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Bulletin

Harmonized Sales Tax: What does it mean for the arts?

CCA Bul­letin 14/10   May 25, 2010   Just the Facts In Decem­ber 2009, the Ontario leg­is­la­ture and the House of Com­mons and Sen­ate enacted leg­is­la­tion for a har­mo­nized sales tax (HST) to be imple­mented on July 1, 2010. Bill C-62 received Royal Assent in the House of Com­mons on Decem­ber 15, 2009 and laid out the Provin­cial Choice Tax Frame­work Act. This leg­is­la­tion replaces Ontario’s retail sales tax (RST) with the HST. The HST will have a com­bined sales tax rate of 13% (com­bin­ing...

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Towards a Canadian national digital strategy?

CCA Bul­letin 13/10   May 13, 2010     Just the facts This week, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment launched a nation-wide con­sul­ta­tion on the devel­op­ment of a national dig­i­tal strat­egy. The announce­ment was made jointly by Min­is­ters Clement (Indus­try), Moore (Her­itage) and Fin­ley (Human Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment) at the Canada 3.0 Con­fer­ence on dig­i­tal media. Min­is­ter Moore said, “Our gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that cre­ators, inven­tors and...

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CCA to CRTC: Put Communities Back in Community Television and: The Canada Prizes for the Arts and Creativity Resurface

CCA Bul­letin 12/10 May 4, 2010 Just the Facts – CRTC hear­ing on Com­mu­nity Television The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) appeared in front of the CRTC today to present its views on the pol­icy frame­work for com­mu­nity tele­vi­sion. The cur­rent hearing’s pur­pose is to deter­mine clearly how the objec­tives embed­ded in the con­cept of com­mu­nity tele­vi­sion in the Broad­cast­ing Act can be best achieved within the con­ver­gent envi­ron­ment of com­mu­ni­ca­tions and...

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Telecoms: Is Canada Selling its Cultural Sovereignty Through the Back Door?

CCA Bul­letin 11/10 April 6, 2010       Why this issue mat­ters For the past sev­eral decades, the oper­at­ing prin­ci­ple in Cana­dian cul­tural pol­icy has been that Cana­dian own­er­ship and effec­tive con­trol of our cul­tural indus­tries will ensure more Cana­dian con­tent is made avail­able to Cana­di­ans. This is the case because it is eas­ier to reg­u­late Cana­dian owned com­pa­nies than for­eign owned ones. More­over, Cana­di­ans are more likely than non-Canadians to tell our own...

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Is the CRTC “dreaming in Technicolor”?

  CCA Bul­letin 10/10 March 26, 2010 Why this issue should mat­ter to all of us Irre­spec­tive of dis­tri­b­u­tion plat­forms, broad­cast­ing is a dom­i­nant form of cul­tural media. It pro­vides cre­ative employ­ment to the largest num­ber in the cul­tural sec­tor and because the Broad­cast­ing Act (1991) con­tains the most com­plete expres­sion of cul­tural pol­icy ever adopted by Par­lia­ment and pro­vides an impor­tant ref­er­ence point for cul­tural policy. The CCA has par­tic­i­pated...

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Canada/EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement : What are the cultural implications?

CCA Bul­letin 9/10 March 22, 2010   Just the facts In May 2009, Canada and the Euro­pean Union (EU) announced the launch of nego­ti­a­tions for a com­pre­hen­sive eco­nomic and trade agree­ment (CETA).  After sev­eral nego­ti­at­ing ses­sions, the par­ties are on track to con­clude the agree­ment this year, although there are some con­tro­ver­sial top­ics remaining. The Cana­dian gov­ern­ment has released no infor­ma­tion about CETA.  From var­i­ous Euro­pean sources, we know that the scope of...

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Copyright: Opposition Parties First on the Ice!

CCA Bul­letin 8/10 March 18, 2010 Just the facts In both the Throne Speeches of Novem­ber 20, 2008 and of March 3, 2010, the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment promised to pro­ceed with leg­is­la­tion to mod­ern­ize Canada’s copy­right laws and ensure stronger pro­tec­tion for intel­lec­tual prop­erty. To avoid the sharp crit­i­cisms which had accom­pa­nied the tabling of Bill C-61in June 2008, the Min­is­ters of Her­itage and Indus­try car­ried out exten­sive con­sul­ta­tions across the coun­try...

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2010 Federal Budget: The Action Plan Winding Down, but Administrative Reform Ramping Up

CCA Bul­letin 7/10 March 4, 2010   Exec­u­tive Summary The 2010 Bud­get includes sta­ble fund­ing to arts and cul­ture with no cuts, but also yields no new invest­ments into the cre­ative econ­omy. The CCA sees no invest­ment towards cul­tural infra­struc­ture, or funds for pro­mo­tion abroad and audi­ence devel­op­ment. It is encour­ag­ing that char­i­ties are given more flex­i­ble means to con­duct busi­ness, and research grant­ing asso­ci­a­tions will have an increased abil­ity to fund higher...

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Speech from the Throne: A Stronger Canada. A Stronger Economy. How it Affects Arts & Culture

CCA Bul­letin 6/10 March 3, 2010   Just the Facts After a two month long pro­ro­ga­tion the Gov­er­nor Gen­eral of Canada, the Rt. Hon. Michaëlle Jean, deliv­ered the Speech from the Throne, open­ing the third ses­sion of Canada’s 40th Par­lia­ment. For a sec­ond time in as many Speeches, the gov­ern­ment focused on Canada’s econ­omy. How­ever, this time, the gov­ern­ment moved away from lay­ing out stim­u­lus plans, and moved towards address­ing deficit reduc­tion, while pro­mot­ing the achieve­ments...

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Is a Change in Foreign Ownership Rules for Cultural Industries on the Horizon?

CCA Bul­letin 5/10 Feb­ru­ary 9, 2010   Just the facts On 10 Decem­ber 2009, the fed­eral Cab­i­net over­turned a CRTC deci­sion find­ing that Glob­alive Wire­less Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion was inel­i­gi­ble to oper­ate a wire­less tele­phone ser­vice in Canada because it is con­trolled by a for­eign com­pany, Oras­com.  Within days, Wind Mobile, Globalive’s sub­sidiary, began to offer mobile phone ser­vices in Toronto and Calgary. This is an extremely impor­tant deci­sion which...

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