Le secteur culturel s’en tire à peine

Ottawa, le 20 avril, 2004
Con­texte actuel
Paul Mar­tin occupe le poste de pre­mier min­istre du Canada et Hélène Chal­i­four Scher­rer
celui de min­istre de Pat­ri­moine Canada depuis 4 mois main­tenant — peut-être est-il temps de
faire le point et de se deman­der quelle est la posi­tion de ce gou­verne­ment au sujet du
finance­ment des arts, du pat­ri­moine et de la cul­ture.
Bien peu sem­blent com­pren­dre la néces­sité d’adopter une approche holis­tique pour soutenir
le secteur; plutôt que de réa­gir n’importe quand à n’importe quel petit grince­ment, le
gou­verne­ment devrait avoir une vue d’ensemble.
1 of 3
Con­férence cana­di­enne des arts ~ Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts
« Je pense que la man­i­fes­ta­tion de notre cul­ture est tout à fait
essen­tielle à notre iden­tité »
Paul Mar­tin au sujet du Fonds cana­dien de télévi­sion,
Hôtel de ville de Toronto, 29 avril  2003
Un porte-parole d’Hélène Scher­rer, la nou­velle min­istre de
Pat­ri­moine Canada, a indiqué que l’administration du min­istère sera
beau­coup plus rigoureuse que sous Sheila Copps. « Je ne pense
pas qu’il sera la banque qu’il avait l’habitude d’être », a dit Alexan­dre
Lan­thier après l’assermentation de Scher­rer.
CBC Arts Report, 12 décem­bre 2003
La min­istre du Pat­ri­moine, Hélène Scher­rer, a reconnu que les arts
n’occupent pas une bien grande place dans le doc­u­ment offi­ciel
du bud­get de 400 pages rendu pub­lic cette semaine, parce que ce
n’est pas une pri­or­ité pour le gou­verne­ment de Paul Mar­tin…
CBC Arts Report, 26 mars 2004
« J’ai demandé aux gens dans chaque province quelle était la
pri­or­ité », a dit la min­istre du Pat­ri­moine, Hélène Chal­i­four Sher­rer,
dans une entre­vue télé­phonique hier soir, « et partout on a dit qu’il
fal­lait rétablir le fonds de télévi­sion ».
Rétab­lisse­ment du fonds de télévi­sion, comme promis,
par Rick West­head, The Toronto Star, 24 mars 2004
« Nous allons faire en sorte que le télécharge­ment reste illé­gal », a
dit  Hélène Scher­rer, min­istre asser­men­tée en décem­bre dernier et
une recrue dans les rangs des députés du Québec. « Nous allons
en faire une pri­or­ité pour agir aussi rapi­de­ment que pos­si­ble…
Main­tenant je sais vrai­ment en quoi con­siste l’industrie de la
musique…je retourne à Ottawa avec la volonté de faire quelque
chose. »
La min­istre jure de lut­ter con­tre l’échange de fichiers musi­caux,
par Keith Damsell, Globe and Mail, 13 avril 2004

All aspects of the cul­tural con­tin­uum, from cre­ation and train­ing to pro­duc­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion,
preser­va­tion and con­sump­tion must be con­sid­ered.  It is very impor­tant that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment
under­stands that it is the whole sec­tor which needs ade­quate, sta­ble, multi-year fund­ing — not just one
ele­ment here and there in a “flavour of the week” approach.
Mr Martin’s acces­sion to the posi­tion of Prime Min­is­ter was greeted with con­sid­er­able fan­fare.  Rhetoric
from the Lib­eral party may look good on paper, but the real­ity has been dis­ap­point­ing.
