CCA Bulletins 09/06

February 6, 2006

Beverley J. Oda, new Minister of Canadian Heritage

The new Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper has placed the Department of Canadian Heritage in the hands of Beverley J. Oda, the re-elected Member of Parliament for the riding of Durham (Ontario). CCA congratulates Ms. Oda on the occasion of her appointment as Minister and looks forward to working closely with her and the officials in her Prime Department.

The CCA’s mission is to contribute to a clear-headed debate about Canadian arts and culture, and how best to make our artists and cultural institutions thrive for the benefit of all Canadians. As part of delivering this mission, the CCA is organizing an important conference to map the current federal cultural policy environment and establish action plans for the future, which is scheduled for March 2-4 2006 in Ottawa. It is the hope of the CCA that Minister Oda will accept our written invitation to attend this significant event and will address conference delegates regarding her vision for the arts and culture sector.

Background and context of the appointment

Ms. Oda was also named Minister responsible for the Status of Women and was appointed a member of the Cabinet’s Social Affairs committee, which according to the PMO website, “Considers health care, justice, Aboriginal, training and skills development, culture, and immigration policy issues.” Two Cabinet committees, Operations and Priorities and Planning, have been created to ensure, “effective day-to-day governing and to provide strategic direction on priorities for Canadians.” Three policy committees, Social Affairs, Economic Affairs, and Foreign Affairs and National Security, “will identify the means to achieve these strategic priorities.” Finally, Treasury Board will “examine initiatives to strengthen government accountability.”

The Hon. Bev Oda was first elected as a Conservative Party of Canada MP in 2004 and served in the 38 th Parliament of Canada as the Official Opposition’s Critic for the Department of Canadian Heritage. According to her biography on the PMO website, p rior to her election Ms. Oda spent more than two decades in the fields of public and private broadcasting. In 1999, Ms. Oda was appointed senior Vice-President, Industry Affairs, at CTV. From 1987 to 1993 she served as a commissioner with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

Ms. Oda began her broadcasting career at TV Ontario in 1973. In 1976 she moved to the field of commercial broadcasting. She has also worked as a consultant in the areas of multiculturalism, diversity and broadcasting. Ms. Oda was born in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1944. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts. She served as chair of the Lakeridge Health Hospital Network and is a recipient of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee medal. (More background on Ms. Oda can be found in this Feb 6 CBC online story: www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/02/06/oda-bev-culture.html)

Other key Cabinet appointments to departments, whose policies impact the arts and culture sector, include:

Minister of Finance: Jim Flaherty
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Peter MacKay
Minister of Justice; Attorney General of Canada: Vic Toews
Minister of International Trade: David Emerson
President of Treasury Board: John Baird
Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities: Lawrence Cannon
Minister of Labour: Jean-Pierre Blackburn
Minister of Industry: Maxime Bernier
Minister of National Revenue: Carol Skelton
Minister of International Co-operation and Minister for La Francophonie and Official Languages: Josée Verner

New government’s stated priorities

The Rt. Hon Stephen Harper made the following statement on the occasion of his swearing in ceremony at Rideau Hall: “My smaller Cabinet and more streamlined Cabinet structure are designed for work—not for show. The team is talented and balanced, reflecting our national diversity. The 26 Ministers are equal members of the team, ensuring equal voices from all regions of Canada. The structure is designed to promote accountable, efficient, and effective government – more focus and purpose; less process and cost.” In announcing the new Cabinet, the new Prime Minister of Canada released reaffirmed the Government’s intention to focus on the five key priorities he outlined during the recent election campaign, which are:

Cleaning up government by enacting and enforcing the Federal Accountability Act;
Lowering taxes for working Canadians, starting with a reduction to the Goods and Services Tax (GST);
Protecting Canadian families and communities by strengthening the justice system;
Supporting the child care choices of parents; and
Delivering health care Canadians need, when they need it, by establishing a patient wait times guarantee with the provinces.

(With respect to the subject of the proposed Federal Accountability Act, the PMO released the following two documents: the first, “Accountable Government: A Guide for Ministers 2006”, is available at http://www.pm.gc.ca/grfx/docs/guide_e.pdf, whereas the second related document, “Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders”, can be found at http://www.pm.gc.ca/grfx/docs/code_e.pdf.

CCA’s policy priorities

The Canadian Conference of the Arts is the country’s largest assembly of individuals and organizations engaged in arts and cultural issues, whose combined numbers represent close to a quarter of a million Canadians. As a non-partisan organization that strives to contribute to the unique character of Canadian society in the cultural sector, the CCA works closely with all political parties and MPs represented in the House of Commons.

For memory, here are the priorities the CCA will ask the new government to address:

Honouring the planned increase to the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts announced November 23 2005.
Restoring arts and culture as the “third pillar” of Canada’s international diplomacy and add additional financial resources to Foreign Affairs in support of this sector.
Developing clear policies to ensure the fair tax treatment of artists by the Canada Revenue Agency, including improved tax exemptions, income averaging, and access to social benefits without jeopardizing the status of self-employed contractors.
Maintaining policies that protect existing Canadian ownership of our media and cultural industries; restricting both foreign ownership and the concentration of ownership in the cultural industries; and strengthening domestic cultural expressions with policies that encourage Canadian investment in the cultural industries.
Increasing funding to the CBC on a multi-year basis and upholding the cultural objectives of the Broadcasting Act in the 21 st Century.
Revising the Copyright Act to enhance the moral and economic rights of creators and copyright owners and licensees.
Introducing a new federal museums policy, which would include the investment of new monies in sustained, multi-year, predictable programs