CCA Bul­letin 31/06

August 3, 2006

CCA proudly launches “CCA’ s @gora”, its new inter­ac­tive on– line forum!

Well, I am glad to say: here it is at last ! As announced at our March 2006 con­fer­ences held in Ottawa , the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) is launch­ing the first issue of it new elec­tronic mag­a­zine, CCA’s @gora!

CCA’s @gora is the lat­est com­mu­ni­ca­tions tool the CCA plans to use in the pur­suit of our mis­sion as a national leader in cre­at­ing informed debate about arts and cul­tural pol­icy issues in Canada. It is not intended to replace the 60 bul­letins or so we send to our mem­bers each year. This new mag­a­zine will make more detailed infor­ma­tion on issues avail­able for your con­sul­ta­tion, con­sid­er­a­tion and live com­ments — and for the gen­eral pub­lic. Each issue will con­cen­trate on one major file, pre­sented along other mate­r­ial updated more fre­quently. Our aim is to increase the num­ber of major files pre­sented by CCA’s @gora over the next few years to about 8 per year, though for the moment it will remain a quar­terly pub­li­ca­tion, like its pre­de­ces­sor, Bliz­zart. How­ever, it will only be made avail­able online, mem­bers being free to print out seg­ments of it for dis­tri­b­u­tion, sub­ject to proper sourc­ing. The rea­son for this is that we plan to use the medium of the Inter­net to its fullest in order to cre­ate inter­ac­tive spaces for knowl­edge dis­sem­i­na­tion and for dis­cus­sion in the area of cul­tural pol­icy. All mem­bers and stake­hold­ers are hereby invited to com­ment on what­ever con­tent of this mag­a­zine and to com­ment on com­ments! If blog­ging intim­i­dates you, you can as always send us your feed­back at info@ccarts.ca.

This first issue of @GORA is slightly dif­fer­ent from future ones in that, as announced pre­vi­ously, it is ded­i­cated pri­mar­ily to reports from the Chalmers and National Pol­icy con­fer­ences held in Ottawa at the begin­ning of March 2006 and to their follow-ups. You will also find also an overview of our recent pub­li­ca­tion of the 2006 fed­eral bud­get analy­sis. But the pièce de résis­tance of this first issue is the for­mal release of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts’ Pol­icy and Advo­cacy Pri­or­i­ties Agenda for the com­ing 18 to 24 months. Com­ing out of the delib­er­a­tions of del­e­gates at the March con­fer­ences, this action list has been devel­oped by our Board of Gov­er­nors at its meet­ings in March and again in June. These pol­icy pri­or­i­ties will obvi­ously have to be man­aged care­fully with regards to polit­i­cal and reg­u­la­tory devel­op­ments which escape our con­trol. One thing that springs to mind though when one reads the list is that we cer­tainly have our work cut out for the fore­see­able future!

A CCA fundrais­ing campaign!

Talk­ing about CCA’s polit­i­cal action pri­or­i­ties leads nat­u­rally to the sec­ond CCA launch of today: that of a fundrais­ing cam­paign amongst CCA mem­bers and supporters.

As men­tio ned above, the com­ing months will see fun­da­men­tal debates about arts and cul­ture with an unprece­dented con­ver­gence and com­plex­ity of the issues at hand. Those issues include: ade­quate and sta­ble fund­ing, through a more impor­tant than usual pre-budget con­sul­ta­tion; the reviews of DCH port­fo­lio agen­cies, includ­ing the CBC and the Cana­dian Radio-television and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (CRTC); the same CRTC TV Pol­icy review and the study of new tech­nolo­gies’ impact on broad­cast­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion under­tak­ings; the tabling of new amend­ments to the Copy­right Act and maybe, to the Crim­i­nal Code con­cern­ing pornog­ra­phy; a review of for­eign own­er­ship rules and, of course, the ever-present pos­si­bil­ity of a fed­eral elec­tion where cul­tural issues had bet­ter be on the agenda or else…

Given the impor­tance of what is at stake for all of us in these mat­ters, it is cru­cial that the CCA express the col­lec­tive voice of Canada’s artists and cul­tural sec­tor before Par­lia­ment and the reg­u­la­tory bod­ies in an author­i­ta­tive and effi­cient man­ner. The CCA is there­fore embark­ing on a fund­ing drive and turn­ing to its mem­ber­ship and to stake­hold­ers for dona­tions in order to build ade­quate resources to face so many simul­ta­ne­ous chal­lenges to the exist­ing Cana­dian cul­tural frame­work. This fundrais­ing cam­paign is part of a much broader fund­ing strat­egy being devel­oped to ensure for the CCA the same ade­quate and sta­ble fund­ing it keeps demand­ing for the cul­tural sec­tor at large. You will hear more about this strat­egy as the weeks and months go by.

You can con­tribute by fill­ing a con­tri­bu­tion form and return­ing it to the CCA by fax or mail.

Please help us deliver on the pri­or­i­ties you have set for the CCA: every dol­lar counts!

On behalf of all, I thank you in advance for your sup­port in what promises to be inter­est­ing and chal­leng­ing times! Please cir­cu­late this to your mem­bers and to any­one inter­ested in defend­ing art, artists and cul­ture in this country!