FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: CCA talks culture to the Federal Liberal caucus

CCA Bul­letin 3/10

Jan­u­ary 22, 2010

 

On Jan­u­ary 19, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA)  was part of a panel of experts address­ing the Lib­eral Party of Canada’s Cau­cus held on Par­lia­ment Hill. I had the priv­i­lege of hear­ing pre­sen­ta­tions by Anne Golden, Pres­i­dent and CEO, Con­fer­ence Board of Canada, Sherri Tor­j­man, VP, Cale­don Insti­tute of Social Pol­icy, and C. Scott Clark, a for­mer civil ser­vant with a 20 year career in the Depart­ment of Finance as  Assis­tant Deputy Min­is­ter and even­tu­ally Deputy Min­is­ter from 1997 to 2000.

Each of us was invited to make a pre­sen­ta­tion to con­tex­tu­al­ize the plan­ning of the Lib­eral Party’s March pol­icy con­fer­ence in Mon­tréal. Scott Clark pre­sented his views on the eco­nomic and fis­cal out­look for the next decade. Anne Golden dis­cussed the major pol­icy issues con­cern­ing the Cana­dian busi­ness sec­tor, while Sherri Tor­j­man out­lined the pre­dom­i­nant social issues fac­ing Canada dur­ing the same period. These pre­sen­ta­tions were given in front of some 80 Lib­eral MPs and Sen­a­tors in atten­dance and were fol­lowed by short ques­tion peri­ods, the whole last­ing just under two hours.

I was invited to address issues fac­ing the arts, cul­ture and her­itage sec­tor. While giv­ing a brief overview of the cul­tural sec­tor and the numer­ous con­tri­bu­tions it makes to Cana­dian soci­ety, my pre­sen­ta­tion con­cen­trated on the need for devel­op­ing an over­ar­ch­ing pol­icy strat­egy. This strat­egy would aim to address the most cru­cial issues of an evolv­ing sec­tor which exists in an econ­omy and a soci­ety itself in transition.

I pointed to the fact that there has not been a thor­ough pub­lic debate about cul­ture in this coun­try since the early 1980s. The impact of new tech­nolo­gies, the gen­er­a­tional trans­for­ma­tion of the cul­tural sec­tor and the changes in Cana­dian demog­ra­phy make it imper­a­tive that we step back and develop com­pre­hen­sive poli­cies suit­able for the rapidly evolv­ing envi­ron­ment. These poli­cies must cover both the human resources and infra­struc­ture of the Cana­dian cul­tural sector.

I men­tioned that unfor­tu­nately, the cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate and its exac­er­bated par­ti­san tones are not con­ducive to much forward-looking reflec­tion on the future of the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor. Too often cul­ture con­tin­ues to be viewed as a lux­ury item by all lev­els of bud­get con­scious gov­ern­ments, instead of as an impor­tant social and eco­nomic pol­icy tool to fos­ter Cana­dian pros­per­ity and qual­ity of life.

I ended my pre­sen­ta­tion with a quick overview of the main pol­icy issues cur­rently fac­ing us:

• Devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing a National Dig­i­tal Strat­egy which includes cul­ture in all its forms and manifestations;

• Updat­ing our copy­right laws to pro­tect and pro­mote inno­va­tion, cre­ativ­ity and research;

• Review­ing the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and Broad­cast­ing Acts to rein­force the cul­tural objec­tives con­tained within the latter;

• Devel­op­ing mar­kets at home and abroad and rein­sert­ing arts and cul­ture in Cana­dian for­eign policy;

• Fur­ther adapt­ing social safety net poli­cies to a grow­ing con­tin­gent of self employed Canadians;

• Updat­ing our cul­tural infra­struc­ture across the coun­try to take advan­tage of new tech­nolo­gies and main­tain the social objec­tive of democ­ra­ti­za­tion of culture;

• Imple­ment­ing the new museum pol­icy devel­oped in 2005;

• Sup­port­ing train­ing and men­tor­ship in the cul­tural sector;

• Pro­vid­ing com­pre­hen­sive and timely cul­tural sta­tis­tics to sup­port the devel­op­ment of the sec­tor and the eval­u­a­tion of poli­cies and pro­grams at all lev­els of government.

Such issues require both a national vision and strong polit­i­cal will. And they can­not be addressed effec­tively with­out con­sul­ta­tion and coop­er­a­tion between the three lev­els of government.

As a non-partisan orga­ni­za­tion, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts encour­ages and sup­ports all national polit­i­cal par­ties to rec­og­nize the urgency and per­ti­nence of devel­op­ing such an over­ar­ch­ing cul­tural strategy.

What can I do?

Con­tact your local MP to express sup­port for the CCA’s pol­icy pri­or­i­ties.  If appro­pri­ate, sug­gest that his/her Party Cau­cus could sched­ule a sim­i­lar presentation.