Experts say provincial funding announcements are lacking ‘creative economy’ ahead of election season

The last few weeks have been filled with funding announcements from the provincial government, but two Winnipeg academics say one thing lacking from the province’s barrage of budgetary announcements was a focus on the “creative economy.”

Alan Freeman and Radhika Desai are partners in life and in their pursuit and passion for the arts and arts policy.

Desai is a professor and political scientist with a focus on the cultural economy at the University of Manitoba and Freeman has been involved in cultural policy for decades – formerly holding positions in the City of London Mayor’s office where he was responsible for the U.K. capital’s creative industries.

He says the province of Manitoba has a potential to be a creative hub that’s gone unharnessed, and feels it’s important for members of the public to examine the track record on the issue.

“One should judge, if one’s making a judgement, whose done what over the last 15 years, not who is promising what now,” said Freeman.

Freeman, who is also an expert in geopolitical economies, says there’s a different between funding cultural endeavours — which sometimes are inaccessible by the public — and investments in creative infrastructure, saying it’s a concept both politicians and voting public are still trying to understand.

“It’s a combination of harnessing the creativity in every human, building the infrastructure that allows those humans to function and giving them the educational opportunities, and the early career opportunities to develop that talent and bringing that all together in one whole,” he explained.

The blackout period for advertising government programs has now begun. The arts have played a small part in the province’s recent peppering of promises ahead of the cutoff.

“Those promises don’t have any internal coherence,” said Desai.

Desai says right now, there is a wider change happening across the Globe and right here in Manitoba.

“What we are witnessing is a transition of our economies, to a form where they involve more and more creative labour.”

However, instead of honing in on the opportunity to embrace the creative economy, Dasai says the government is pandering to its base and may be missing out.

“This is where the economies of tomorrow are going to be made,” Desai added.

CityNews reached out to the PC Party of Manitoba for comment on their strategies to support the creative economy, but a response was not received by broadcast deadline.

Manitobans go to the polls on Oct. 3.