Canadian content regulations

The loss of Pierre Juneau, father of Cana­dian con­tent reg­u­la­tions served as the pre­text for a good debate on the reg­u­la­tions in the National Post last month. Marni Soup­coff, Lorne Gunter and Matt Gur­ney of the National Post agreed in large part that gov­ern­ment gen­er­ally should not get involved in the arts. They then argue that the absence of quo­tas in the broad­cast and music indus­tries in the U.S. and the United King­dom is some­what healthy. They also claim that “Can­Con require­ments look most...

Alberta: business and culture, two preoccupations of the Redford conservative government

by Tom McFall, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Alberta Craft Coun­cil and CCA Board member The week­end of Feb­ru­ary 26 may prove to be a turn­ing point for Alberta’s cul­ture sec­tor. That week­end Alberta’s new Pre­mier Ali­son Red­ford and Cul­ture and Com­mu­nity Ser­vices Min­is­ter Heather Klim­chuk hosted almost 400 of Alberta’s cul­ture and busi­ness lead­ers at Red Deer Col­lege for an impor­tant dis­cus­sion about the future of cul­ture in Alberta. Cul­ture Forum 2012 gath­ered a cross-section of...

C-11 Legislative Committee on copyright: week one

CCA Bulletin 04/12

The first week of consultations on Bill C-11 saw the first 24 witnesses invited to present their views. The process is moving quickly and will continue at this pace as the government fast tracks the Bill.

The National Director’s Tour

Alain Pineau is back in the office after his cross-country tour. Along his route he vis­ited Vic­to­ria, Van­cou­ver, Saska­toon, Regina, Win­nipeg, Cal­gary, Edmon­ton, Fredric­ton, Saint John, Monc­ton, Char­lot­te­town, Québec, Hal­i­fax and St. John’s. Details on his trav­els and con­sul­ta­tions with CCA mem­bers and arts sup­port­ers are shared in his blog. The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts would like to thank its sup­port­ers who hosted and assisted in the orga­ni­za­tion of the...

The Impact of Digital Media on the Performing Arts

A new report enti­tled Beyond the Cur­tain: How Dig­i­tal Media is Reshap­ing The­atre was recently released by Ballinran Enter­tain­ment Ltd. in part­ner­ship with Dig­i­tal Wiz­ards Inc., Cana­dian Actors Equity Asso­ci­a­tion, and Strat­ford Shake­speare Fes­ti­val.  It con­tains a study of the chal­lenges fac­ing the per­form­ing arts in the sector’s attempt to embrace and achieve the right bal­ance with new media and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies. The research involved inter­views with lead­ing the­atre...

Europe and gender equality

Dur­ing a ple­nary ses­sion held in Brus­sels on Octo­ber 27, 2011, the Euro­pean sec­toral social dia­logue com­mit­tee for the audio-visual field for­mally adopted a frame­work of action on gen­der equal­ity, rep­re­sent­ing a suc­cess­ful out­come to two years of nego­ti­a­tion between social partners. The agree­ment aims to improve the sit­u­a­tion in the sec­tor in the fol­low­ing areas: - Gen­der rep­re­sen­ta­tion; – Gen­der role at work; – Wage equal­ity; – Decision-making equal­ity;...

Municipal Cultural Investment

Mon­tréal and Van­cou­ver Lead the Way in Cul­ture Funding On Jan­u­ary 10th, Hill Strate­gies Research released a study called Munic­i­pal Cul­tural Invest­ment in Five Large Cana­dian Cities. The study com­pares cities with the largest num­ber of cul­tural work­ers and artists in Canada – Van­cou­ver, Cal­gary, Toronto, Ottawa and Mon­tréal. This report writ­ten in part­ner­ship with the cul­tural staff of the five cities cov­ered, the Cre­ative City Net­work and the Cana­dian Urban Libraries Coun­cil aims to...

Update on Canada/EU negotiations: the culture angle

CCA Bul­letin 03/12 Feb­ru­ary 21, 2012 Just the facts Some encour­ag­ing news con­cern­ing the sta­tus of cul­ture in the on-going trade nego­ti­a­tions between Canada and the Euro­pean Union! The CCA learned dur­ing the brief­ing ses­sion held by the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade (DFAIT) that: • It is more than likely that, with the sup­port of some Euro­pean coun­tries, Canada will be able to include a direct ref­er­ence to the UNESCO Dec­la­ra­tion on Cul­tural Diver­sity at...

Copyright reform: the government fast-tracks the process

CCA Bul­letin 02/12 Feb­ru­ary 15, 2012 Just the facts Bill C-11, known as the Copy­right Mod­ern­iza­tion Act,  was adopted at sec­ond read­ing yes­ter­day after the gov­ern­ment imposed a limit to the debate last week. All oppo­si­tion par­ties voted against, but the bill was adopted thanks to the gov­ern­ment major­ity. Barely hours after the vote, the spe­cial Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee met to estab­lish its work plan and once again, the gov­ern­ment major­ity could over­come oppo­si­tion par­ties’...

What to expect with the return of the House in Ottawa?

CCA Bulletin 01/12 January 27, 2012 highlights federal legislation on the horizon: Bill C-11, new CRA guidelines for arts organizations and potential changes at the CRTC.