Waterloo region arts plan needed immediately, advocates say

There is no arts council that serves of all Waterloo region as a single voice, and Martin De Groot thinks it's about time the area resurrects the idea.

There used to be one. De Groot was part of it. But it folded after the Region of Waterloo set up the now defunct Creative Enterprise Initiative, which was a group dedicated to showcasing arts and culture, while attracting talent to the area.

And since the end of 2016, there hasn't been anything.

"I think what we have an opportunity to do is to look at where we stand and devise what a 21st century arts council should do and think about what are the proper limits of what a city can do, how can an arm's length, purpose-built independent organization help to be part of the infrastructure," De Groot said in an interview on CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition.

Arts councils across the country started popping up in the 1960s and 1970s, but De Groot says modern versions have often struggled to keep up with the times.

Municipalities that have created their own arts and culture departments have "kind of eclipsed what arts councils did before," he said.

But if they could come up with a made-in-Waterloo region solution, De Groot says he thinks it could be a model for the rest of the country to follow.

Funding 'a dog's breakfast'

De Groot isn't alone in believing the region lacks an overarching vision for arts.

During a recent presentation to regional council about the province's review of regional municipalities, TheMuseum's CEO David Marskell said there's a need for a common vision or master plan for arts and culture.

"With or without amalgamation, it's something that we really need to pull the arts together," he said in a recent interview.

The way things are funded in the region is wonky, Marskell said.

He pointed to the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery as an example. It receives funding from both Kitchener and Waterloo even though it's located in Kitchener, but Kitchener doesn't fund the Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo. 

He said with seven lower-tier municipalities and the region, there are eight arts agendas in this area and that often results in the duplication of efforts.

"It's just like a dog's breakfast of how things are funded," he said.

"I feel that if it was pulled together in some manner, if it was centralized ... I think it would foster collaboration and cross promotion."

The fall of the Creative Enterprise Initiative

The Creative Enterprise Initiative was created in 2011 by the region. The idea was to showcase local arts and culture and attract top talent to the area.

But it didn't get far.

In 2014, there was a full-scale review of the organization's mandate. The review offered two new priorities: to help people in Waterloo region find entertaining things to do and to help local groups collaborate and come up with creative projects to tie the region together.

Acting-director Roger Farwell said the region didn't need a standalone group to make those priorities happen.

In December 2015, it was announced the organization would cease to operate by the end of 2016.

Three years later, Region of Waterloo Chair Karen Redman says it may be time to move forward with a culture plan of some kind.

"Creative Enterprise Initiatives was a well intended very ambitious undertaking," she said. "It didn't end well, and I think we needed to have a period of healing."

'Another false start'

But Redman also wouldn't say the region is ready to take on that kind of project on its own.

"I think artists are happy to work together," she said. "What's missing right now probably is an advocacy body and some organization that coordinates opportunities."

She said that could be a grassroots organization or it could be municipally-led. 

"I think something needs to happen. I think that the region can facilitate and provide leadership," she said.

"I think we have to move on and we have to move forward and I think enough time has elapsed that we may be able to do that. But you don't want to have another false start," she added.

"My sense is with so many things changing in the region, irrespective of where the governance review ends up, I think we need to re-look at the kind of funding streams that have brought stability but maybe not offered the innovation that we may need."