Artists deserve more cultural funding: Richards

New Brunswick is jeopardizing its ability to tell its own stories by denying its young artists access to more funding, according to one of the province's best-known authors.

David Adams Richards, who has twice won the Governor General's Literary Award and is a co-winner of the Giller Prize, writes in an essay for CBC News that it is imperative for the New Brunswick government to find a way to support its writers and artists.

"They are the only ones who can tell the truth about us. And there is a terrible and essential and poignant reason why we must seek to tell this truth. In telling the truth about ourselves, we alone can give justice to our people and our province, to the work that we do and the lives that we live," Richards writes.

"If only one of our artists is sanctified enough to show this once every 30 years, I give you my solemn promise New Brunswick will never, ever have anything to fear."

Richards, a pillar of New Brunswick literary community, is best known for his trilogy of books about life on the Miramichi River: Nights Below Station Street, Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace and For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down.

He is one of only three Canadian writers to win the Governor General's Literary Award for both fiction and non-fiction.

Richards will be officially invested into the Order of Canada on Friday at a ceremony in Ottawa.

Cultural funding

While New Brunswick politicians are making multimillion-dollar promises to put laptops in schools, create new Crown corporations and erase planned tax cuts during the current election campaign, there has been no discussion of arts support.

That office is designed to help the "cultural development and the economic development of New Brunswick's cultural industries," but it does not explicitly offer funding to aspiring artists.

The province's publishing industry does not escape Richard's analysis.

New Brunswick's main book publisher "rarely reflects the provincial genius" in the way it picks the authors its supports, he wrote.

"So those here who are marginalized are truly so, even at times with our own nationally recognized publishing house. It seems our culture does not warrant much attention," he said.

Political reaction

Dominic Cardy, the campaign director for the NDP, said issues such as guaranteed salaries may be good ideas and would help artists, but they would be difficult to implement in the current economic downturn.

"The NDP is making sure we can have a new generation of people to be skilled in the creative arts by focusing on the education system," Cardy said in an interview.

"We have to get an economy that is large enough to support people in the creative arts."

Tyler Campbell, a Tory campaign spokesman, said in an email that the arts would not be forgotten by the Conservatives in the election.

"We understand the value of celebrating and promoting our province's unique and rich culture and will have more to say on it later in the campaign," the Tory official said.

Artists go without

Richards points out that he and many others have gone without food while trying to make a living in the arts.

Richards describes a 67-year-old friend of his, whom he regards as one of the 10 best writers in Canada, who has to guide rich sportsman in order to feed himself.

Artists and authors understand the financial consequences of their trade, he argues.

"Alden Nowlan, our greatest poet, lived much of his life earning thousands a year less than the professors who taught his poems and called him a genius. They had months of leisure he'd never be able to afford," Richards said.

"Nor, and this is the secret, did he ever ask for more than he got."