My experience has mostly been in the indie music scene but my wife is a visual artist (BFA from Emily Carr). The music scene is thriving, there is a lot of support for the new and unusual, and there are always gallery shows to go to and lots of interesting community events.
That said, not a lot of folks actually make a living at it. But we always had great support from both the community (mostly east Van but lots of downtown shows and several cross-Canada and US tours) and the CBC was good to us from day one.
If we'd been trying to pay the bills with it I think we would have gotten very bitter very quickly, but not from lack of support. More because it's just not often a viable business plan until a name has been firmly established.
Just my experience though.
Torben