Author Rachel Reid has spent much of her life as part of Halifax’s local arts scene.Caleb Latreille/The Canadian Press
Heated Rivalry author Rachel Reid has joined the chorus of voices protesting the Nova Scotia government’s sweeping cuts to arts funding in its budget last week.
“The proposed cuts would be devastating, and would drive even more talent out of the province,” Reid wrote on Instagram Tuesday. “Please don’t do this.”
The bestselling author’s words add greater heft to the warnings issued by artists and arts-industry workers in Nova Scotia over the past week after Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservatives announced numerous cuts to the sector as part of a $130-million reduction to provincial grants.
They’re expected to result in the closing of some local museums, the shrinking of cultural programs for Mi’kmaq communities and African Nova Scotians, and funding trims to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia and its Screenwriters Development Fund.
The publishing industry in particular has warned that Nova Scotian storytelling could be compromised by the end of the province’s $700,000 Publishers Assistance Program, which provides operating funding to publishing houses. They often take risks on locally significant books that major multinational publishers don’t take on.
Nova Scotia budget contains $1.2-billion deficit, public service cuts
Reid’s hockey-romance books were already widely popular before Jacob Tierney’s television adaptation made them one of the world’s hottest-selling series. But before that, she once worked as a publicist for Nimbus Publishing – one of the province’s biggest publishers, and a key recipient of Publishers Assistance Program funding.
Reid has also spent much of her life as part of Halifax’s local arts scene, including as a member of its burlesque scene and as a writer for the alternative weekly newspaper The Coast. “I can say without a doubt that I am only an author today because of the strong arts scene here in Halifax,” Reid wrote on Instagram. “I am, and always have been, inspired and amazed by the creative work of others.”
She continued: “All of it starts with community and having access not only to funding, but to the spaces and resources and people who inspire and help people to create.”
Asked about the cuts last week, Rob Maguire, the director of communications for the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage, said the Nova Scotia government “has had to make difficult decisions to manage spending and focus on key priorities such as health care, housing and growing the economy. As part of that work, grants have been reduced across our department and across government.”
In a plea to the Nova Scotia government after the budget’s release, two of the industry’s biggest lobbying groups, the Association of Canadian Publishers, and the Literary Press Group of Canada said the decision will leave Nova Scotia as the only province with no support for the industry.
Jack Illingworth, the Association of Canadian Publishers’ executive director, said on Friday he’s worried the cuts could have consequences far beyond the Maritimes.
“There is some national worry that this is precedent-setting,” Illingworth said. “That if provinces see divesting from cultural industry supports as a short-term – and in our mind, short-sighted – way of balancing the books, other provinces might imitate this.”