The State of Arts, Culture and Heritage in the Columbia Basin: Notes on the Information

Who compiled these statistics

• Hill Strategies Research compiled these statistics, which were released in fall 2023.
• This work was commissioned by the West Kootenay Regional Arts Council.

Where the data came from

• The data came from Statistics Canada’s 2021 long-form census.

The region that’s included

• These statistics include as much of the Columbia Basin as possible, based on the limitations of Statistics Canada datasets.
  • See the map here; the area shaded in grey is the area examined in these statistics.
• In these statistics, the “Basin” comprises:
  • all of the Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK)
  • all of the Regional District of East Kootenay (RDEK)
  • areas A and B of the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD).

The people who are included

• The statistics of two groups of people are included:
  • Those who worked more hours as an artist, arts leader or cultural worker than at any other occupation between May 1 and 8, 2021.
  • Those who were not in the labour force at that time but had worked more hours as an artist, arts leader or cultural worker than at another occupation between January 2020 and May 2021.

The threshold of reliability

• Forty people is the threshold of reliability for census counts. If there were fewer than 40 people in any specific area, that statistic was not included.

The impact of the pandemic

• Statistics Canada collected the data in May 2021. This means that the income data relate to 2020, when there were many pandemic-related lockdowns and significant slowdowns in artistic activity.