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Arts and culture absent from election discussions

A cultural plan is “absolutely critical,” says former arts council chair
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The municipal budget. Tax increases. Affordability. All sexy election issues right? And the vast majority of candidates have touched on these as central tenets of their platforms.

And yet culture, and cultural tourism specifically, has been largely absent from the campaign discourse. Considering it's an idea that town leaders are so keen on initializing as a way to diversify Whistler's offerings, a surprisingly low number of candidates are raising the issue.

Only five candidates - Mayor Ken Melamed, mayoral candidate Nancy Wilhelm-Morden and council candidates Ted Milner, Dave Buzzard and Steve Andrews - have addressed arts and culture in their platforms. Only Wilhelm-Morden has discussed heritage.

Buzzard and Andrews have discussed the issue in terms of how to promote and aid in developing the local cultural landscape, while the other three have talked about it only in terms of driving room nights.

But the most compelling piece of this discussion revolves around the development of a cultural plan - a road map for what Whistler's arts, culture and heritage landscape will look like, and how to get there.

Wilhelm-Morden says that rather than "throwing money at things (and) hoping that some of it sticks" a cultural plan is essential for Whistler to reach its goals.

"I think what we need is a road map as to how to expand our offerings in arts, culture and heritage and those kinds of things that will attract a different type of guest, or at least provide even to our current guests, different experiences," she says.

 

She says the future for Whistler's cultural landscape involves broadening its festival offerings. Cornucopia, Children's Art Festival, Whistler Film Festival and the Whistler Art Workshops on the Lake are popular events with both visitors and locals, and provide a blueprint for what Whistler can work with.

 

"Through the development of a plan and through the emphasis and support on arts, culture and heritage, we would have so many additional experiences to offer to our guests, which can make us nothing more than an appealing resort to visit," Wilhelm-Morden says.

 

Joan Richoz, former chair of the Whistler Arts Council (WAC), said culture should "definitely" be an election issue.

 

"Given the success of the cultural events and programs that we worked on with Whistler Live, or the past summer with Whistler Presents, and the recommendations of the cultural tourism development strategy ( A Tapestry of Place: Whistler's Cultural Tourism Development Strategy ) that Steven Thorne did, I think that it should be an election issue. I think that getting a comprehensive cultural plan for the community is absolutely critical," Richoz says.

She says a cultural plan has been an "action item" for the WAC, and the broader arts community in general, for about five years, and the organization was expecting one when Whistler received funding from the Cultural Capitals of Canada in 2009.

It turned instead into a cultural tourism development strategy, which Richoz says "was the right thing at the time," but has essentially become the basis for what will eventually be a comprehensive cultural plan. Thorne recommended in his report that Whistler's next step is to make such a plan.

"The reason the Cultural Tourism Development Strategy came before the cultural plan, really, is because we are a tourism economy," Doti Niedermayer, WAC's executive director, told Pique in May of this year. "The community had to be told that there is an economic benefit to having a cultural plan and to having cultural tourism because our economy is totally based on tourism."

 

Richoz says, "Unless we have a roadmap, which a cultural plan is, it's going to be really hard to know where to go."

 

The arts council's goal is to have people coming to Whistler for arts and culture, and for the community to be known for it by 2015. But is that a goal of the other groups in town? That's what the cultural plan is for.

 

Mayoral candidate Ralph Forsyth, who admits the cultural plan has not factored into his campaign so far, says that most importantly Whistler needs "market-ready" cultural offerings that will appeal to the international visitor.

 

"We've invested millions of dollars since I've been on council, we've invested at least two million into arts and culture. What we need to do is ensure that we have market ready arts and culture programming. If those are the organizations that deliver it, then great but we need to find a way to start delivering."

Mayor Ken Melamed, who has been vocal about his support for the so-called "Thorne report" and place-based cultural tourism in general, says that diversification in Whistler's offerings is the key to ensuring its success in the future.

 

"It's important to have a vision and a dream," Melamed says.

"I think it is absolutely the right place to invest the time and resources as we've done. That's... not to take anything away from our recreation strengths. Nobody can take that away from us. We have world class recreation but I tend to be on the side of those who believe that investing cultural and arts tourism is the way to go."

He says the Thorne report came out of the Whistler2020 process as one of the recommended actions. The Thorne report "took it to the next level" and from there, the Festival, Events and Animation strategy was created, as was the investment in the Rainbow Theatre upgrades for the Whistler Film Festival. He says that there are signs of early success so far but the cultural tourism strategy is fundamentally a long-term strategy.

"We're investing long-term for Whistler and this (the cultural tourism plan) is a key piece. We're staying the course on this."

The Whistler Chamber of Commerce will host an all-candidates meeting on Monday from 5 to 7 p.m. at Millennium Place, in conjunction with the Whistler Ar