FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau

CCA Bul­letin 14/06

March 10, 2006

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts has con­cluded an inten­sive five days of con­sul­ta­tion and delib­er­a­tion designed to help for­mu­late the CCA’s agenda for pre­sen­ta­tion to the new gov­ern­ment. The Chalmers Con­fer­ence, the National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence and a two-day meet­ing of the Board of Gov­er­nors which fol­lowed imme­di­ately after yielded a rich har­vest of ideas and strate­gies, from our keynote speak­ers, con­fer­ence del­e­gates and the Board and Sec­re­tariat of the CCA.

The expe­ri­ence was an affir­ma­tion of the impor­tant role that the cul­tural sec­tor attrib­utes to the CCA in the wide range of cul­tural pol­icy issues before us. It was also an occa­sion for all of us to start work­ing on a new way of deliv­er­ing our mes­sage to Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans about the place that artists and cul­tural insti­tu­tions and indus­tries occupy in the fab­ric of Cana­dian soci­ety. There are many things to say about the event, and I will get back to them in another bul­letin soon.

For now, I would first like to thank the del­e­gates, our young con­fer­ence blog­gers, our keynote speak­ers and our spon­sors for mak­ing this extra­or­di­nary event pos­si­ble and enrich­ing. I will also invite you all to go the web­site and check the mate­r­ial com­ing out of the con­fer­ences (www.ccarts.ca).

The real chal­lenge begins right now, as the Sec­re­tariat artic­u­lates and imple­ments an action plan based on what we drew from the five days of deliberation.

One of the first things that we all seem to agree upon is the inevitabil­ity of another fed­eral elec­tion within the next 18–24 months. Accord­ingly, the Board of Gov­er­nors of the CCA has directed the Sec­re­tariat to begin plan­ning for this even­tu­al­ity imme­di­ately. Our elec­tion readi­ness cam­paign will begin in the com­ing weeks, both with the pub­li­ca­tion of our advo­cacy agenda and with an appeal for a spe­cial levy from our mem­bers and sup­port­ers to finance the prepa­ra­tion of a broad-based elec­tion strat­egy. You will be hear­ing more about this soon.

For the imme­di­ate future , the Board of the CCA has iden­ti­fied the forth­com­ing fed­eral bud­get as our first and most impor­tant tar­get. The CCA will be seek­ing meet­ings with the Min­is­ter of Finance, Min­is­ter of National Rev­enue, the Pres­i­dent of the Trea­sury Board, the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, the Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs and the offi­cial oppo­si­tion crit­ics for each of these port­fo­lios. Our agenda for these meet­ings is clear:

• ask the gov­ern­ment to hon­our the com­mit­ments out­lined in the Novem­ber 23, 2005 announce­ment; this includes the pro­gres­sive increase to the bud­get of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts by $150 mil­lion over the next three fis­cal years, as well as increases to the cul­tural fund­ing pro­grams in For­eign Affairs, the National Art Cen­tre and national train­ing institutions;
• we will also seek some move­ment on tax pol­icy issues, includ­ing expand­ing the pro­posed tax credit for extracur­ric­u­lar phys­i­cal activ­i­ties to include arts activ­i­ties, and a more equi­table treat­ment of self-employed artists and arts professionals;
• we will encour­age the new gov­ern­ment to pro­ceed imme­di­ately with a new fed­eral muse­ums pol­icy, which must pro­vide a min­i­mum of $75 mil­lion a year in new funds over three years to make it an effec­tive tool.

The let­ters to these offi­cials will be posted on our web­site with replies that the CCA receives, as they come in.

The next five weeks are crit­i­cal for hav­ing any influ­ence over the fed­eral bud­getary process, as the Speech from the Throne will be read on 4 April with rumours of a fed­eral bud­get to com­ing the fol­low­ing Mon­day or Tues­day, just prior to the House’s Easter break recess. As our keynote speaker, for­mer Deputy Min­is­ter Alain Gourd, noted at the Sat­ur­day ses­sion of the national pol­icy con­fer­ence, the cul­tural sec­tor has no time to waste and we must ensure our mes­sage has res­o­nance with the new government’s expressed pri­or­i­ties and their touch­stones of account­abil­ity and effi­ciency (to see Alain Gourd’s pre­sen­ta­tion, please refer to our Web­site. Alain made a very strong impres­sion on del­e­gates and his advice is most timely as we launch our advo­cacy efforts with this new government).

I under­take to keep you posted about any progress or chal­lenges we encounter along the way. We are in the process of craft­ing a longer term action plan that will include many of the ideas and pri­or­i­ties we heard at both the Chalmers and National Pol­icy con­fer­ences. This will be included in the first issue of our new elec­tronic mag­a­zine @gora, ded­i­cated to the March con­fer­ences and their outcomes.

If you have any thoughts that you want to share regard­ing the con­fer­ences or pri­or­i­ties that the CCA should pur­sue, please do not hes­i­tate to share them with us by email, tele­phone or let­ter. We will be grate­ful to receive them.