. We’re the focal point for all B.C. books and authors.”

Twigg got a brief phone call less than a month before his non-profit society was scheduled to renew its 21-year partnership with the provincial government. According to a press release from the coalition, some sectors of the literary economy have already been hurt.

“Essentially the B.C. government saw they had a deficit,” says Bryan Pike, executive director of the BC Book Prizes, “and we didn’t have any. So they decided to give us some of theirs! They are off-loading debt onto charitable organizations.”