A post-mortem on Nova Scotian arts and culture

Over the course of a few days in February, my inbox was inundated with emails from many arts institutions in Nova Scotia. They all said, in summary, SOS. 

The provincial government’s radical slash to arts, culture and heritage funding will disastrously affect arts in Nova Scotia. 

Tim Houston’s Progressive Conservative government cut $14.3 million in grant funding from the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage in their 2026-27 provincial budget, unveiled on Feb. 23. These cuts will gut the arts and culture community in Nova Scotia, cutting off funding to the vibrant heart of the province.

As I read through these emails, I went into a kind of mourning. Is this the death of art in Nova Scotia?

They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Standing in the crowd at the Culture Is Critical rally on March 4, I saw my life as an artist flash before my eyes. 

The whole crowd was familiar. I reunited with my first theatre teacher, a woman who ignited my love of collaborative storytelling when I was just seven years old.

I stood on a painfully cold slab of ice alongside several of my closest friends, whom I met while in Shakespeare by the Sea’s Full Time Shakespeare Young Company, and we took a selfie with the amazing actor who taught us there. 

I spotted several of the students from the Neptune Theatre School, where I now teach, prepared to sing a number from the musical Newsies on the steps of the legislature. 

I had a chance to catch up with nearly the entire crew of the low-budget short film I had recently wrapped. 

I saw my past and my present that day. But I found, as the protest wore on and Houston didn’t come out to address us, that my future was hard to spot in the crowd.

My friend Eliza Rhinelander, a theatre professional, student and musician, shares my concerns — a lot is on the line.

“I love it here. I grew up here,” she said. “I don’t want to move, but now … I might have to.” 

I feel the same. Because of these cuts, I may not stay in Nova Scotia. The arts aren’t our hobbies or pastimes, they’re our jobs. 

Before these cuts, getting by as an artist was hard enough. Houston’s government seems determined to make it impossible. 

“It’s like all the limbs are being cut off,” Rhinelander said, and the grim metaphor couldn’t ring more true.

She’s now a three-time Robert Merritt Awards nominee and has played shows all over Atlantic Canada. That might not have happened if those theatre programs weren’t available to her. The programs on the chopping block are life-changing. They’re empowering to the young people who participate in them, whether or not the student continues to be an artist later in life.

But more and more obstacles are in our way.

Gabrielle Therrien, a theatre professional and educator, is worried the cuts will create accessibility barriers for artists.

“As a disabled working artist, barriers are increasing, not decreasing,” Therrien said.

People who’ve invested so much time into creating lives and careers in Nova Scotia, like Therrien, deserve to be able to stay here.

This move affects more than those who pay their rent with art. For my friend Aniqa Jalal, the arts are not only life-changing but life-saving. 

Her connection to the arts began while she was a patient in critical care, where a music therapist introduced her to the violin — she says music saved her life.

As a theatre educator, I see the way my students come alive when they’re handed a script, a score, a paintbrush or a pen. I can’t imagine not having access to these outlets as a child, nor can I imagine not having the privilege to give it to kids now.

Houston is stopping the future of art in its tracks. The Progressive Conservative government is acting without regard for the community they serve. Cutting these programs will harm young people.

The province will lose so many young people like Gabrielle, Eliza and me if they don’t reverse these cuts. We will lose so much of what makes our province unique. We will lose the holders of our culture. 

This isn’t the death of art in Nova Scotia. Art can’t really die. But it can be made to disappear.