FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: The CCA enters summer on a high note

CCA  Bul­letin 23/11

June 27, 2011

Last week, on the very day of its 66th anniver­sary, the CCA held its June board meet­ing in Ottawa, lead­ing up to the first day of sum­mer. Out­go­ing and new incom­ing board mem­bers engaged in an extremely stim­u­lat­ing strate­gic con­ver­sa­tion on the future direc­tion of the CCA.  This was a larger group than usual, bring­ing many regions, dis­ci­plines and per­spec­tives to the con­ver­sa­tion. Among other top­ics, the board dis­cussed the role that advo­cacy plays within the mis­sion of the CCA, and how this role should be bal­anced with research activities.

The sec­ond day of the meet­ing took place at Library and Archives Canada where board mem­bers were joined by approx­i­mately 25 lead­ers of the CCA’s main orga­ni­za­tional mem­bers, who also sit on our National Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Pol­icy Pri­or­i­ties. The dis­cus­sion focused on the new polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment, pol­icy pri­or­i­ties for the next year and areas to con­duct research on the sec­tor. Var­i­ous research top­ics were pre­sented by the CCA as pos­si­ble themes to pur­sue, while other top­ics were pro­posed by com­mit­tee mem­bers. Some of these include:

• The devel­op­ment of inter­na­tional mar­kets (build­ing the “Canada Brand”);
• The impact of the con­ver­gence of tra­di­tional broad­cast and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions media on Cana­dian cul­ture;
• A crit­i­cal assess­ment of copy­right col­lec­tives: how they func­tion in Canada and abroad;
• An exam­i­na­tion of tax leg­is­la­tion across the country’s dif­fer­ent juris­dic­tions from an arts and cul­ture perspective;
• An assess­ment of the cul­tural sector’s sta­tus fol­low­ing the eco­nomic down­turn, includ­ing an exam­i­na­tion of the impact on the cul­tural sup­ply chain process.

Based on the dis­cus­sions, the CCA sec­re­tariat will build on the pro­posed top­ics dur­ing the sum­mer, and dia­logue will resume at the fall meet­ings of the Fran­coph­one and Anglo­phone sub­com­mit­tees on how to real­ize these research initiatives.

The pol­icy advi­sory meet­ing was imme­di­ately fol­lowed by the CCA’s Annual Gen­eral Meet­ing. Our Pres­i­dent, Kath­leen Sharpe, reported on how over the past year, we have con­sol­i­dated the CCA’s role as the national forum where issues of com­mon inter­est are iden­ti­fied and coor­di­nated, strate­gies can be devel­oped and scarce resources can be pooled for the com­mon good of the sec­tor. Kath­leen pointed out that the best illus­tra­tion of the CCA’s con­tri­bu­tion can be found in the excep­tional work of coor­di­na­tion and sup­port we have pro­vided to the com­plex and divi­sive issue of copy­right. Thanks to the CCA’s inclu­sive­ness and the breadth of its per­spec­tives, more than 95 national, provin­cial and munic­i­pal cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions ended up tak­ing a com­mon stance on the issue of mod­ern­iz­ing our copy­right law, which is one of the cor­ner­stones of any seri­ous dig­i­tal strat­egy. By act­ing as con­vener and as focal point, the CCA helped for­mu­late com­mon posi­tions that have res­onated not only in Canada, but also in Wash­ing­ton and in the Euro­pean community.

Another major ini­tia­tive was the cre­ation of the National Pol­icy Advi­sory Com­mit­tee and its two lin­guis­tic sub-committees, where rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all of our major orga­ni­za­tional mem­bers have an oppor­tu­nity to share infor­ma­tion and pro­vide advice on issues of com­mon inter­est. Through these sub-committees, we were able to develop a com­mon cul­tural elec­tion plat­form that was signed by over 55 orga­ni­za­tions.  The Pres­i­dent also sig­naled that the doc­u­ments we devel­oped for the fed­eral elec­tion were very well received and exten­sively used.

In Novem­ber 2010, we kicked off our first full-fledged national pol­icy con­fer­ence since 2006 with a very suc­cess­ful 65th anniver­sary Gala. The con­fer­ence, which was attended by over 150 del­e­gates from all over the coun­try, was focused on the theme of Artists: Pow­er­ing the Cre­ative Econ­omy?

All this con­struc­tive work has been accom­plished against a back­drop of finan­cial respon­si­bil­ity. Through tight man­age­ment of expenses, mod­est increases in rev­enue and prof­its made with the Novem­ber national pol­icy con­fer­ence, and despite a decrease in mem­ber­ship rev­enue linked to the after-effects of the 2009 eco­nomic cri­sis on arts orga­ni­za­tions, we have been able to erase the small bal­ance of our 2008 deficit, bring back the posi­tion of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Offi­cer, cre­ate the oper­at­ing reserve ordered by the Board in 2007 and end the year with cash in the bank!

On June 20, we also held our final Think­ing Cul­ture forum for the 2010–2011 sea­son titled Provin­cial Cul­tural Pol­icy: Then and Now. Co-hosted with our part­ners at the Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa’s Cen­tre for Con­tin­u­ing Edu­ca­tion, Cen­tre on Gov­er­nance and School of Polit­i­cal Stud­ies, this was our fifth ses­sion of this year’s series. Dr. Mon­ica Gat­tinger and Ms. Sharon Jean­notte joined us for the forum, where they pre­sented a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of cul­tural pol­icy evo­lu­tion in Ontario and Que­bec, and then a com­par­i­son between Saskatchewan and Man­i­toba. We are excited that Think­ing Cul­ture has been such a suc­cess this year, and look for­ward to our next sea­son begin­ning in the fall.

As we head into the sum­mer, you should expect to see our annual Fed­eral Bud­get Analy­sis pub­lished in the com­ing weeks. This will pro­vide an in-depth exam­i­na­tion of the 2011 fed­eral bud­get and the posi­tion­ing of the cul­tural sec­tor as it awaits the con­clu­sions of the government-wide Strate­gic and Oper­a­tional Review. Later in the sum­mer, the CCA will work with the arts and cul­ture com­mu­nity to sub­mit a cohe­sive pre-budget sub­mis­sion from the sector.

As we near the fall, the CCA will work with its part­ners to pre­pare for the tabling of new copy­right leg­is­la­tion. We believe that this bill will closely resem­ble Bill C-32, but we are hope­ful that the gov­ern­ment will be recep­tive to amendments.

This autumn, I will also travel across Canada to meet with our mem­bers, stake­hold­ers and those who are inter­ested in arts and cul­ture. I look for­ward to see­ing many of the indi­vid­u­als whom I have not had a chance to speak with since my 2008 tour. This is a chance to hear about the pri­or­i­ties of our sec­tor through­out the coun­try, and a chance to focus in on key mes­sag­ing the arts sec­tor can use as it coor­di­nates efforts in research, advo­cacy and audi­ence development.

To all of you, a nice sum­mer and rest­ful and well-deserved hol­i­days! And keep an eye out for our bul­letins as we keep work­ing for you through­out the summer.