When the Copyright Bill Will Be Passed and the Not So Positive Aspects of the Budget for Culture

CCA Bul­letin 10/12

June 1, 2012

The Pre-summer Marathon has Begun

We really feel the end of the par­lia­men­tary ses­sion in Ottawa these days; it’s a race against the clock to break for the sum­mer, either June 22nd or even maybe as early as June 15th.  Yes­ter­day the Gov­ern­ment Leader in the House of Com­mons, Peter Van Loan, announced the menu for next week. It would seem that if the gov­ern­ment man­ages to pass Bill C-11 in Third Read­ing in the House before the end of the ses­sion (and that calls for a full day of debate) it is unlikely that it will be con­sid­ered by the Sen­ate before the sum­mer recess.

Given the time at its dis­posal in the House, the government’s pri­or­i­ties are:

• Bill C-31 on Canada’s immi­gra­tion sys­tem (must be adopted before June 29th);
• Bill C-25, The pooled reg­is­tered pen­sion plans Act (will be dis­cussed on June 3rd);
• Bill C-23 The Canada–Jordan eco­nomic growth and pros­per­ity Act;
• Bill C-24, The Canada–Panama eco­nomic growth and pros­per­ity Act (will be dis­cussed on the 7th of June)

The CCA in Front of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance

Bill C-38, the omnibus bud­get imple­men­ta­tion bill, includes amend­ments to close to 70 acts and is widely crit­i­cized as unde­mo­c­ra­tic because it pre­vents a pub­lic debate on many impor­tant pol­icy issues affect­ing Cana­dian soci­ety. It’s cur­rently being dis­cussed by the Finance Com­mit­tee which sits from dawn (not quite!) to dusk in order to get the bill adopted before sum­mer holidays.

It was at the express and last minute invi­ta­tion of the Com­mit­tee that the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts appeared yes­ter­day, May 31st, to dis­cuss the abo­li­tion of the Cana­dian Artists and Pro­duc­ers Pro­fes­sional Rela­tions Tri­bunal.  Top­ics cov­ered were: health, envi­ron­ment and cul­ture. With us on the panel, from the cul­tural sec­tor, John McCav­ity for the Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion, there to dis­cuss the com­pen­sa­tion pro­gram for trav­el­ing exhi­bi­tions and Karen Wirsig of the Cana­dian Media Guild who zeroed in on cuts at the NFB, Tele­film and the CBC.

After cov­er­ing the issue of the Artists Tri­bunal, the CCA took advan­tage of the five min­utes given to raise sev­eral bud­get mea­sures which will affect Cana­di­ans’ access to their cul­ture. To read our pre­sen­ta­tion click here.

If you wish to watch the full panel, you will find it here.

Alain Pineau’s pre­sen­ta­tion starts at 1:41:56 fol­lowed by Karen Wirsig and John McAvity.