Have your say and support advocacy on key arts issues in Prince Edward County and beyond!
In the lead up to the February 2025 provincial election, we surveyed Bay of Quinte candidates to ensure that the arts and its many benefits are top of mind for our local candidates, and that voters have the necessary information to make an informed, pro-arts decision at the ballot box. Click here to see their responses.
In 2024, we carried out an initiative aimed at enhancing arts events in the County Arts Lab – our home on the Main Street level of the Picton Armoury – and developing a placemaking strategy to help promote Main Street Picton as an arts and culture destination. This project was supported by the My Main Street program, the Canadian Urban Institute, and the Government of Canada through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
A full roll-out of the Strategy and new Art at the Heart of Picton branding collateral will take place in spring 2025. Click here to read the full Press Release and here for a PDF version of the Placemaking Strategy.
Art at the Heart of Picton Placemaking Strategy by Andrea Dawes
January 27, 2025 – County Arts works hard year-round to ensure the needs of local artists and arts organizations are front and centre for decision-makers, including during the 2025 municipal budget engagement process and the 2024 redesign of the Municipal Community Grants Program. We surveyed local arts organizations to learn more about their needs, and surveyed fellow Arts Councils to learn more about municipal support for their work. Based on our learnings, we advocated for the creation of a designated arts granting stream with $200,000 in base funding – sourced from the municipal operating budget, Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT), and philanthropic donations – an amount that would adequately meet the needs of local artists and arts organizations.
We are pleased that Council has acknowledged the wide-ranging community benefits of the arts by leveraging a portion of the MAT to support our creative economy – we are among the first municipalities in Ontario to do so! We are also excited that an innovative mechanism – the PEC Arts Fund – has been established in partnership with The County Foundation to support the new arts funding stream of the Municipal Community Grants Program.
We wish to celebrate this moment while expressing concern with the PEC Arts Fund’s small funding envelope relative to arts organizations’ needs, and the fact that this framework results in zero tax-supported dollars being allocated to support the programming of arts-mandated organizations. This is despite the arts ranking among the top 4 areas in which residents indicated the municipality should expand funding during the 2025 budget consultation (click here for a summary of arts-focused excerpts from the budget engagement results).
County Arts will continue to advocate for the reinstatement and increase of tax-supported municipal funding for the arts, which is all the more critical in the face of stagnant provincial and federal support. We also encourage every resident whose life has been positively impacted by the arts to prioritize donating to local arts organizations, and to contribute to the new PEC Arts Fund, to ensure the continued vibrancy of our unique arts community.
Click here to read the comment made by County Arts Executive Director Janna Smith at the November 14th Committee of the Whole meeting. Please contact Janna at janna@countyarts.ca with any questions.
October 1, 2024 – We are thrilled to share the release of a new Hill Strategies profile of PEC artists based on data from the 2021 Census. The article confirms what we have always known to be true of the incredible depth, breadth, and uniqueness of the artist community in Prince Edward County.
Click to read our Highlights Overview and the full Hill Strategies article, and view the images below for a high-level summary. We thank Kelly Hill of Hill Strategies for his work on this project, as well as the Corporation of the County of Prince Edward whose support helped make it possible.
In July 2024, we ran a campaign to advocate for and help secure the future of our local arts and community sectors while the municipality of Prince Edward County was running their 2025 budget consultation. We prepared a letter that residents could personalize and email to Council and the Municipal staff running the 2025 Budget engagement process, asking them to advocate for increased funding for the Municipal Community Grants program that keeps pace with inflation and population growth and reflects the true, immense value of our hardworking nonprofit sector; and increased arts funding levels, including reliable, adequate funding for arts organizations.
References: Community grant amounts: 2018 / 2019 / 2021 / 2022 / 2023 / 2024 / Operating budget amounts: 2018 / 2019 / 2021 / 2022 / 2023 /2024 / (2020 amounts not included due to pandemic-related anomalies)
In the lead up to the 2022 provincial and municipal elections, County Arts spearheaded comprehensive campaigns to ensure that the arts and its many benefits were top of mind for our local candidates, and that voters had the necessary information to make an informed, pro-arts decision at the ballot box. Click to view our complete 2022 Provincial, 2024 Provincial By-Election, and 2022 Municipal Election Packages, including the results from Community Surveys, Candidate Surveys, and more!
