CULTURE SNEAKS INTO THE LEADERS’ DEBATES

CCA BULLETIN / BULLETIN DE LA CCA

CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT POSES THREAT TO BROADCASTING INDUSTRY, TO FREE EXPRESSION

 

Ottawa, June 16 th , 2004 — The long-awaited lead­ers’ debates are now over, and the polit­i­cal endgame begins.  Although arts and cul­ture were not given a spe­cific ques­tion or time allot­ment in either the French or Eng­lish debate, they did man­age to sneak into the dis­cus­sions on a cou­ple of occasions.

Dur­ing the French debate on Mon­day, jour­nal­ist Patrice Roy asked a ques­tion regard­ing the fed­eral government’s role in sup­port­ing indus­try in the con­text of glob­al­iza­tion.  At the end of his ques­tion, fol­low­ing a list of var­i­ous indus­tries (tex­tiles, aero­nau­tics, etc), he added: “If you will allow me, here I would ask you specif­i­cally about the cul­tural indus­try in Canada; are you pre­pared to pro­vide it with the sup­port it cur­rently receives? “  CCA pro­vides the fol­low­ing ver­ba­tim account of the exchange that ensued (CCA translation):

Jack Lay­ton, NDP : “Sup­port — aid — for cul­tural indus­tries is indeed very, very impor­tant in order to have a strong, inter­est­ing culture.”

Paul Mar­tin, Lib­eral : “Regard­ing cul­tural indus­tries, my reply is an unequiv­o­cal, absolute yes.  Our exis­tence, our sov­er­eignty, it really amounts to the cul­tural sov­er­eignty of a coun­try, of our indus­tries.  We see it in Que­bec; we see it in Acadie , and in the rest of the coun­try.  We must sup­port those indus­tries which reflect our­selves, and our values.”

Stephen Harper, Con­ser­v­a­tive : “First of all, there are no cuts to cul­ture in our plat­form.  What I have promised is to give the Audi­tor Gen­eral the power to review all fund­ing, all such gov­ern­ment pro­grams.  Do these pro­grams serve the inter­ests of the gen­eral pub­lic, or just the inter­ests of those friends of the Lib­eral party?”

Mr. Lay­ton : “Mr Harper, why, you have said you would make huge cuts to RDI, to Radio-Canada, to the CBC.  Mr Mar­tin has already done so; we know his poli­cies on that sub­ject.  You would do the same thing.  Would there be a major broad­cast­ing indus­try in Canada after your work?”

Mr. Harper : “Let me out­line my poli­cies on this issue.  I would keep those ser­vices of CBC which are unique, includ­ing those for fran­coph­o­nes out­side Quebec.”

Mr. Lay­ton : “Such as ‘La Soiree du Hockey’?”

Mr. Harper : “For those pro­grams which are dupli­cates of com­mer­cial ones, we would end pub­lic support.”

On Tues­day evening, dur­ing a debate with Paul Mar­tin on the use of the notwith­stand­ing clause in the Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms, Stephen Harper referred to one spe­cific instance where he would sanc­tion its use: “Let me give you an exam­ple of where the notwith­stand­ing clause might be appro­pri­ate.  We have repeated deci­sions and acts of our gov­ern­ment on try­ing to declare child pornog­ra­phy artis­tic merit or pub­lic good, court deci­sions that limit our abil­ity to stop the dis­sem­i­na­tion of child pornog­ra­phy.  If I can’t do it through ordi­nary leg­is­la­tion, I will do that if I have to pro­tect the rights of chil­dren” .

CCA is dis­pleased with Mr. Harper’s com­ment and is con­cerned about his party’s plat­form and his incon­sis­tent pub­lic stance on the Char­ter rights guar­an­teed to all Cana­di­ans.  The Con­ser­v­a­tive Party clearly does not trust Canada’s courts to rule on the dif­fer­ence between artis­tic free­dom and pro­tect­ing minors from actual harm and is send­ing the mes­sage that artists, who make cre­ative works in good faith, can expect no legal pro­tec­tion from it.  Mr. Harper also dis­plays his igno­rance of the dif­fer­ence between works of the imag­i­na­tion and the real exploita­tion of chil­dren, even after his party sup­ported the abo­li­tion of the “pub­lic good” defence in Bill C-12 in the last ses­sion of Parliament.

On the issue of free­dom of expres­sion, Megan Davis Williams, CCA’s National Direc­tor, had the fol­low­ing let­ter to the Edi­tor printed in The Toronto Star on Tues­day, the 15 th of June:

Artists also need Char­ter protection

Stephen Harper and his Con­ser­v­a­tive party are run­ning on a plat­form where the only men­tion of art is in the con­text of remov­ing the artis­tic merit defence from the Crim­i­nal Code of Canada in cases where works of the imag­i­na­tion are alleged to be “child pornography”.

The legal defence of artis­tic merit, which has been upheld by Supreme Court deci­sions over many years, would con­tinue to pro­tect Cana­di­ans who make expres­sive works that do not fit the main­stream def­i­n­i­tions of art.

How do Harper and his party rec­on­cile amend­ing laws to pro­tect the free­doms of some Cana­di­ans (read, those who are affil­i­ated with reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions that might speak against the right of les­bians and gays to marry), with cur­tail­ing that same free­dom for Canada’s creators?

The Char­ter is meant to pro­tect all of us and can­not be with­held from a spe­cific group like artists.

As a foot­note, while Sec­tion 2 of Canada’s Char­ter of Right and Free­doms guar­an­tees all Cana­di­ans free­dom of expres­sion, the con­tro­ver­sial “notwith­stand­ing clause” in sec­tion 33 of the Char­ter can be used to sus­pend the Char­ter with respect to any par­tic­u­lar law.  Though never invoked by fed­eral gov­ern­ment, the “notwith­stand­ing clause” per­mits Par­lia­ment to pass leg­is­la­tion despite the fact that it vio­lates Char­ter rights or free­doms.  This Char­ter over­ride lasts a max­i­mum of five years, after which new leg­is­la­tion would have to be passed to con­tinue the Char­ter violation.