CCA Bulletin 39/07

December 10, 2007

CCA Appears in Standing Committee on Finance Pre-budget Hearings

Just the Facts

CCA National Director Alain Pineau appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance on Friday December 7 as part of the Committee’s pre-budget consultations. The meeting, held in Montreal, was the last one in this year’s process.

The Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) thanked the government for a series of investments in the cultural sector that included;

a $ 30 million increase to the base budget of the Canada Council for the Arts, first step towards a proper level of investment in cultural creativity;
a new $ 30 million program Building Communities Through Arts and Heritage , $ 7 million of which is added to the Arts Presentation Canada program budget;
a $ 5 million summer internship program for museums;
a renewed commitment (at the 1995 level however) of the federal contribution to the Canadian Television Fund;
additional capital funds to the National Arts Centre, the National Gallery and several national museums for urgent repairs, a prudent investment of public funds.

The CCA argues however that there are still crucial areas where additional progress and investment are required from the federal government. They are;

the long awaited museum policy is still missing in action despite the support of the governing party when it formed the Official Opposition;
funds for the internationalization of the arts at the federal level need coherence and higher levels of investment (“internationalization of the arts” is the new bureaucratic language to refer to cultural diplomacy);
there is a need to develop a national mentorship program to assist in succession and knowledge transfer as baby boomers in all sectors of the labour force prepare to retire;
we require new strategies to deal with the growing number of self-employed and their access to social benefit programs designed for traditional employees: the CCA recommends that the government appoint a task force to address this reality and examine taxation issues, as well;
the development of a new device to deal with fluctuating income levels in the taxation system: since the Department of Finance has routinely rejected the concept of income averaging, some other approach must be developed to ensure equity in the system;
a tax based incentive for creativity relative to copyright and residual income for creators and copyright owners, a concept whose efficiency has already been proven in Ireland, which already exists in part in Quebec and which has received last year the support of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Tell Me More

The CCA has participated in these pre-budget consultations for three decades and regards them as important opportunity to inform Parliamentarians about the priorities and changes within the arts and culture sector. This year’s presentation was based on the written CCA pre-budget brief sent to the Committee in August

The CCA was one of eight organizations making simultaneous presentations to six members of the Standing Committee on Finance. The only other presenter related to culture was Magazines Canada: its President, Robert Goyette, concentrated on the remarkable successes of the Canadian magazine industry and on the vital importance of maintaining the Canada Post subsidy for the distribution of Canadian magazines, a position fully shared by the CCA. It must be noted that other arts and culture interveners have appeared in front of the Standing Committee during its various hearings across the country.

The next important piece of budget related news before the 2008 federal budget will be details regarding the billion dollar reallocation program. As reported by the CCA, the 2007 program has targeted the Department of Canadian Heritage and several Portfolio agencies . The potential to affect programs and services is a real one which the CCA is following with interest.

What Can I Do?

Stay tuned to the CCA for additional news on these and other federal policy developments.