The House of Commons voted 210 to 115 in favour of installing a parliamentary artist laureate, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. Bill S-202 An Act To Amend The Parliament Of Canada Act, acknowledging that it’s a “tough world” for visual artists such as painters and sculptors, will pay $20,000 a year for a two-year term for the artist to have a part-time presence in Parliament. The artist laureate will “promote the arts in Canada through Parliament including by fostering knowledge, enjoyment, awareness and development of the arts.”Back in 2001, Parliament passed into law a similar bill to appoint a poet laureate, a part-time position at $20,000 a year, plus expenses. Appointees were “to write poetry, especially for use in Parliament on important occasions.” The position is currently vacant.“It can be a tough world,” said Liberal MP John Aldag, the Commons sponsor of the bill. “It has always been a bit of a challenging world,” Aldag reiterated during the bill’s Second Reading. “I hear that from artists all the time. The importance of this position is to help bring attention every day to visual artists and not only the struggles but also the successes they have.”The bill, authored by then-Senator Patricia Bovey, was first passed in the Senate in 2021. “Give a vote of moral support to Canadian creators,” Bovey, the former director of the Winnipeg Art Gallery, urged her colleagues during the 2021 committee hearings. “Canadians are looking for good news, positives, honesty and empowerment in their daily lives and this bill does that.”“Artists will see this as a huge vote of moral confidence in a time when they have given so much,” Bovey testified. “Visual art for me is an international non-verbal language,” said Senator Bovey. “It expresses the soul and substance of who we are as Canadians.”In the early stages of the Bill S-202 debate, senators lamented the lack of passions Canadians have for art. “Some people don’t have much use for art,” said Senator René Cormier at the time. “Many see it as mere decoration or curiosity. Worse, some see it as an escape from reality. However it is no coincidence that art has been an integral part of human civilization for more than 30,000 years.”“Works of art have always pushed us to rethink our outlook, to be outraged in the face of injustice and to do something to address it,” said Cormier, adding that art “fosters a sense of empathy, which is essential to society and to Parliament because it requires us to actively listen to others and strive to understand them.”
