CCA Bulletin 24/10

September 7, 2010

A Summer Roundup

Labour Day weekend has come and gone, and one can only hope that the summer weather will last a little longer. In just two weeks, the House of Commons will resume its work after the traditional summer BBQ circuits most MPs have been trekking on come to an end. Speculation is rife as to whether or not we will have a fall election, and the first few days of sitting may shed some light on the likelihood of such an event.

However, the summer was not recess time for everyone. While the House was away, the CCA was hard at work submitting briefs and joining in on national debates! We had a busy summer voicing the concerns and needs of the arts and culture sector to federal decision makers, in addition to some provincial ones. As the summer comes to a close, and in case you missed some of the action, here are the highlights of what the CCA did for you during those hot months!

Summer consultations

Over the past few years, the government has used the summer period to run a series of consultations on a variety of topics of great importance. Beware if stakeholders were intent on having a bit of a vacation: as we indicated in our June session wrap-up, deadlines followed each other fairly closely in July and August.

As is the case every summer, the CCA submitted its pre-budget submission for 2011 to the Standing Committee on Finance. In it, the CCA frames the manner in which the federal government should invest in arts and culture, and emphasizes the need for the government to continue its commitment of stable funding for arts and culture as we come to the end of Canada’s Economic Action Plan. The CCA states that while it understands the necessity to start eliminating the annual federal budget deficit, it would be very short-sighted to slash investments in the arts and culture sector, particularly given the fact that it has yet to experience the main impacts of the recent economic crisis.

The CCA outlines priorities to stabilize and enrich the economic capacity of the creative sector. The complete submission defines six recommendations for investment: audience and market development at home and abroad; increasing the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts; investing in training, internship and mentorship opportunities; implementing a long-overdue National Museum Policy; ensuring that the sector gets the cultural statistics it needs; and increasing incentives for Canadians to donate to arts and heritage organizations.

Earlier in the summer, the CCA submitted a brief in which it urged the government to make content creation a centrepiece of the national strategy for the digital economy. The CCA’s fundamental approach to a national strategy is based on the belief that infrastructure, wires, cables and corporations will not be enough to sustain a robust digital economy, let alone a vibrant digital society, if content creators are not included in this strategy. Canada’s digital economy relies on the expertise of its creative workers. Their content creation must be encouraged by a national strategy, protected by regulations, supported by appropriate training and distributed on as many digital platforms as possible. In its brief, the CCA maintains that regulation concerning ownership of our cultural industries, intellectual property, providing tools to Canadian communities and training for creators must be amongst the key pillars on which to build a successful approach for the new digital economy.

On the topic of foreign ownership the CCA submitted a brief to the Department of Canadian Industry on the subject of opening up telecommunications for foreign investment. Over the preceding months, the CCA had already presented its position to the Standing Committees on Industry and on Heritage and to the CRTC. The CCA repeats that the long-standing operating principle in Canadian cultural policy is that Canadian ownership and effective control of our cultural industries will ensure that more Canadian content is made available to Canadians. This is the case because it is easier to regulate Canadian owned companies than foreign owned ones and because Canadians are more likely than non-Canadians to tell our own stories and to present our own view of the world based on our own values and perspectives.

Over the past two decades, Canada has allowed a growing concentration of ownership in our cultural industries in the name of making them stronger and better equipped to compete in a global environment. We now have huge Canadian conglomerates with interests in telecommunications, broadcasting, specialty services, newspapers, magazines, publishing, music and book distribution. Given this concentration of ownership and the convergence of technologies, opening up foreign ownership and control of our telecommunications can only lead to tremendous pressures to enable a similar model in cable and broadcasting. Coupled with the potential impact of trade negotiations, this could result in severe consequences for Canadian cultural sovereignty.

Advocacy activities

In July, the CCA joined an increasing number of organizations in all walks of life to protest the government’s decision to abolish the mandatory long-form census and replace it with a faulty, and more expensive voluntary household survey. The CCA shares the concerns of other groups regarding the serious consequences of this decision, and notes that the main loss is the underrepresentation of a number of Canadians, including First Nations, the poorest and richest of Canadians and the self employed, who cover a very large number of artists and creators.

As a result, we will lose important data on the cultural workforce. Another consequence to the cultural sector is the very serious impact this new approach will have in the design of surveys themselves. A census, or some other instrument that lists all individuals in a population, is required for the proper design of voluntary sample surveys. Trying to use a sample household survey, in place of a census, to design social or household surveys will effectively undermine the entire statistical system as it relates to non-business data.

In August, the CCA took the unusual initiative of writing an open letter to British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, protesting the very serious cuts imposed to the arts and culture sector. Signed by CCA President Kathleen Sharpe, the letter states that from the economic viewpoint, it is a serious strategic error to cut investments to artists and creators who are an important component of the creative economy. In the wake of the resignation of the BC Arts Council Chair, the letter also emphasized the importance of establishing arts funding agencies at arm’s length from governments and politicians. The statements in the letter have been echoed throughout BC and may have contributed to the recently announced decision by the government to somewhat reinstate funding to the Arts Council.  

Finally, the CCA has added its voice to that of over 60 organizations across the country to oppose private Bill C-470, whose purpose is to arbitrarily limit the remuneration of charitable executives and force the publication of employees’ salaries irrespective of the size of those organizations.

Preparing for the fall

The CCA has kept a watching brief on two major files in preparation for the fall, the first being copyright. We hosted a meeting between the Creators' Copyright Coalition and its Quebec counterpart, the DAMIC, during which both organizations exchanged information regarding their respective positions, and started working of joint strategies concerning the upcoming parliamentary hearings on Bill C-32 and copyright reform.

The second issue is the current negotiations between Canada and the European Union concerning the conclusion of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). At the beginning of July, the CCA shared an analysis by legal expert Peter Grant with a number of its member organizations, looking at the leaked early draft agreement from the arts and culture perspective. Then, we met with representatives of the European Union to explore their positions concerning a variety of issues, including intellectual property legislation, the cultural exemption and foreign ownership of cultural industries. These meetings led to another one last week with Canada’s chief trade negotiator and two other government officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. During this meeting, thirteen member organizations had the opportunity to ask questions and express opinions on a number of cultural issues related to the CETA negotiation. The CCA will soon publish more detailed bulletins on both of these important issues.

Finally, we have been very busy putting the final touches on two great initiatives: Thinking Culture, a new cultural forum series presented in partnership with the University of Ottawa, which starts on September 23, and our 2010 National Policy Conference, Artists: Powering the Creative Economy?, which will take place from November 1 to 3 at  the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

So, as you can see, this has been a busy summer in preparation for an even busier fall season! Hoping to see you all at the November CCA National Policy Conference.

What are your thoughts on this bulletin? Let us know on our blog.