Re: Budget cut puts Dundas festival in jeopardy, April 12, 2003
Hamilton City Council has again cut the funds that get the Buskingfest in Dundas off the ground. This year, Creative Arts, received only $14, 000 for the event. Last year it received only $17, 500 being cut down from the $20, 000 they received the year before. The Buskingfest is a way for local artisans, musicians and merchants to become known in the community, and to make a good deal of profit, along with the Cactus Festival. Cutting the funds to Buskingfest caused Creative Arts to drop the festival due to lack of funding.
Not only that, but Hamilton�s largest, and most well known festival, The Festival of Friends, received $20, 000 less in funds than last year.
These festivals are central to Hamilton�s identity. I know people who come from Toronto, the Niagara area, and Guelph for these festivals. I know artisans who peddle their wares during the local summer festivals, where they make a majority of their profits. Local and new musicians, as well as musicians from worldwide, put these festivals on the map. It�s unfortunate that Hamilton, after the amalgamation, has forgotten that this city is a community. Council�s inability to fund festivals that have been staples in Dundas, and in Hamilton, for many years, yet drop billions of dollars into the fund for the bike races in October, tells me that they forget where this city, and the towns that are now a part of it, came from.
I hope that other citizens of Hamilton will feel the same way, and that they will contact their Council to urge them to grant Creative Arts the money needed to run these festivals, or to help them find corporate sponsorship.
Shauna McShane
Hamilton
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