In the 2008 federal election, funding for the arts became a key issue after the Conservative government removed two grant programs for touring Canadian artists. In the current campaign, arts issues simply haven't caught the public's attention.

The 2008 announcement that the $4.7 million PromArt program and the $9 million Trade Routes program would be cut prompted the artistic director of the National Arts Centre's French theatre, Wajdi Mouawad, to write an open letter to the Prime Minister. “The resistance that will begin today, and to which my letter is added, is but a first manifestation of a movement that you yourself have set in motion,” he warned. “They will not be exhausted.”

But less than three years later, the reality is different.

“For better or worse it's not become as prominent an issue as it was in the 2008 election,” says Mark Hopkins, co-artistic director of Calgary's Swallow-a-Bicycle Theatre and organizer of several candidate forums through his recurring We Should Know Each Other events.

Simon Mallett, the artistic director of theatre company Downstage, which recently produced a night of politically infused theatre and performance called Wrecking Ball, agrees.

“I think the arts community had no choice but to be compelled to being active and involved in the campaigning that was going on,” he says of 2008. “So I'm not sure I have a thorough sense of whether the [arts'] lack of prominence in the campaigns to this point has disengaged people or if they're disengaging because it's not an issue.”

All party platforms do include at least a nod to the current level of funding for the arts (as summarized in a recent bulletin by the Canadian Conference of the Arts) although the Conservative platform does not include any new initiatives. The Liberals and NDP both promise increased funding to the Canada Council for the Arts while the Bloc Québécois wants Quebec to be able to opt out of federal programs, but receive full compensation. The Green Party, meanwhile, in addition to advocating increased funding and the restoration of the PromArts and Trade Routes programs, would support a change to the Canada Revenue Act “to allow arts and culture workers to benefit from a tax averaging plan that will take into account the fact that lean years often precede and follow a good year.”

“Everyone thinks the artists just want more funding,” says Hopkins. “Yes, but I will also take anything that will allow me to create, promote and distribute my art.”

Artists haven't been content to let the parties view them as a voting bloc. The Canadian Arts Coalition, for example, has produced an “Arts Vote Toolkit,” while Wrecking Ball similarly aimed to engage both artists and audiences.

For Kris Demeanor, a well-known local singer-songwriter who performed in Wrecking Ball, the most essential question that needs answering is whether arts are worth funding in the first place.

“It comes down to the fact that things matter to people when they're sort of a relevant part of their lives,” he says, noting that Stephen Harper's comment during the 2008 election campaign that “ordinary working people” don't empathize with gala-attending artists (a dubious characterization) still resonates.

Mouawad predicted an inexhaustible revolution, but for Demeanor and artists across Canada who want to see funding expanded, that public resistance hinges on two arguments— first, that the arts speak to Canadians, and second that these art forms speak better with more funding.

“Society needs to be reminded that ... art is an articulation of who we are outside of those other pressures,” says Demeanor.