Con­sider the fol­low­ing:
a the main esti­mates released ear­lier in Feb­ru­ary will need to be recon­fig­ured post-Budget,
leav­ing the cul­tural com­mu­nity unsure what pro­grammes are avail­able for the cur­rent fis­cal
year (2004–05;
a the one year exten­sion of the Tomor­row Starts Today fund­ing was made last Novem­ber,
prior to the cur­rent Min­is­ter tak­ing office; no com­mit­ment has yet been made to sup­port the
cul­tural sec­tor after the cur­rent fis­cal year, leav­ing many orga­ni­za­tions unable to plan for the
short term and in an unten­able sit­u­a­tion for the long term;
a sev­eral arts and cul­tural fes­ti­vals are being hard hit in the wake of the spon­sor­ship déba­cle,
despite DCH’s promise to pro­vide assis­tance through exist­ing depart­men­tal pro­grammes,
where fund­ing and cri­te­ria per­mit;
a there are sev­eral high-profile issues occu­py­ing the sec­tor, among them renewal of the
Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund, for­eign own­er­ship, free­dom of expres­sion (Bill C-12), and updat­ing
copy­right leg­is­la­tion; these issues are cru­cial to the sec­tor but need to be addressed within the
con­text of ongo­ing sup­port to the sec­tor as a whole.
What is needed
What is needed, ulti­mately, is a com­pre­hen­sive fed­eral cul­tural pol­icy, some­thing that is still lack­ing in
this coun­try.
In June 1998, the CCA pro­duced  the Final Report of the Work­ing Group on Cul­tural Pol­icy for the 21st
Cen­tury, a doc­u­ment which remains just as valid today as when it was writ­ten.  This report calls for the
estab­lish­ment of a new Depart­ment of Cana­dian Cul­ture and Her­itage to address, among other things
a the link­age between cul­tural con­tent and car­rier issues; and a the key objec­tives of a Cana­dian cul­tural pol­icy frame­work, includ­ing
g recog­ni­tion of government’s vital role in the sus­te­nance, pro­mo­tion and
devel­op­ment of the arts, her­itage and cul­tural indus­tries
g acknowl­edge­ment of two offi­cial lan­guage com­mu­ni­ties, and their impor­tance to
Cana­dian artis­tic and cul­tural life
g facil­i­ta­tion of the broad­est pos­si­ble access by Cana­di­ans to works and pro­duc­tions
by Cana­dian artists and cul­tural pro­duc­ers
g pro­mo­tion and respect for the val­ues of regional and eth­no­cul­tural diver­sity, and the
role of the First Peo­ples.
The report also calls for the newly formed Depart­ment to have over­all respon­si­bil­ity for cre­at­ing an
envi­ron­ment respect­ful of and con­ducive to the work and rights of Cana­dian cre­ators and artists
through revi­sions to the Copy­right Act, the Sta­tus of the Artist Act, the Cul­tural Prop­erty Act, and
other instru­ments at the dis­po­si­tion of the state.  With a coher­ent cul­tural pol­icy in place, the
Depart­ment would have a frame­work within which to make pol­icy deci­sions rather than shoot­ing at
each mov­ing tar­get as it comes to the fore.
What you can do
As was clearly stated by sev­eral emi­nent speak­ers at the CCA’s recent Chalmers Con­fer­ence, cul­tural
orga­ni­za­tions will be heard more clearly if they speak with one voice.  First and fore­most, what is
needed is a com­mit­ment by the gov­ern­ment to ade­quate, sta­ble, multi-year fund­ing for the sec­tor as a
whole.
Beyond this imper­a­tive, there are a num­ber of other issues you might wish to men­tion.  To assist you,
CCA is devel­op­ing back­grounders and ques­tions on a num­ber of key issues together with quan­ti­ta­tive
and qual­i­ta­tive infor­ma­tion, and use­ful quotes, to help you make the case.  Some of this infor­ma­tion is
already on our web­site (www.ccarts.ca, elec­tion sec­tion); the bal­ance will be added over the next cou­ple
of weeks.  If cul­tural issues are raised fre­quently enough, they are more likely to reg­is­ter on this
government’s radar screen going into the elec­tion.
CCA urges its mem­bers to take action now: you can ask a ques­tion directly of our Prime Min­is­ter by
going to the Lib­eral Party’s new web­site (www.liberal.ca), click­ing on Paul Mar­tin Times, and then on
“Ask Paul a ques­tion” (right side of screen).