Canada’s arts and culture sector contributed $65 billion in direct GDP to the Canadian economy in 2024, growing faster and supporting more jobs per dollar than other key sectors like oil and gas, manufacturing or agriculture. These findings come from Artworks: The Economic and Social Dividends from Canada’s Arts and Culture Sector, a new report conducted by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Business Data Lab.
The $65 billion is the direct GDP from the industry. The full GDP impact from direct, indirect, induced channels is $131 billion. This is the total impact which includes the arts and culture supply chain and spending from the employees throughout the supply chain.
The research, commissioned by Business / Arts in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts, demonstrates that Canada’s creative industries contribute not only to social cohesion, community and Canadians’ sense of meaning and purpose, but drive measurable economic growth and regional development.
“The arts and culture sector enriches every aspect of Canadian life. It fuels economic growth, attracts talent, fosters belonging, and strengthens our communities,” said Aubrey Reeves, President and CEO of Business / Arts. “With the release of the Artworks report, we are demonstrating culture’s measurable impacts and making a clear, evidence-based case for continued investment in the creative economy that keeps Canada competitive and connected.”
Over the past three years, GDP stemming from the arts and culture sector has grown almost 8%, outpacing Canada’s overall economic growth of 4%. Meanwhile, Canadian international trade in cultural goods and services reached an all-time high in 2022, with $25 billion sold to foreign customers. Cultural exports have doubled since 2011, with top categories including visual and applied arts, audiovisual and interactive media, and written and published works, said the Chamber.
Key economic impact findings:
- The arts and culture sector supports 13 jobs for every million in output, which is more than oil and gas, manufacturing, or agriculture.
- Since 2011, the sector has outpaced growth in key industries including oil and gas, wholesale trade, retail trade, construction, and manufacturing.
- Economic impact is highest in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs and over $100 billion in GDP.
- The sector generates an estimated $17 billion in federal and provincial tax revenue.
Despite these exceptional economic returns, funding challenges threaten the sector’s continued growth. With typical arts organizations relying on equal parts government grants, earned revenue and private donations, declining support from public and private sources creates significant pressure. The federal government’s allocation to arts, culture and heritage is declining as a share of total federal spending, while Canadian private contributions lag at 0.8% of income — below both North American (0.94%) and global (1.04%) averages, according to a news release.
“The arts and culture sector generates $29 in economic activity for every dollar in federal investment— that’s an extraordinary return in addition to the social benefits that the sector generates,” says Andrew DiCapua, Principal Economist at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. “Yet we’re seeing concerning trends in both public and private funding. If we want to maintain Canada’s cultural competitiveness and harness this sector’s full economic potential, we need sustained, strategic investment.”
The report also reveals significant social benefits, with higher per-capita arts grants generally associated with increased community sense of meaning and purpose. The arts build social cohesion, support newcomer integration, increase employability and improve skills development while positively impacting residential and property sectors.
With cultural exports at record highs and economic returns outpacing traditional industries, strategic investment in Canada’s arts and culture sector represents both an economic opportunity and a cultural imperative for maintaining Canada’s global competitiveness, say officials.
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All this news is so very exciting and it is great knowing some of these amazing stories. I have been working in the arts about 50 years now. I have never gotten a grant or public assistance. I have won over 200 awards for my art work and movies but never saw any bankable returns for any of it. Most were fibs and promises that of more to come but it never really did. I had to spend my own money on various shows with little returns. I made a body of work called Born in Stone which showed in a major Museum in Athens sponsored by the Canadian Embassy and never saw a cent for that not even the money to bring my work home and had to leave it in Athens with my partners cousin who died and now the work is lost. All my original first prints on expensive Hanimuller paper got lost. After doing so many things in the arts, I ended up with a pension that leaves in the poor house because I cannot afford to live any where I want any more. I tried to move to an apartment complex for artists in Ottawa that was geared toward artist but the rent is more than my pension. Seems people who worked in the arts but were not artist per say are the ones these apartments are going to. I have worked for two of the great famous artist like The Doyenne of Photography Berenice Abbott and Oscar winning Cinematographer Walter Lassally who both thought I was very talented and now find myself here, where people rip me off. One became my friend only to come to my apartment and say lets drink some beer together, which I agree to. Then I wake up 2 hours later naked in bed with a pain up my ass because that man drugged and raped me. I don’t know what to think where other artists get government funding through out their careers or get well paying jobs in the arts so they get a pension that is easier to live on after raising children as well. I only know that a number of my jobs ended up ripping me off for their benefit or other dubious practices. I would like to think that in my life I managed to influence a number of countries due to my art work but in the end I have had to live in a poor house with people who actually steal from me, spread rumours, or flatten my cars tires and others have done things like smash my camera to bits because I took a national geographic type picture of the kids in my apartment building.
I don’t know why some of the artists who won many grants , awards and other good stuff would basically attack me in my own home as a gay artist.
How come my movie called My Fishy Friends, which took me twelve years to make about being friends with wild lake fish and wins over 100 awards in International Film Festivals in some very key places work wide, is rejected by the CBC so I could not even make some money there? What is an artist to do, when all those who worked for various companies funded by the government can raise families and then have a pension to live any where in Canada or get Government housing for artist?
How come we don’t have a standard of pension for artist who worked all their lives and did real things but now have to live in the poor house, as I have had to do. I don’t want to live here either but I have no choice because rents are beyond my pensions reach.
When is something going to change for me and I can feel like a normal contributing Canadian Artist who has the ability to live anywhere within reason in Canada. No I have to live in a small French town with weak French and dubious people who all rip me off or do something harmful to me? At least give me MAID so I can stop this madness of not being allowed to participate in the arts like others.
I don’t know what to think or what to do but soon as all my funds run out. I will lose my car, lose my insurance, My fridge will break down as my clothes washer has, along with my dubious stove. So what am I supposed to do when I have won all these awards in places Like Hollywood, Toronto, New York City, Chicago, Paris, Rome, Casablanca, Barcelona, Cairo, India, Singapore, Athens, Dubai, Australia, Mexico, Montreal, Berlin, London, Madrid, Oman and so many more places. See “Friends with Wild Fish” on Facebook to see all my awards for My Fishy Friends. Could I even get any assistance from the Art related agencies here in Canada? NO.And never have, So what am I supposed to do?
Sincerely Yours
Algis Kemezys