While Canadians are feeling the effects of the cost of living crisis and desperate for any type of tax relief, the federal government is spending an unprecedented amount on renting artwork to adorn the offices of bureaucrats – significantly more than the average salary of Canadians.
Access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation revealed that federal departments and agencies racked up a bill of $7,808,827 in art rentals from Jan. 2016 to July of this year.
That figure amounts to the government spending an average of $76,000 per month on art rentals since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office.
Records show that federal departments and agencies rented a total of 1,445 artworks from the Art Bank over that period.
The government first purchases artwork from the Canada Council for the Arts’ Art Bank for bureaucrats to then rent out for decoration, adding up to millions and all on the taxpayers’ dime.
“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?” asked CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.
“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.”
According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian made less than $70,000 last year, not even enough to cover a single month’s rental fees in government artwork.
Additionally, Food Banks Canada reported that it received over 2 million visits in the month of March, a new record high.
“Every month, federal bureaucrats spend more money renting art than what the average Canadian earns in an entire year,” said Terrazzano. “It’s amazing that we need to say this, but maybe these bureaucrats could ease up at the taxpayer-funded Art Bank when record numbers of Canadians are lined up at food banks.”
The single highest rental since 2016 came in April 20202, when a federal department or agency billed taxpayers for a $120,240 rental.
However, the records do not specify which departments or agencies expensed what artworks.
The Art Bank is home to over 17,000 artworks and by more than 3,000 artists, according to the CCA website.
“The Art Bank has the largest collection of contemporary Canadian art anywhere,” reads the website. “It houses paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and prints by emerging and established artists.”
It’s a Crown corporation and is responsible for issuing hundreds of millions in grants to artists and arts organizations annually.
The CCA granted more than $300 million in 2023-24 and in 2023-23, the agency received $423 million in federal funding.
Government funding accounts for roughly 90% of the CAA’s total revenue, meaning taxpayers not only bear the cost of artwork rentals through parliamentary appropriations but are also billed again when that same artwork is later rented by a federal department or agency.
The Trudeau government pledged to find savings within Crown corporations in Budget 2023, however, the latest figures represent a stark contradiction to such promises.
“The government will also work with federal Crown corporations to ensure they achieve comparable spending reductions, which would account for an estimated $1.3 billion over four years,” reads Budget 2023.
The CTF is now nominating the Canada Council for the Arts as a ripe candidate for defunding, should the government be sincere about saving money within Crown corporations, calling it the “perfect place to start.”
“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,” said Terrazzano.