The National Film Board

One of the 2012–13 Budget’s main dis­ap­point­ments for the cul­tural sec­tor were the cuts imposed on the audio­vi­sual sec­tor. “Effi­cien­cies” or not, the reper­cus­sions from the cuts to CBC, Tele­film and the National Film Board will have impor­tant con­se­quences for the pro­duc­tion food chain of this impor­tant sec­tor of cul­tural expression. Let’s look at the case of the National Film Board which will lose 10% of its bud­get ($6.7 mil­lion) on top of hav­ing to absorb infla­tion on goods,...

CBC: The Cuts Expected by All

If the fed­eral bud­get con­tained some sur­prises, the cuts to the CBC weren’t one of them. It has been a num­ber of months that we have been expect­ing these cuts to the crown cor­po­ra­tion. Min­is­ter James Moore has con­tin­ued to reaf­firm that the CBC needs to make cuts between 5–10% like all the other agen­cies. You didn’t need to be psy­chic to pre­dict the cuts of approx­i­mately $115 mil­lion. You also have to add to this the oblig­a­tion to absorb the increased costs of doing busi­ness, just like at the...

National Museums Saved

In the her­itage sec­tor, muse­ums were cer­tainly priv­i­leged by Min­is­ter Flaherty’s budget. Not only did we see the bud­get for national muse­ums renewed with­out any cuts, but the gov­ern­ment has reserved a beau­ti­ful trib­ute to all Cana­dian museums. “Cana­di­ans are proud of their muse­ums. Taken together, national and local muse­ums in com­mu­ni­ties all across Canada are some of the best in the world.” The gov­ern­ment responded to the major­ity of the expec­ta­tions of the national...

Canada Council for the Arts

The great news for the cul­tural sec­tor in the new fed­eral bud­get is def­i­nitely that the Canada Council’s bud­get was kept intact at $181 mil­lion. The news was met with delight by the cul­tural sec­tor. We had pre­pared for sig­nif­i­cant cuts in all sec­tors and the cul­tural milieu was on the alert, despite reas­sur­ances from the Her­itage Min­is­ter. We would like to point out that Canada Council’s bud­get accounts for 0.08% of the total fed­eral bud­get. [1] Despite hav­ing their bud­get main­tained,...

Art + Law Conference

Those of you who fol­low us on Twit­ter and/or Face­book may have already heard of the upcom­ing Art + Law con­fer­ence orga­nized by CARFAC National that will be held in Ottawa from June 8–10. From read­ing our bul­letins and Mag­a­zine, you would also know that we have been par­tic­u­larly active on the copy­right file dur­ing the last few years in Canada and inter­na­tion­ally, avidly watch­ing, report­ing and analysing the devel­op­ments of C-11. It seemed nat­ural then that we would part­ner with CARFAC and...

The Federal Budget 2012–13 and Culture

CCA Bulletin 06/12

Budget day has finally arrived. The verdict has been handed down. Much of the economic news was eclipsed by the abolition of the penny. However there was good news and bad news. Read on to find out how the new budget will affect the arts, culture and heritage.

The Economic Spring for Culture

CCA Bulletin 05/12

There is summer, the harvest season, the cold season and the season of budgets. Over the last two weeks we have read four provincial budgets and tomorrow will be the federal budget. This bulletin is to do a quick recap of the place of culture and arts of the most recent provincial budgets presented in spring 2012, those in Quebec, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick.

March 27th is World Theatre Day

This year John Malkovich is the mes­sage author of the 50th World The­atre Day. Mes­sage of the 50th anniver­sary of World The­atre Day “I’m hon­ored to have been asked by the Inter­na­tional The­atre Insti­tute ITI at UNESCO to give this greet­ing com­mem­o­rat­ing the 50th anniver­sary of World The­atre Day. I will address my brief remarks to my fel­low the­atre work­ers, peers and comrades. May your work be com­pelling and orig­i­nal. May it be pro­found, touch­ing, con­tem­pla­tive, and unique. May...

Study on Employment Standards and Human Resource Management Tools

On March 7, 2012, the Inde­pen­dent Media Arts Alliance (IMAA) pub­lished a report on employ­ment stan­dards and human resources in artist-run media arts orga­ni­za­tions. It appears that base salaries in these cen­ters are lower than those in other not-for-profit sectors. The study has found that: Employ­ees are young and highly skilled Two thirds of employ­ees are required to work over­time, up to 10 to 20 hours; Spend­ing on ben­e­fits is low; Employee turnover is high, with over 40% of all employ­ees in their...

WIPO Treaty on performances in the audiovisual sector

Actors and actresses are now demand­ing that their rights be enshrined in a Treaty. After the dis­ap­point­ment of the failed Diplo­matic Sum­mit of the World Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Orga­ni­za­tion (WIPO) in 2000, Bei­jing will be the host of the next Sum­mit in June, which will most prob­a­bly adopt the new Treaty. Actors from around the world are say­ing :...