ARTFUL DODGER: Canadian bureaucrats spent millions on artwork rentals
Federal ministries, embassies and agencies spent nearly $8 million to rent paintings, sculptures from federal art bank since 2016
Article content
OTTAWA — With the federal government elevating wasteful spending to a fine art, newly unearthed documents suggest bureaucrats are spending big bucks on rented art for their offices.
The data, contained in documents via an access-to-information request by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, says federal departments spent $7,808,827 in rental fees to the Canada Council of the Art’s federal art bank, a repository of more than 17,000 pieces of Canadian artwork that’s made available — for a fee — to federal bureaucrats to display in their offices.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
ARTFUL DODGER: Canadian bureaucrats spent millions on artwork rentals Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
“Can someone in government explain why taxpayers are being sent a bill so bureaucrats can decorate their offices with artwork that taxpayers have already bought and paid for?” the CTF’s Franco Terrazzano asked.
“This is an outrageous waste of money and, to add insult to injury, the government is double billing taxpayers for artwork we’ll never see.”
The documents reveal federal entities paid $7,808,827 for 1,445 rentals from the art bank between Jan. 2016 and July 2024.
That’s an average of over $76,000 per month on rented art — more than 2023’s annual industrial wage of just under $70,000 annually, according to Statistics Canada.
The records don’t specify what was rented and where it ended up, only specifying recipients as “federal departments or ministries of state,” “federal crown corporations/agencies/commissions,” “federal embassies,” and “federal – other.”
Some months saw higher outlays than others, with many seeing rental costs exceeding $110,000.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
tap here to see other videos from our team.
On April 28, 2020, a “federal crown corporation/agency/commission” spent $120,240.85 on rented art.
That same figure appears in other months, with $120,240.85 being spent on May 1, 2021 and April 28, 2022.
Other six-figure art rental fees include $114,101.19 on July 11, 2019, $111,056.40 on May 25, 2020 and June 1, 2021, $113,497.20 on June 1, 2022, and two separate charges of $119,511.01 on May 10, 2023 and June 13, 2024.
On their website, the council’s Ottawa-based art bank bills itself as the “largest collection of contemporary Canadian art anywhere,” allowing clients to borrow “paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and prints by emerging and established artists — including those from Aboriginal and culturally-diverse backgrounds.
Rates range from $60 to $3,600 per year, with a minimum contract of $1,000 annually for two years.
The Canada Council of the Arts, itself a crown corporation, provided $308.8 million in grants in fiscal year 2023-24 to 6,000 Canadian artists, groups and organizations.
The council also handed out $1.4 million in prizes and fellowships to 189 Canadian artists that same year.
Nearly all of the agency’s funding comes from the federal government, receiving $423 million in fiscal year 2023-24.
“Bureaucrats billing taxpayers $76,000 a month in art rentals is outrageous at the best of times, but with the government more than $1 trillion in debt and so many Canadians struggling, it’s utterly inexcusable,” Terrazzano said.
“The government said it would find savings at Crown corporations, so defunding the Canada Council for the Arts is a perfect place to start.”
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.