The Key Points

Everyone Benefits from The Arts

Arts matter. They benefit individuals and communities. Everything is connected. Great art engages and inspires everyone from children with crayons to professionals with multi-media installations, local square dancers to international ballerinas, quilting grandmothers to cutting-edge fashion designers.

The Arts improve quality of life.

The Arts strengthen communities by:

  • helping people feel involved,
  • creating a sense of belonging,
  • enabling intercultural understanding and friendship.

The Arts enable innovation and education.

The Arts matter to Saskatchewan people. A 2017 Study for the Canada Council and Canadian Heritage found that:

They show up:

  • 92% of Saskatchewan people attended live performances/arts events last year – highest rate in Canada as it was in 2012.
  • Over 2/3 of Saskatchewan people attended an arts or cultural festival in their local community last year – highest in Canada.

They participate:

  • 65% of Saskatchewan people have been personally involved in artistic activity in the past year. It’s the highest rate in Canada (overall Canadian rate = 53%).

Nationally, Canadians widely agree that arts and heritage are beneficial to local communities:

  • Almost all Canadians agree (95%, including 62% who strongly agree) that the arts make communities a better place to live.
  • A strong majority also agree (80%, including 33% who strongly agree) that arts and heritage experiences help them feel part of their local community.1

More Arts Benefits

(1) Environics Research Group, Arts and Heritage Access and Availability Survey 2016-2017, Department of Canadian Heritage and Canada Council for the Arts, POR number: 051-16. 2017.

Teaching the Arts is valuable: The arts teach cultural literacy, artistic skills and techniques as well as a wide range of other valuable skills.

Parents value the arts. In a 2015 survey of Canadian parents:

  • 84% agreed “Engaging children in the arts helps them be more creative and expressive.”
  • 83% agreed “Engaging children in arts activities is important or their overall development.”

More Arts Education Outcomes include:

  • Skills such as critical and creative thinking, social development, and; increased motivation to participate in the community, and lifelong involvement in the arts.1
  • Arts-engaged low-income students are more likely than non-arts-engaged peers to attend and succeed in college, obtain employment with a future, volunteer in their communities and participate in voting.
  • High-Quality Arts Education is a first step towards using Arts to “unlock” other subjects. Arts-integration models help close the achievement gap and support crucial brain development in learning.2

Dianne Warren’s 2016 report, Future Innovators: Developing Creativity Through K-12 Arts Education in Saskatchewan Schools, confirms “the arts are essential to innovative thinking and behavior and can be applied in all K-12 schools through policy change, inquiry-based curriculum including arts education curriculum, and open dialogue among science, math, technology and arts education teachers.” 3

Arts Education can develop the innovative minds and creative skills needed to compete successfully in the 21st century workplace.4

More Arts Education

(1) Strategic Counsel, Building the Case for Business Support of the Arts: A Study Commissioned by Business for the Arts, Feb 2015.
(2) Canada Council, Impact of the Arts on Canadian Life.
(3) President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities (PCAH), Reinvesting in Arts Education: Winning America’s Future through Creative Schools, Washington, DC, May 2011.
(4) Warren, Dianne. Future Innovators: Developing Creativity Through K-12 Arts Education in Saskatchewan Schools. Saskatchewan Arts Alliance, August 15, 2016. p6.

Arts Involvement Drives Innovation:

Arts Education develops five skills that underpin innovative behavior and are linked to the innovation process in youth. These skills match what employers say they most need in their new recruits, but which they too often find missing.

  • Creativity – imagination, connecting ideas, tackling and solving problems, curiosity;
  • Self-efficacy – self-belief, self-assurance, self-awareness, feelings of empowerment, social confidence;
  • Energy – drive, enthusiasm, motivation, hard work, persistence and commitment;
  • Risk-propensity – a combination of risk tolerance and the ability to take calculated risks; and
  • Leadership – vision and the ability to mobilize commitment. 1

Turning STEM into STEAM: “the arts are essential to innovative thinking and behavior and can be applied in all K-12 schools through policy change, inquiry-based curriculum including arts education curriculum, and open dialogue among science, math, technology and arts education teachers” – Dianne Warren’s Future Innovators: Developing Creativity Through K-12 Arts Education in Saskatchewan Schools. 2

Providing STEM professionals with significant arts exposure (throughout their lifetimes), may be essential to their creative capital potential. 3

More Arts Innovation

(1) C. Brooke Dobni, PhD, Achieving Growth through Innovation: The Role of Arts Education in Supporting Economic Sustainability, May 2014.
(2) Warren, Dianne. Future Innovators: Developing Creativity Through K-12 Arts Education in Saskatchewan Schools. Saskatchewan Arts Alliance, August 15, 2016. p6.
(3) LaMore, Rex, Robert Root-Bernstein, Michele Root-Bernstein, John H. Schweitzer, James L. Lawton, Eileen Roraback, Amber Peruski, Megan VanDyke and Laleah Fernandez, “Arts and Crafts: Critical to Economic Innovation” Economic Development Quarterly 2013 27: 221 originally published online 28 April 2013. DOI: 10.1177/0891242413486186.

Culture GDP in Saskatchewan was $914.9 million in 2016, representing 1.3% of the province’s economy. 1

The number of cultural jobs in Saskatchewan: “Culture jobs increased 2.2% to 12,850 in 2016. Overall, total jobs in Saskatchewan decreased 1.1%.” 2

Artists play an important, valuable role in Saskatchewan society and deserve fair compensation for their work. Public access to art and artists – through distribution, exhibition, education and training – benefits Saskatchewan and all its citizens.

Arts organizations and associations are integral to connecting artists and their work with the public through creation, dissemination and exhibition of artistic works, leadership and education.

The Saskatchewan Government’s $3.4M investment in arts organizations – through the Arts Board – triggers another $3.3M in federal investment and generates expenditures almost 9 times the original investment (Source: CADAC Data).

More Investing in the Arts

(1) Statistics Canada, “Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators, 2016,” The Daily, Released at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time in The Daily, Tuesday, February 27, 2018.
(2) Phoenix Strategic Perspectives, The Arts and Heritage in Canada – Access and Availability 2012.