Kate, you should feel free to donate to the charities you choose - Canadian culture, feeding the hungry or whatever.  Governments, through our taxes and fees, should limit themselves to essential services such as healthcare, education and such.  If the arts community is starving then maybe what it does isn't really that important to most of us or maybe some "artists" just haven't been creative enough to connect with Canadians.  Their failure to draw voluntary support from most Canadians is the real story here.