On Dec. 1, the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre (PAC) hosted local arts leaders, policy advocates and community members for a presentation on new national research, highlighting the economic and social contributions of Canada’s arts and culture sector.
The event featured speakers from Business / Arts, the Niagara Artists Centre and the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), each offering data-driven insights from local context for the recently released report, “Artworks: The Economic and Social Dividends from Canada’s Arts and Culture Sector.”
Colleen Smith, CEO of the PAC, opened the event by noting the importance of evidence-based storytelling in arts advocacy.
“Data is really important, and understanding the impact that we have on our communities is really vital for us to tell our narrative and to make sure that people understand the role that we play in society,” she said.
Smith noted that the event aimed to equip attendees with the information needed “to tell our stories in a way that connects and resonates with the public, with our representatives, with our neighbours, with ourselves.”
Smith invited Stephen Remus, Director of the Niagara Artists Centre, to speak before the formal presentation. Remus provided a local, community-based perspective on the social and economic influence of the arts in the Niagara region.
Remus described his extensive experience working in St. Catharines’ arts sector.
“I have personally seen firsthand the impact, you know, socially, that the arts have on a community — welcoming newcomers and engaging young people — and I’ve also seen it drive the economy in remarkable ways.”
Citing local economic impact figures, he added, “for every dollar invested in the arts, $13 returns, so over tenfold here in St. Catharines, and that’s locally spent dollars.”
He said that the arts represent a distinct advantage for Niagara, given the region’s tourism draw and established wine and culinary sector. “We’re on the cusp of really getting it on here,” Remus said. “What a remarkable place this would be if we can distinguish ourselves culturally […] a place that people want to go to because it is unique, like no other place on the planet.”
Following Remus’ remarks, Smith introduced the evening’s keynote presenter: Aubrey Reeves, CEO of Business / Arts, the national organization that partnered with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Lab (BDL) and other cultural institutions to produce the “Artworks” report.
Reeves began by explaining the motivation behind the research. According to her, arts leaders long recognized the value of cultural investment but lacked a unified, quantifiable case for the sector’s overall impact.
“Those arts leaders really knew instinctively that the arts have an amazing return on investment,” she said, noting that the project aimed to demonstrate “how the arts are not just nice to have, but are really also an economic engine worth investing in.”
Reeves outlined three broad areas in which the report identified significant arts-related benefits: prosperity, society as well as health and well-being. She highlighted findings from the Arts Response Tracking Survey, including that “75 per cent of culture-goers believe that attending arts and culture [events] improves their sense of belonging in Canada,” a figure that has risen 12 percentage points since the previous year.
She detailed the arts’ influence on creative thinking, civic engagement, neighbourhood development, tourism and newcomer integration, citing examples such as the Institute for Canadian Citizenship’s Canoo program, which provides newcomers with access to cultural institutions during their first year as citizens.
Reeves then shifted to economic indicators, underscoring the arts sector’s competitiveness relative to other industries. She pointed to BDL data showing that arts, entertainment and recreation “generate 15 jobs for every one million in output, which far surpasses many other major industries,” including manufacturing, and oil and gas.
Nationally, she said, the sector supports more than 668,000 direct jobs and over one million total jobs when including indirect and induced effects. Total economic activity attributed to the sector reaches approximately $131 billion, with tax revenues of $16.5 billion.
Reeves also highlighted the growing significance of cultural exports. She noted that service-based exports — including those related to audiovisual production — are expanding faster than many other categories. “Audio-visual service exports are growing at a faster rate than other types of service exports in the overall Canadian economy,” she explained.
Despite growth areas, Reeves acknowledged multiple structural challenges confronting the sector. Public funding has stagnated, and charitable giving has declined significantly over two decades. “Tax donations […] have dropped from 26 per cent in 2000,” she said, adding that while total donation amounts have remained steady, they increasingly rely on older, wealthier donors. Younger Canadians, she noted, “are definitely giving less,” due to impacts from the current affordability crisis.
Reeves emphasized that the need for stronger incentives at the government level encourage private philanthropy and sustain the sector’s traditional “tripartite model,” in which government, earned revenue and private donations each contribute roughly one-third of organizational budgets. She noted that public dollars often “benefit two times or more,” as funders and sponsors view government investment as a signal of stability.
Reeves concluded her presentation with a preview of additional research slated for release at a later date: the “Arts Vibrancy Index,” which assess the intersection of arts activity and business vitality and communities across Canada. Preliminary findings show that mid-sized cities like Victoria and Kelowna rate highly, while St. Catharines performs well on arts-specific measures but scores lower on general economic indicators. Participation, she noted, “matters more than population size.”
The final speaker of the evening, Jaspreet Sandhu, Director of Public Affairs, Communications and Research at the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), expanded on provincial-level data. She presented findings from “Arts Across Ontario,” the OAC’s new regionalized report examining the distribution of arts GDP, jobs and tourism impact.
Sandhu stressed the scale of Ontario’s cultural sector. According to the report, Ontario accounts for the majority share of Canada’s arts-related GDP.
She also highlighted the arts as the province’s 12th-largest industry, surpassing some sectors that receive significantly more government support. However, she emphasized that OAC funding has not kept pace with other sector needs. “The OAC has been flat for the last 16 years,” Sandhu noted, explaining that even as organizations “are punching way over their weight,” they face growing financial pressure.
Sandhu described how the OAC’s new regional model allows for municipal-level analysis of arts employment and economic impact. For Southwestern Ontario — the region including St. Catharines — the model identifies approximately 6,000 full-time arts and culture jobs and a substantial share of the province’s overall cultural GDP. This, she said, provides communities with “information […] for deputations [and] other conversations, to understand the power of the arts [and] the downtown impact.”
The event closed with an invitation for questions, while Reeves and Sandhu encouraged attendees to consult both the “Artworks” report and the “Arts Across Ontario” findings as they prepare for upcoming advocacy opportunities at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
Throughout the evening, presenters emphasized a consistent message: that arts and culture function not only as creative expressions but as essential infrastructure for economic resilience, community well-being and civic cohesion. The data presented, they argued, offers a clear foundation for renewed investment and long-term policy planning.