CCA Bulletin 41/06

Ottawa, September 29, 2006

From the Desk of Alain Pineau

National Director

Canadian Conference of the Arts

As the weekend approaches, I am reflecting on one of the busiest weeks I have experienced since becoming National Director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

The week kicked off with the details of the billion dollar reallocation exercise. Our staff pored over every item on the list to assess the impact these reductions would have on the arts and culture sector. As the week winds down, we are still looking for insights into some of the items on the list which remain rather vague despite several attempts to obtain clarification. It has been brought to my attention that in the flurry of activities, we made a mistake in reference to the cut to the voluntary sector and I would like to correct this right now. Contrary to what we said, the cut of $90 million dollars concerns the Canada Volunteerism Initiative and not Volunteer Canada, an organization which has neither been eliminated nor is an initiative of the previous government! I apologize for the confusion created.

The billion dollar announcement set the stage for an appearance by our President Robert Spickler and myself at the Standing Committee on Finance for the 2007 federal budget consultations. Our submission was written in August, long before the details of the spending cuts were known. While the CCA called for increased investment and support for the arts and culture sector, opposition members were mainly concerned about the impact that the billion dollar cuts would have on the sector. Our appearance will be covered in more details in our next bulletin. Let me just say for the moment that our participation did not go unnoticed and that we got several questions from all parties.

Coming out of this particular exercise and reading the Ottawa tea leaves, it seems pretty clear to me that holding the line is probably the best that we can hope for at the moment, and that our principal task is one of justifying ongoing financial support by the federal government. We must convince our politicians that the arts and culture sector bring broad benefits to millions of Canadians in all parts of the country and present an image of Canada as a sophisticated and diverse society to the rest of the world. This must be done before the next billion dollars is extracted from the federal budget.

In a similar vein, I represented the CCA in a hearing of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Grants and Contributions. Imagine Canada, the umbrella organization for the not for profit and voluntary sector, had arranged and coordinated the hearing which saw voluntary and civil society organizations present a united front on the critical value of federal government support for these organizations, on the importance of predictable funding and of full cost recovery in project funding, and on the importance of lightening the over accountability to which not for profit organizations are currently subject. New ideas were put forward, like the importance of developing a global strategy for the not for profit sector and exploring the possibility of creating a new funding instrument like the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which would complement but not replace the grants and contribution system actually in place. The presentation was extremely well received by Panel members who said it was the best structured and most valuable contribution they had heard so far.

On another front, we also raced to meet the September 27 for submission deadline to the CRTC on its review of some elements of the Over the Air Television Policy. These are very important deliberations and the CCA and many of our members share deep concerns about the ongoing commitment of the CRTC to the investment by all broadcasters and broadcast distribution undertakings to the funding and production of Canadian content. The CCA has asked to participate in the hearing scheduled to start on November 27 in Gatineau . This will also be covered in some greater detail in an upcoming bulletin. If you can't wait to hear, you can always look at our full brief on our website, easier to access than on the CRTC website!

The CCA has also been invited to appear on October 4 th before the Senate Committee on Justice and Constitutional Affairs to address our concerns with the Accountability Act currently under scrutiny by the Senate. The CCA wrote to each Senator this summer to express our hope that the Honourable Senators would tackle the study of this Bill with due diligence. The CCA shares the concerns of other not-for-profit organizations and of other elements of Canadian society that provisions in this legislation could have a serious negative effect on the public policy development process and overall relations with the federal government, public servants and Parliamentarians alike.

The CCA team is somewhat naively looking forward to a break this weekend, even though James Missen is attending the Copycamp event in Toronto . This will help us develop CCA's positions as we await the release of the draft legislation on copyright revisions promised for this fall.

Oh, do we live in interesting times or what!