CCA BULL ETIN / BULLETIN DE LA CCA
JOY TO THE (CULTURAL) WORLD?
Tomorrow Starts Today renewed for one year
Ottawa , December 15, 2004 - A collective sigh of relief can be heard across the land! Just in time for the holiday season of giving and good cheer, the government of Canada has announced a reinvestment in the cultural sector of $192 million for the 2005-06 fiscal year. [Note: The Tomorrow Starts Today (TST) investment, originally announced in May 2001 for a three year period, was extended for one year (fiscal 2004-05) at $207 million. The Department of Canadian Heritage ( DCH ) news release explains that $15 million has been permanently transferred to Environment Canada and International Trade Canada .]
The community was hoping for news of at least a multi-year commitment, preferably at increased levels. However, the Canadian Conference of the Arts has learned that the 2005 Budget should contain details of an additional two years funding beyond the 2005-06 fiscal year, bringing the total investment package to a three year period, and ensuring that culture is not left out of Budget largesse.
This is an issue on which CCA, together with many, many cultural organizations all across the country, has been working for a couple of years now (see our latest Bulletin 61/04, issued just last Friday). Those in the sector - individuals, organizations, and associations - who lobbied MPs, ministers, and other decision makers, are to be congratulated for their efforts.
Jean Malavoy, CCA's National Director, stated “I'm delighted that at last the government has announced the continuation of this important investment. This initial one-year extension will now permit arts organizations to plan their coming seasons. CCA will be following the details of Budget 2005 very closely in the hope that the funding will indeed become multi-year. TST is making a clear difference in the cultural sector, and we see no reason not to make this investment permanent.”
The TST investment has been extremely important to the sector in a number of ways, including: promoting sustainability and capacity building; adding much needed funding to existing programmes such as those which assist Canada's national training institutions, the book publishing industry, and the Canada Music Fund; funds to allow arts venues to update their facilities with new technology; and promotion of the Trade Routes programme for cultural exports. The funding also permitted development of new programmes, such as Cultural Capitals of Canada, an incentive for municipalities to invest in culture in their communities and to develop municipal cultural policies.
However, CCA adds a caveat for future renewal: it is extremely important that the renewal process begin much earlier in the cycle in future, as confirmation only three and a half months before the funding is due to terminate only results in poor management both for those in the sector trying to plan, and for those in DCH trying to keep programmes running smoothly. Providing such funding in short “hiccups” demonstrates a lack of long term vision and certainly doesn't meet the needs of the community. Ideally, the funding should cover at least a five-year period, with sufficient time allowed for the renewal process - otherwise, the cultural sector will find itself in exactly the same precarious situation in a couple of years. Bev Oda (MP for Durham, CPC ) indicated in the course of a meeting with Jean Malavoy in October that the main problem with TST is that it is a 3-year program with short term objectives; it would be much better to build this funding into the on-going budget of DCH . Hear, hear!
WHAT WAS SAID
The following are excerpts from the third reading of Bill C-18, an act to amend the Telefilm Canada Act, which took place in The House on 13 December 2004 . The excerpts relate to the Bill, to the Tomorrow Starts Today funding, to government priorities, and to culture in general. (The full transcript is available at www.parl.gc.ca ; go to House of Commons latest debates, then Complete Hansard, starting at approximately #1250.)
Hon. Sarmite Bulte (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage; Parkdale - High Park , Lib.):
… the government will be responding in detail to the Lincoln report on Canadian broadcasting…. by the end of April the government will have made clear its overreaching priorities concerning broadcasting and how it plans to act on these priorities.
…Let there be no doubt about where the government stands on cultural matters, whether it is film, TV, music or new media, our cultural products speak for us in words and images that reverberate across our country, in cities and in rural and remote areas, but most important, around the world. They reflect our aspirations, our values and our vision as a country. They deepen our mutual understanding across diverse cultural backgrounds. They enrich our lives and contribute to our economy.
Bev Oda ( Durham . CPC ):
…I look forward to a review of the Canadian film industry to be undertaken by the heritage committee in the new year…. The bill finally provides the legislative authority to expand Telefilm's mandate from only feature film into television programming, new media and sound recording.
…If the government were serious about governing and not only addressing inconsistencies when it is caught, this legislation would be bringing forward a new vision for Telefilm and not simply correcting the past.… What will happen to Telefilm Canada if its television production support program is now moved to the Canadian Television Fund to address the challenges faced by that fund?
…What Canadians need from our federal government is a vision and the courage to take hold of the future and to ensure that Canadian creators have a significant part to play in that future.
Maka Kotto (Saint-Lambert, BQ):
…all Bill C-18 does is to update and make official the increased responsibilities Telefilm Canada already has. The current legislation does not reflect the real mandate of this intrusive agency, Telefilm Canada and needs to be updated. So Bill C-18 makes official the new Telefilm mission that has been in place for years.
Essentially the bill replaces the expressions “pecuniary interest in film activity” and “feature film production” with “audiovisual industry” and “film” with “audiovisual”. Let us also recall that it provides Telefilm with the authority to act in the sound recording industry under agreements made with the Department of Canadian Heritage….
Charlie Angus ( Timmins – James Bay , NDP):
We have to view culture as a multi-dimensional aspect of life. It is not simply our legends. It is not simply our songs. It is a whole fabric of the way a community interprets who it is.
…I fully support where we are going in terms of the Telefilm direction. To give an example of what we are looking at, we are talking about $85 million that would be going to film; $95 million to $100 million to television; $8 million to $9 million to sound recordings; and $9 million to new media, which could be websites or video games and other new technologies… However, I am very concerned that what we are doing is not nearly enough.
…There have been major cuts to arts, which have destabilized numerous of our grassroots, the incubators of culture... the fact is that a lot of Canadian stories are not being told because there is not the needed funding in the areas where these stories are coming up.
…It is particularly distressing when we have such major industries as film, television and the Canadian book publishing industry now three and a half or maybe four months away from the new fiscal year and looking at zero in front of all their budget lines because they are being told there is no money… The months are ticking down to the new fiscal year and nobody is being hired, tours are not being planned, books are not being published and films are not being made.
Note : Charlie Angus put forward an amendment to C-18, which was not accepted, regarding patronage appointments to the boards of cultural institutions. “We are talking about our support for the artists and we are talking about how much we value them. Yet when these bills come forward and we are talking about who sits on these boards, who sits on Telefilm, who sits on CBC , who sits on CRTC, we have no ability to guarantee that people who are committed to the arts community, people who are committed to arts and know the grassroots issues, the front line issues, have any representation on these boards.”
Extract from a statement on Arts and Culture made by Maka Kotto following the debate on C-18:
…can we envision culture without arts and letters, theatre, music, dance, literature, art crafts, and visual and media arts? No. Culture is the heart of every people.
In Quebec , the Mouvement pour les arts et les letters [ MAL ], which represents 15,000 professional artists, has long been campaigning for increased support for artists, the majority of whom are living below the poverty line.
The government must understand cultural issues and the need for more support to our professional artists. Artists and artisans are not free to create. They generally have a double life imposed upon them by the obligation to earn enough to live on.
So that they may have that freedom to create a culture that will be worthy of protection by an eventual convention on cultural diversity, the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts needs to be raised to $300 million this very year, and the program “Tomorrow Starts Today” must be restored permanently, and enhanced as well.
For more information:
Kevin Desjardins
Communications and Public Relations Manager
(613) 238 3561 ext.11
Fax (613) 238 4849
62/04
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