FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: A nice way to start the year!

CCA Bul­letin 1/11

Jan­u­ary 11, 2011

 

 

I hope the hol­i­day break was great for all of you! It sure was for the CCA sec­re­tariat and frankly, it’s a good thing because we have a very busy cal­en­dar ahead of us! On the pol­icy front, Bill C-32 and copy­right are major pri­or­i­ties, but there are also the upcom­ing CRTC hear­ings regard­ing the pur­chase of CTV­globe­me­dia by BCE. We are in the final stages of prepa­ra­tion for our third Think­ing Cul­ture forum (on copy­right on Jan­u­ary 25). Inter­nally, the sec­re­tariat is orga­niz­ing the upcom­ing elec­tion of CCA board mem­bers and is in the process of plan­ning the new board’s first strate­gic ses­sion in June. We have also launched a call for nom­i­na­tions for the 2010 CCA awards. And of course, there is the pos­si­bil­ity of a fed­eral elec­tion in the spring which could throw a wrench into the works!

I returned to work last week to a piece of good news. The Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage has pub­lished the results of the five-year sum­ma­tive eval­u­a­tion of the Arts, Cul­ture and Diver­sity Pro­gram under which the CCA and the Coali­tion for Cul­tural Diver­sity (CCD) are funded. Since we are the only two recip­i­ents of this pro­gram, its eval­u­a­tion amounts to a third party review­ing not only how the pro­gram fits in with the government’s pri­or­i­ties, but also how well the two orga­ni­za­tions deliver through their con­tri­bu­tion agree­ments with Her­itage. This report is there­fore crit­i­cal to the future fund­ing of the CCA and the CCD. As you will see below, the report also includes con­clu­sions of inter­est for the whole arts, cul­ture and her­itage sector.

I am thrilled to announce that the report rec­om­mends that the pro­gram be renewed because it is “effi­cient and in line with the government’s pri­or­i­ties.” The report states that over the past five years, “The CCA has made valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to the arts and cul­ture sec­tor and to the Gov­ern­ment of Canada…the CCA suc­cess­fully sup­ports the devel­op­ment of arts net­works across the coun­try. These net­works enable artists as well as both small and large arts orga­ni­za­tions to not only share their diverse expe­ri­ences, but also dis­cuss com­mon issues. Such net­work­ing helps sen­si­tize sec­tor mem­bers to other view­points and facil­i­tates prob­lem solving.”

After five years as National Direc­tor, I whole­heart­edly agree that, “the CCA has a unique rela­tion­ship with the orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als that com­prise the arts and cul­ture sec­tor. As a peer, the CCA is in a posi­tion to coa­lesce issues… most impor­tantly, many CCA activ­i­ties, includ­ing nourishing/provoking debate on cul­tural issues, pro­vid­ing a pre-clearing house for pol­icy devel­op­ment, facil­i­tat­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions between the cul­tural sec­tor and gov­ern­ment and pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion on arts and cul­ture, have served to effec­tively and effi­ciently com­mu­ni­cate the views and inter­ests of the arts and cul­ture sec­tor to PCH in a way that could not likely be effi­ciently dupli­cated by PCH or another NGO.”

Maybe more impor­tantly still, the report includes a num­ber of con­clu­sions which are of inter­est for the whole arts, cul­ture and her­itage sector:

• Arts and cul­ture are rel­e­vant for Canada and the Cana­dian economy;
• The fed­eral gov­ern­ment has both domes­tic and inter­na­tional roles to play in terms of arts and cul­ture; and
• Non-governmental orga­ni­za­tions are impor­tant to the arts and cul­ture sector.

Tell me more

The fol­low­ing are quotes from the report:

Arts and Cul­ture are Rel­e­vant for Canada and the Cana­dian Economy

Arts and cul­ture are essen­tial ele­ments of the Cana­dian iden­tity, unit­ing the nation as a peo­ple and enabling Cana­di­ans to tell sto­ries that reflect their diverse back­grounds and expe­ri­ences. Sta­tis­tics pub­lished by the Con­fer­ence Board of Canada and Sta­tis­tics Canada also indi­cate that the arts and cul­ture sec­tor has con­tributed sig­nif­i­cantly to the Cana­dian econ­omy: Accord­ing to these sources, the sec­tor accounted for 7.4% of Canada’s total real GDP in 2007 (includ­ing direct, indi­rect, and induced con­tri­bu­tions); and culture-sector employ­ment totaled approx­i­mately 1.1 mil­lion jobs in 2007 (rep­re­sent­ing about 6.5% of national employment).

The Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment Has Both Domes­tic and Inter­na­tional Roles to Play in Terms of Arts and Culture

Domes­ti­cally, the fed­eral government’s role in terms of arts and cul­ture is to for­mu­late poli­cies and pro­vid­ing fund­ing sup­port that will con­tinue to allow the arts and cul­ture sec­tor to flour­ish, thereby con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of a com­pet­i­tive work­force of cre­ative, knowl­edge­able work­ers and indus­try investors; and allow­ing Cana­di­ans to embrace their lin­guis­tic, ethno-cultural, Abo­rig­i­nal and regional diver­sity while strength­en­ing their com­mu­nity iden­tity and pride in Canada and in being Canadian.

Inter­na­tion­ally, the fed­eral government’s role is to pro­mote cul­tural diver­sity by:

• Build­ing coali­tions in coun­tries and regions where there has not been exten­sive rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the Convention;
• Encour­ag­ing rat­i­fi­ca­tion by coun­tries in the Asia-Pacific region and by the Arab States;
• Con­tribut­ing to the devel­op­ment of oper­a­tional guide­lines for the Convention;
• Mon­i­tor­ing trade nego­ti­a­tions to ensure that the spirit of the Con­ven­tion is upheld;
• Putting for­ward the views of civil soci­ety as they per­tain to the Con­ven­tion, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with other NGOs; and
• Pro­vid­ing ideas and encour­ag­ing sup­port for the IFCD.

NGOs Are Impor­tant to the Arts and Cul­ture Sector

Domes­ti­cally, there is a need for an NGO pres­ence in the arts and cul­ture sec­tor, not only to pro­vide inde­pen­dent, objec­tive research, but also to build con­sen­sus among dis­parate voices in the sector.

Inter­na­tion­ally, there is a con­tin­u­ing need for a strong NGO pres­ence in the imple­men­ta­tion of the Con­ven­tion, espe­cially because NGOs pro­vide con­ti­nu­ity in par­tic­i­pa­tion in the UNESCO and the Convention’s gov­ern­ing bod­ies. Fur­ther­more, NGOs are needed to pro­vide con­tin­ued mes­sag­ing to ensure ongo­ing vis­i­bil­ity for the Con­ven­tion.

The CCA and the CCD Have Made Valu­able Con­tri­bu­tions to the Arts and Cul­ture Sec­tor and to the Gov­ern­ment of Canada

The CCA’s pro­duc­tion of inde­pen­dent, objec­tive research on the arts and cul­ture sec­tor and its efforts to inform the fed­eral gov­ern­ment of the most cur­rent and press­ing con­cerns of the orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als that pop­u­late the sec­tor have helped ensure that gov­ern­ment pol­icy rec­og­nizes and encour­ages the con­tri­bu­tion of the sec­tor to Cana­dian pub­lic life. As well, the CCA’s dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion that is crit­i­cal to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions across regions/sub-sectors and its coor­di­na­tion of dis­parate arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions on issues on which there is com­mon ground have enabled those orga­ni­za­tions 1) to deter­mine what kind of impact gov­ern­ment poli­cies and cur­rent events will have on their oper­a­tions; and 2) to speak to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment with a uni­fied voice.