2006 FEDERAL ELECTION IS DRAWING TO A CLOSE… AND THE CCA’S WORK HAS JUST BEGUN

CCA Bul­letin 5/06

Jan­u­ary 20, 2006

The last few days of Canada’s first win­ter elec­tion in many years has seen­po­lit­i­cal cam­paign­ers go into over­drive as they push towards the vote next Mon­day Jan­u­ary 23rd.The media are scram­bling to cover the bar­rage of last-minute repar­tee and rhetoric, while the coun­try is abuzz with the ques­tion: “What will Par­lia­ment look like on Tues­day Jan­u­ary 24th?”

When one con­sid­ers that the words “arts and cul­ture” never quite made it past the lips of the party lead­ers, from the sector’s point of view, the cam­paign has been an expected dis­ap­point­ment.  This is not sur­pris­ing, though unfor­tu­nate.  Let us find solace in Kim Campbell’s famous quote that elec­tions are not the time to dis­cuss seri­ous pol­icy mat­ters, and start focussing on what we will need to do to make cul­tural pol­icy a seri­ous mat­ter start­ing on Jan­u­ary 24!

But the elec­tion is not over yet, and as Canada’s largest arts advo­cacy orga­ni­za­tion, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) con­tin­ues to work to put arts and cul­ture issues on the agenda of the next gov­ern­ment.   The CCA con­tin­ues to pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive analy­sis on where exactly each of the five major par­ties stands on pri­or­ity issues of con­cern to our mem­bers, mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions and, indeed, all Cana­di­ans.  And, no mat­ter the out­come of Monday’s vote, the CCA will ori­ent the incom­ing gov­ern­ment as to how it can work for Canada’s artists, cre­ators, arts orga­ni­za­tions and cul­tural indus­tries, and for the pub­lic, which ben­e­fit from the valu­able work of our members.

Each of the five major polit­i­cal par­ties has released its offi­cial plat­form, which respec­tively ded­i­cated vary­ing degrees of page space to arts and cul­ture issues.  Please visit http://www.ccarts.ca/en/2005ElectionNews1/platformanalyses.htm for the CCA’s Com­par­i­son of Party Platforms.

Each of the five major polit­i­cal par­ties has finally responded to CCA’s Decem­ber 20 2005Questionnaire of 15 Ques­tions, with the lat­est com­ing from the Green Party just yes­ter­day.  Plea­se­visit http://www.ccarts.ca/en/2005ElectionNews1/partyresponse.htm for answers to CCA’squestions, which range from detailed and spe­cific responses, to vague and disconcerting.

Cer­tainly, one thing clear to the CCA regard­ing the cur­rent elec­tion is the pres­ence of “gaps” whenone com­pares offi­cial party plat­forms to ques­tion­naire responses and pub­lic state­ments.  Here are­some examples:

- All par­ties’ responses to CCA’s Dec 20 ques­tion­naire men­tion sup­port for the increase of the­bud­get of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts announced on Novem­ber 23 2005, with the excep­tion ofthe Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada.  Ms. Bev Oda, the CPC’s Her­itage critic in the last Parliament,certainly made an encour­ag­ing state­ment about her party’s sup­port for the Canada Coun­cil increa­sein a Radio-Canada inter­view last week.  While the CCA is pleased with Ms. Oda’s state­ment, wecan­not con­firm if it does in fact reflect the CPC’s offi­cial posi­tion on this issue, as CCA’s inquiries tothe party’s elec­tion office remain unanswered.

- Unfor­tu­nately, none of the major polit­i­cal par­ties’ offi­cial plat­forms includes a com­mit­ment to amuch-needed new muse­ums pol­icy and increased fund­ing, though cer­tainly some par­ties’ responsesto the CCA, as well as our col­leagues at the Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion, indi­cate sup­port for­this impor­tant initiative.

- Only the Lib­eral party plat­form speaks about copy­right reform, though the NDP and the Bloc’sanswers to our sur­vey do address this issue.

- Regret­tably, few par­ties have men­tioned sup­port for the Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Corporation.(See:  http://www.broadcastermagazine.com/issues/ISArticle.asp?id=51635&issue=01172006)

- And last, both the Lib­eral and Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ties have announced promises that could­po­ten­tially ben­e­fit the arts and cul­tural sec­tor if imple­mented, but have cho­sen to not include itin the arts and cul­ture sec­tion of their offi­cial plat­forms.  For exam­ples of this, see:http://www.liberal.ca/news_e.aspx?id=11396, orhttp://www.conservative.ca/EN/1738/38178.

Be sure to vote next Mon­day and sup­port the party that you feel will best “walk the talk” oncul­tural issues in the next Par­lia­ment. www.elections.ca

There’s still time to cam­paign for cul­ture — email your elec­tion can­di­date today!

CharityVillage.com is using soft­ware from AdvocacyOnline.net to help you con­nect with­can­di­dates in rid­ings across the country.

Just go to their web­site: action-charityvillage.com and fol­low their sim­ple instruc­tions. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3:

1.      Enter your name, e-mail address and postal code to locate can­di­dates in your riding.

2.      Select the candidate(s) that you’d like to contact.

3.      Com­pose your let­ter and click the but­ton to send your message.

Let­ter to Candidates

We invite all CCA mem­bers and sup­port­ers to use the fol­low­ing let­ter as a tem­plate when yousend a mes­sage to your local can­di­dates.  Read and print the let­ter here:http://ccarts.ca/en/documents/CCAletterfinal_000.docDoorstep KitIn addi­tion, the CCA has drafted a “Doorstep Kit” that high­lights 5 ques­tions to ask local­can­di­dates, includ­ing a list of what you can do to put cul­ture on the polit­i­cal agenda of the nextParliament.

Read more here: http://www.ccarts.ca/en/documents/CCAdoorkit-final.pdf

Visit www.ccarts.ca for addi­tional elec­tion cov­er­age from the CCA!