Cuts Hit Heritage Organizations
Recent deep cuts by the provincial government have impacted heritage conservation in several ways.
The virtual elimination of gaming grants has been devastating. Many museums and other community heritage organizations have had to reduce programs and cut staff. Some will suffer significant deficits as a result.
Heritage BC has addressed these cuts in a submission to the provincial Finance Committee.
Heritage BC also lost 90% of its core operations funding and was forced to shut down for three months over the summer. A grant from the Heritage Legacy Fund got Heritage BC back to work, but this in turn will reduce grants to communities.
The provincial Heritage Branch has been cut back to a base budget, with no funds available for community grants or outside contracts. Funding for the Heritage Tourism Alliance, a major initiative, has been terminated, and the British Columbia Heritage Award was cancelled. The Branch will also lose its federal funding for the Historic Places Initiative as of March 31, 2010.
Former heritage minister, Bill Bennett, said publicly last year on several occasions that heritage was not getting its fair share of resources. He promised to do his best to correct the situation, and a substantial investment of $8.1 million was announced before the election for the province’s own Heritage Properties. That investment was necessary and overdue, but unfortunately it looks to be the last for heritage for some time.
Things, in fact, have just gotten much worse.
Read the HeritageBC submission:
