The CCA Releases its Analysis of the 2006 Federal Budget — How would culture fare under a majority Conservative government?

Ottawa, ON (August 3, 2006) — The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has released its annual in-depth Annual Fed­eral Bud­get Analy­sis. The doc­u­ment exam­ines fed­eral fund­ing to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage (DCH), cul­tural agen­cies and crown cor­po­ra­tions in Cana­dian Heritage’s port­fo­lio and other note­wor­thy devel­op­ments. It also addresses other fis­cal poli­cies that were included in the 2006 fed­eral budget.

The CCA observes that while over­all cul­tural fund­ing lev­els rise mod­estly in Bud­get 2006, there is grow­ing con­cern this may be a period of prover­bial calm before the storm and it asks the ques­tion: How would cul­ture fare under a major­ity Con­ser­v­a­tive government?

The old­est and largest coali­tion advo­cat­ing for arts and cul­ture in Canada points to a num­ber of rea­sons for the grow­ing con­cerns about the Harper government’s inten­tions con­cern­ing arts and cul­ture. First, the CCA notes that of the new government’s top pri­or­i­ties, none tar­gets the cul­tural sec­tor. Instead, the government’s com­mon refrain is that key cul­tural pro­grams and insti­tu­tions are “under review” and will be sub­ject to con­sul­ta­tion with Canadians.

Sec­ond, the CCA points at the fact that of the five decision-making com­mit­tees put in place by Prime Min­is­ter Harper, Her­itage Min­is­ter Bev Oda has only been appointed to the Social Affairs Com­mit­tee, which lim­its sub­stan­tially her capac­ity to press for a cul­tural lens to be applied to pol­icy in sec­tors beyond social affairs — notably those related to eco­nomic growth, infra­struc­ture, inter­na­tional trade nego­ti­a­tions and for­eign affairs.

Fur­ther­more, expen­di­ture com­mit­ments made under the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment are not hon­oured by the cur­rent gov­ern­ment, as demon­strated by the deci­sion to sig­nif­i­cantly scale back the fund­ing increases to the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts.

Last, the CCA points to numer­ous state­ments by Min­is­ters and Con­ser­v­a­tive MPs empha­siz­ing free­dom of choice, reliance on the pri­vate sec­tor and con­sumer choice in cul­tural pol­icy. Could this be set­ting the stage for a sig­nif­i­cant with­drawal, reori­en­ta­tion of pro­gram­ming or reduc­tion in fed­eral fund­ing to the cul­tural sec­tor? Are we head­ing towards a model where the fed­eral gov­ern­ment may facil­i­tate dona­tions and sup­port to arts and cul­ture, but con­sid­ers this fund­ing respon­si­bil­ity to rest essen­tially with the pri­vate sec­tor and with individuals?

The CCA 2006 Bud­get Analy­sis pro­vides insights regard­ing the “big pic­ture” of fed­eral fund­ing lev­els to arts, cul­ture, and her­itage, i.e. Where is the money going? How will the expen­di­ture review affect the sec­tor? How are indi­vid­ual pro­grams work­ing? The doc­u­ment also offers a detailed exam­i­na­tion of cru­cial fund­ing issues, trends, chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties on a sub-sectoral basis, with ref­er­ence to spe­cific programs.

Orga­ni­za­tions or indi­vid­u­als inter­ested in acquir­ing the full text of the doc­u­ment can do so by com­plet­ing the pub­li­ca­tions order form located on CCA’s web­site (www.ccarts.ca).

Sixty years strong, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts is the national forum for the arts and cul­tural com­mu­nity in Canada . Rep­re­sent­ing over 250 thou­sand indi­vid­u­als, the CCA serves as a leader, author­ity, and cat­a­lyst to ensure that artists and cul­tural insti­tu­tions and indus­tries can con­tribute freely and fully to a cre­ative, dynamic, and civil Cana­dian society.