From the desk of the National Director: New Year and Renewal

First things first: there is still time to wish all of you health, for­ti­tude and seren­ity for 2012. I’m afraid we will all need that and then some!

Every­one knows that the begin­ning of a new year is a time for renewal. This is espe­cially true for the CCA this year: 2012 will go down in its long his­tory as the year we recre­ated the CCA to ensure that it con­tinue its unique con­tri­bu­tion to the wel­fare of the Cana­dian arts, cul­ture and her­itage com­mu­ni­ties. Faced with the expected deci­sion of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to put an end to 45 years of fund­ing to the CCA, we decided to embrace the oppor­tu­nity to rein­vent the busi­ness model of the orga­ni­za­tion to make it finan­cially self-sufficient.

We all know the numer­ous and impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions the arts make to Canada’s com­mu­ni­ties, our econ­omy and our inter­na­tional rep­u­ta­tion. Since World War II, we have col­lec­tively estab­lished a diverse and thriv­ing art and cul­tural sec­tor across this vast and under pop­u­lated coun­try. At the begin­ning of the mil­len­nium, the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor is fac­ing con­sid­er­able changes: the ever evolv­ing tech­nol­ogy, the glob­al­iza­tion of the econ­omy, com­mu­ni­ca­tions that bring the world to your home, the socio-demographic trans­for­ma­tion of our coun­try, the cross-fertilisation of cul­tures and sig­nif­i­cant changes in polit­i­cal winds. Now more than ever before, there is a need for greater cohe­sion in the Cana­dian arts, cul­ture and her­itage sector.

It is based on this con­vic­tion that our Board of Gov­er­nors and all of us at the Sec­re­tariat have been work­ing hard over the past seven months to ensure that now, more than ever, the CCA meets the needs of its mem­ber­ship and plays its unique role for the Cana­dian arts, cul­ture and her­itage com­mu­ni­ties. After Novem­ber and December’s con­sul­ta­tions in Mon­tréal, Toronto and Ottawa, I start a country-wide tour on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 9 which will take me from Vic­to­ria, B.C. to St-John’s, New­found­land by the mid­dle of Feb­ru­ary. After each stop, I will post an account of the con­ver­sa­tions with mem­bers and stake­hold­ers. You will find my full itin­er­ary here. Fur­ther details will be made avail­able as they are firmed up.

Still under the ban­ner of renewal, wel­come to the soft launch of the revamped CCA web­site. It’s obvi­ous: our web­site has a new look. But the real change is in the approach, not only in the appear­ance. While we’ve mod­ern­ized the design, we’ve also enhanced the user expe­ri­ence. As time goes by, more con­tent and fea­tures will be added. This launch also marks the inau­gural issue of the CCA’s monthly webzine, The Mag­a­zine, yet another mile­stone in our jour­ney on the elec­tronic high­way and in the rebirth of the CCA. The launch of The Mag­a­zine is the cul­mi­na­tion of a process that began nine months ago to mod­ern­ize a web­site which, let’s face it, had become quite anti­quated and not very user-friendly! The CCA is tak­ing advan­tage of tech­no­log­i­cal advances to enhance deliv­ery of our mes­sage as well as deliv­ery of ser­vices to our mem­bers… and to offer a fresher face to the world!

We want to hear your thoughts on this web­site, on cul­tural pol­icy issues and on prospects for the arts, cul­ture and her­itage sec­tor. Keep talk­ing to us and we will con­tinue to work for your inter­ests. You can get mes­sages to me by phone, e-mail, Twit­ter and over the com­ing weeks, even, in per­son, as I tour our win­try country!

Before mov­ing on, allow me to express my deep grat­i­tude to the tremen­dous efforts of the CCA staff but most espe­cially, Jes­sica Litwin and Math­angi Raman. With­out their help, this project would not have got off the ground or even advanced as rapidly as it did. Jes­sica and Math­angi are pur­su­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in other parts of the world now. We hope they are read­ing this mes­sage from their new homes!

While we strive to re-launch the CCA, life goes on! For the past sev­eral months, the CCA has been involved in the reform of the Copy­right Act. We have been suc­cess­ful in coor­di­nat­ing efforts to come up with a joint set of pro­posed amend­ments to Bill C-11 which should be com­mu­ni­cated to the gov­ern­ment and to par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in the com­ing weeks. This is an unprece­dented ini­tia­tive which illus­trates per­fectly what the unique con­tri­bu­tion of the CCA as con­vener and con­sen­sus builder. So far, over 70 orga­ni­za­tions across Canada have added their sig­na­tures to the proposal.

Also, these past weeks, we have been involved in coor­di­nat­ing responses to the con­sul­ta­tion launched by Rev­enue Canada on its pro­posed Guide­lines for arts orga­ni­za­tions and char­i­ta­ble reg­is­tra­tion under the Income Tax Act. This guid­ance reflects an updated inter­pre­ta­tion of the applic­a­ble law and clar­i­fies the posi­tion and prac­tice of the Char­i­ties Direc­torate on mat­ters related to the eli­gi­bil­ity of arts orga­ni­za­tions for char­i­ta­ble reg­is­tra­tion. We have been able to secure a pro­lon­ga­tion of the con­sul­ta­tion period to Feb­ru­ary 10, 2012. This was ini­tially sched­uled to end Jan­u­ary 17. We will pub­lish more infor­ma­tion on this file, so keep an eye on your e-mail and on our website!

My next blog will come to you the week of Jan­u­ary 9th from British Columbia!