The Minister for Culture and Communication and minister in charge of Montreal, Mrs. Line Beauchamp, has warmly welcomed the injection of an additional $10M into the economy of culture. "The liberal government continues its unwavering commitment to culture and arts. The budget delivered by my colleague Minister for Finance, Mr. Michel Audet, provides the foundation for greater participation with the private sector in the financing of culture, one of my great priorities in the improvement of artists’ socio-economic conditions, in addition to giving an impulse to museums, which will be the first to receive the benefit,” she said. The flourishing of Québécois identity depends in particular on the support of culture. However, although its financing by the government of Quebec is very substantial, the arts and culture entities are continuously in search of financial resources to ensure their development and their renewal. The economy of culture thus needs a greater contribution from the private sector. "Match-funding is one of the tools on which I rely in order to diversify the sources of financing of culture and to ensure its development. It is an instrument around which Culture Investment is articulated, an important initiative that I intend to perfect through collaboration with those participants whom I am going to invite to a public meeting in May. It will be an occasion to share the principal reports regarding cultural investments, on the basis of diagnostic turnover, in addition to consulting the milieu on a number of measures likely to stimulate private investment,"declared Mrs. Beauchamp. The launch of Culture Investment aims at encouraging the private sector to get engaged more intensely - and for the long-term - in the financing of organizations in the cultural domain. It allows the introduction of the conditions necessary to encourage private individuals and companies to increase their donations intended for culture. Thus cultural organizations could at the same time have capitalization funds and reserve funds to carry out the projects essential to their development and, if necessary, to face the unforeseen ones. The measure hopes to give a new breath of life to the development of arts and culture of Quebec. To foster increased levels of investment by the private sector two existing tax measures have also been updated. Thus, corporations can now deduct as expenses the total cost of subscription to certain categories of cultural events. Previously the deduction could only be made for part of the total cost. This measure will include subscriptions to museum expositions. To the same end corporations which purchased works of art in the past could show depreciation of 20 % of these assets per year. This percentage has now been amended so that depreciation in the first year could be shown as 33 1/3 %. It is hoped that this provision will stimulate the acquisition of works of art by corporations. For further information, CLICK HERE