CCA President’s Blog – All together now!

April 23, 2012
After months of silence, we finally know where we stand: the fed­eral gov­ern­ment has con­firmed offi­cially it will put an end to 46 years of fund­ing to the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts by March 31, 2013. The good news is: we can count on some tran­si­tion fund­ing. We trust that Min­is­ter Moore’s deci­sion to grant final fund­ing to the CCA is an acknowl­edg­ment of the per­ti­nence of our busi­ness plan and of our seri­ous intent to trans­form the organ­i­sa­tion. I won’t deny how­ever that we are dis­ap­pointed with the final deci­sion, as our plan called for tran­si­tional sup­port over two years in order to allow the changes to take place in a more orderly fash­ion. The chal­lenge ahead of us will put enor­mous pres­sure on board and staff to accel­er­ate the imple­men­ta­tion of the new busi­ness model and to gen­er­ate new forms of earned rev­enue in a very short period of time. And this will not be pos­si­ble with­out your com­mit­ment to do it with us.

From the moment we heard after the May 2011 elec­tion of the government’s inten­tion, we have embraced the idea that the CCA had to become inde­pen­dent and dif­fer­ent in order to bet­ter deliver its unique man­date. We at the CCA, staff and board, all remain firm in our resolve to do every­thing pos­si­ble to start the imple­men­ta­tion of the five-year busi­ness plan devel­oped with your input over the past year.

Why are we so resolved to move for­ward? Because we believe that all of us in the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor are at a cross­road in our his­tory. Deep trans­for­ma­tions in our envi­ron­ment chal­lenge our adapt­abil­ity. The com­bined effects of tech­nol­ogy, the econ­omy, chang­ing demo­graph­ics, pol­icy changes and the emer­gence of new play­ers affect the sup­port mech­a­nisms we have put in place over the past 60 years. Not to men­tion that arts and cul­ture are still widely con­sid­ered a lux­ury in our coun­try, their sup­port too often threat­ened with bud­get cuts by all lev­els of government.

Let’s not be under any illu­sion about Min­is­ter Flaherty’s bud­get. While it pro­tects the Canada Coun­cil (whose bud­get has not grown in the past six years and which must still absorb infla­tion), and while it con­tains pos­i­tive mea­sures for the her­itage sec­tor, the deep cuts to the CBC, Tele­film, the National Film Board and the changes in fund­ing pri­or­i­ties we will dis­cover over the com­ing months will have a major impact on our artists, our cre­ators and our organizations.

Our sec­tor is rich in cre­ativ­ity and diver­sity, but it is frag­mented. In this con­text, we are con­vinced that we col­lec­tively need a focal point, a national forum where we can iden­tify issues of com­mon inter­est and plan strate­gies to pur­sue them, through research, pro­grams, advo­cacy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. More than ever, we see the need for all of us to work in a coor­di­nated fash­ion for the greater good of all.

Over the past year, the board and the staff of the CCA have worked hard to develop a detailed five-year busi­ness plan which over time would more than replace the fund­ing received from Cana­dian Her­itage. Since last Novem­ber, our National Direc­tor has met with over 500 stake­hold­ers dur­ing his tour of sev­en­teen cities from Vic­to­ria to St.-John’s. This tour and the on-line con­sul­ta­tion we have held have con­firmed our con­vic­tion: a major­ity of us see the neces­sity and the advan­tages of work­ing all together in a focused way. We now have a plan, it is ambi­tious and chal­leng­ing, but we believe it can be realized.

We will pull out all the stops to see how we can imple­ment our 2012–17 Busi­ness Plan. We fully real­ize that in dif­fi­cult times, the reflex is to con­cen­trate exclu­sively on one’s own sur­vival, but we want to know if you share our belief that by work­ing together, we can all be stronger in the pur­suit of a healthy and vibrant cul­tural sec­tor. I thank all of you who have already made con­crete your sup­port by renew­ing your mem­ber­ship. We now need to know if this con­vic­tion is shared by those who have not yet renewed and those who have indi­cated they were con­sid­er­ing join­ing. In the com­ing weeks, we will be propos­ing dif­fer­ent ways in which you can express your support.

To be com­pletely frank, if you sup­port the idea of a national voice for arts and cul­ture in this coun­try, now is the time to prove it. While the CCA board and staff are com­pletely com­mit­ted to the trans­for­ma­tion of this his­tor­i­cal orga­ni­za­tion, we can­not do it with­out your sup­port – indeed, with­out it there is no rea­son to exist. While we are con­vinced we can gen­er­ate enough earned rev­enue through mem­ber­ships and other means, with­out any new funds the orga­ni­za­tion will not be able to stay in busi­ness for a full fis­cal year. We have iden­ti­fied spe­cific ini­tia­tives and tar­gets that we are busy con­firm­ing over the next two months. With your renewed mem­ber­ships and an aggres­sive begin­ning to the busi­ness plan, we will see the year out and be well posi­tioned for next year. We hope you believe, as we do, that this is the time to act, to seize this oppor­tu­nity regard­less of the sit­u­a­tion that has pre­cip­i­tated it.

I look for­ward to work­ing with all of you to strengthen your voice!

Kath­leen Sharpe
President