CCA Bulletin 45/06

Ottawa , October 27, 2006

How the Canada Council intends to spend its extra $50M if and when it gets it.

Just the Facts

On Tuesday October 24, the Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) attended, along with representatives of some 40 national arts service organizations, a meeting convened by the Canada Council of the Arts ( the Council) to explain how it intends to distribute the $20M + $30M it expects to see added respectively to its 2006-07 and 2007-08 budgets. You will remember these one-time increases were announced as part of the May 2, 2006 budget of the new federal government.

Council's officials were very cautious to explain that although the increase has been promised, there remained steps to be taken before the money is theirs to distribute. A key step in this process is the tabling in Parliament of the Supplementary Estimates, something which is expected to happen in the coming weeks. But it remains possible that the whole process of government leading to the allocation of the first or the second installment of the announced increases may be derailed by the fall of the minority government. Thence the caution shown by the Council, which opted nonetheless for this tentative declaration of intent on how it will spend the additional money if and when it gets it.

Why then did the Council make any form of announcement at this particular moment? Essentially because of the time crunch involved in the allocation processes this fiscal year and to give the national arts service organizations a heads up on the Council's intentions to help ensure that eligible organizations have as much time as possible to prepare their submission for additional funds.

The Council says that faced with the impossible task of adequately responding to all the needs of the artistic communities (even with what has, until further notice to be considered one-time increases to its budget), it has determined to make strategic investments. The focus will be on strengthening the arts sector by enhancing the work of Canada 's highest-achieving arts organizations and individual artists and by giving the public increased access to the work of Canadian artists. In allocating these new funds, the Council intends to take into account the need to deal with the future growth of organizations of all sizes, regions and with diversity in all its forms. The Council says it wants to report to Parliament on the impact of the $50M, to demonstrate the value Canadians get for their tax dollars and to help support requests for larger and permanent increases to its base budgets.

Tell me more

Here, in a nutshell, is how the Council intends to proceed:

• The full additional $ 50M will be allocated: the Council will absorb all additional related administrative costs out of interest revenue coming from its endowment fund;
• 2/3 of the money ($33M) has been earmarked for the 900 or so organizations on operating grants, for enhancement of their currently planned activities (either in terms of existing artistic, audience development or administrative capacity). The projects must lead to outcomes that can be attained and measured, or documented within the two year period;
• The first part of the increase (i.e. the $33M) will be allocated further to a competitive process, through the established peer jury system. Officials said clearly that this being a competitive process, not all eligible organizations would get money. They added that arts organizations which have a major impact on the national and international arts scene and which tend to receive the largest Council grants will be subject to an additional level of scrutiny by a multi-disciplinary committee that includes international peers;
• The remaining third of the increase will be split evenly between one-time support to individual artists and financing access projects (touring and dissemination) which have been presented already, have been deemed worthy by peer juries but could not be funded fully, or funded at all, out of the base budget. This portion of the one-time increase will not require any new applications but will be allocated to 2006-07 applications which could not be funded;
• In all cases, it is the intention of the Council to issue notification of supplementary grants before the end of the current fiscal year for spending to be completed before the end of fiscal year 2007-08;
• For the 300 or so organizations whose three-year cycle is coming up fore renewal in 2007-08, the Council has decided to extend the current arrangement for one year, except for publishers, who will move on as scheduled to the 2-year cycle already developed. The Council further indicated that it is working with the provinces which have multi-year funding cycles to synchronize processes.

Council officials insisted many times on the tentative nature of their communication and said that their intended process had been communicated to the government. The Council has subsequently told the CCA that the application forms and guidelines for the new funds will be on the Council's website on Monday November 6.