Feds give $9.5 million to Prairie arts organizations

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This article was published 22/03/2025 (200 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Royal Winnipeg Ballet has about 2.25 million new reasons to dance.

The civic institution is one of eight Manitoba and five Saskatchewan arts organizations getting a share of about $9.58 million in funding through the federal government’s Prairie Performing Arts Initiative, Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid announced in the ballet’s foyer Friday morning.

The RWB’s $2.25-million funding injection — earmarked mainly for renovations of its main floor studio space into a black-box performance theatre and toward community activations and market expansion — was by far the largest doled out, accounting for about 24 per cent of the total.

About 68 per cent of the fresh federal funding will go toward Manitoba arts organizations — including the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra ($305,357); Manitoba Theatre for Young People ($508,991); Prairie Theatre Exchange ($600,525); Théâtre Cercle Molière ($650,530); Manitoba Opera ($750,000); Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre ($750,000); and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra ($750,000) — to aid in modernizing technology, expanding audience and achieving long-term economic viability.

The remainder of the funding will go to theatre and symphony organizations one province west. Last week, about $8.3 million was also directed toward Alberta arts groups in a similar injection of non-repayable, long-term funding, Duguid said.

Angela Birdsell, executive director of the WSO, welcomed Friday’s investment, saying it addresses long-standing regional inequities for arts funding that tended to overlook the Prairie provinces.

“There is a competition from the environment, the social dimension — all of the things that governments support, and often the arts are an afterthought,” said Duguid, the federal minister of environment and climate change.

“I think we’ve shown today that it is not an afterthought. It is part of our identity. It is so important to our culture. It’s important for our unity as a city, province and country. It tells our stories. It is us.”

Duguid — flanked by parliamentary colleague Ben Carr (Winnipeg South Centre) — agreed the Prairies historically “were not given their fair share.”

With newly installed Prime Minister Mark Carney expected to dissolve Parliament and call a federal election on Sunday, neither Duguid nor Carr shied away from discussing the impending national decision.

“I’m very much thinking about (my father, the late MP Jim Carr, a classically trained oboist) when we make this announcement at a time when our values, our identity and our institutions are being challenged and threatened, both domestically from political leaders who are more interested in dividing us than uniting us, and from external forces that are looking to disrupt and take over our way of life,” Carr said.

“Investments like this mean more than perhaps they ever have.”

Carney, the former Bank of Canada governor who succeeded Justin Trudeau as both Liberal party leader and prime minister earlier this month, is expected to call an election for April 28.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com