FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: A bit of this, a bit of that…

CCA Bul­letin 05/07

Ottawa, Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 16, 2007

CCA 2007 Awards Reminder: Call for Nom­i­na­tions

Cuts to Pub­lic Diplo­macy Pro­gram: a clarification

A last minute Online Pre-Budget 2007!

Elec­tion readi­ness: CCA writes to the 5 Major Fed­eral Polit­i­cal Parties

As awards sea­son heats up in Canada, with the Junos and the Jutras fast approach­ing, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) would like to remind mem­bers to give seri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion to pre­sent­ing nom­i­nees for CCA’s own National Arts Awards: the Diplôme d’honneur, and the Keith Kelly Award for Cul­tural Lead­er­ship.

Nom­i­na­tion forms are avail­able in the Awards sec­tion of the CCA web­site or by con­tact­ing Alessia Bon­gio­vanni at the CCA (alessia.bongiovanni@ccarts.ca, 613–238-3561  ext. 20).

Nom­i­na­tions must be received by the CCA no later than April 30, 2007.

DFAIT Pub­lic Diplo­macy Cuts Clar­i­fi­ca­tion & CCA Let­ter to Peter MacKay

It has come to the atten­tion of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) that an online peti­tion is cir­cu­lat­ing call­ing for the restora­tion of the monies cut from at the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade (DFAIT) pub­lic diplo­macy pro­gram sup­port­ing arts and cul­ture, which was announced as part of the Government’s real­lo­ca­tion exer­cise of Sep­tem­ber 25 2006.

Many CCA mem­bers have com­mu­ni­cated their pro­found con­cerns with the reduc­tion of the pub­lic diplo­macy pro­gram at DFAIT, and have done so more fer­vently since an op-ed by Mar­garet Atwood was pub­lished in the Globe and Mail on Feb­ru­ary 3.
The CCA agrees whole­heart­edly with the spirit of the ini­tia­tive as there is always room in Canada for more vocal advo­cates for our arts and cul­ture!  How­ever, it is impor­tant to know that the petition’s claim that “the $11.9 mil­lion cut over two years rep­re­sents a 100% with­drawal of the Pub­lic Diplo­macy bud­get (at DFAIT)” is not entirely accu­rate.  Yes, $11.9 mil­lion will be removed over the next 2 fis­cal years; how­ever, this was dis­cre­tionary fund­ing above the base bud­get, which has always been and still is rec­og­nized as insufficient.

In a let­ter dated Octo­ber 5 2006, the CCA requested an urgent meet­ing with the Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs to dis­cuss this issue of the real­lo­ca­tion cuts, but also the broader press­ing issue of how arts and cul­ture must be a key com­po­nent of Canada’s emerg­ing inter­na­tional policy.

In a more recent Feb­ru­ary 8 2007 let­ter we have renewed our offer of assis­tance in address­ing this sit­u­a­tion in a con­struc­tive and timely man­ner and strongly encour­aged the Gov­ern­ment to make a prompt, clear pro­nounce­ment regard­ing its sup­port for the arts and cul­ture as part of its inter­na­tional rela­tions pol­icy.  The CCA will con­tinue to watch this sit­u­a­tion closely and will keep mem­bers and sup­port­ers informed of any fur­ther devel­op­ments, as regret­tably a meet­ing with the Hon. Peter MacKay has yet to materialize.

Another Online Pre-Budget Con­sul­ta­tion on the Fed­eral Bud­get 2007!

On Feb­ru­ary 7 2007 the Min­is­ter of Finance, the Hon. James Fla­herty, announced online con­sul­ta­tions for Fed­eral Bud­get 2007.

This is some­what pecu­liar given that the dead­line for sub­mis­sions, which must be no longer than 50 words each per topic and are orga­nized under five lim­ited head­ings (spend­ing, per­sonal tax, cor­po­rate tax, debt and “other”), are due by mid­night EST on Feb­ru­ary 28.  This is mere weeks before the still-rumoured bud­get announce­ment on March 20 and, addi­tion­ally, the CCA has learned through dis­cus­sions with Par­lia­ment sources that the bud­get may in fact be writ­ten and at trans­la­tion already, mean­ing this online cam­paign will have little-to-no-impact on its con­tents, except maybe for last minute polit­i­cal adjust­ments as from all evi­dence last year was the one-time $50M increase to the Canada Council’s bud­get, spread over two years.

Nev­er­the­less CCA encour­ages mem­bers and sup­port­ers who wish to par­tic­i­pate in the online con­sul­ta­tion to do so.  A lot of the points from our Sep­tem­ber 5 2006 pre-budget brief “A Cre­ative New Way of Think­ing” became strong rec­om­men­da­tions endorsed in the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance’s pre-budget report, “Canada: Com­pet­ing to Win”.

The CCA also tweaked the frame­work for its pol­icy and advo­cacy pri­or­i­ties in order to par­tic­i­pate in the Government’s mid-December 2006 “Advan­tage Canada” online con­sul­ta­tions when we pre­pared our inter­ven­tion, enti­tled “How the Cana­dian Arts and Cul­ture Sec­tor is Essen­tial to a Strong Future Econ­omy”.  Both of CCA briefs should be of assis­tance to advo­cates for Cana­dian arts and cul­ture inter­ested in par­tic­i­pat­ing in this expe­dited process, as they are chock full of ideas worth act­ing on by any fed­eral Gov­ern­ment with a strong com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing culture.

Elec­tion Readi­ness: CCA writes to the 5 Major Fed­eral Polit­i­cal Parties

On Feb­ru­ary 9, 2007 the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) wrote to all five major fed­eral polit­i­cal par­ties. We declared our intent to play a cul­tural lead­er­ship role in any pos­si­ble upcom­ing fed­eral elec­tion by assist­ing the par­ties and their MP can­di­dates in engag­ing in an impor­tant pub­lic pol­icy dia­logue about issues vital to all Cana­di­ans and to artists, arts orga­ni­za­tions, and the Cana­dian cul­tural indus­tries more specifically.

Con­sis­tent with the CCA’s Fed­eral Elec­tion “Rules of Engage­ment” strat­egy approved by the Board of Gov­er­nors at a meet­ing in Mon­tréal on Octo­ber 20 2006, the CCA has offered all five fed­eral polit­i­cal par­ties the oppor­tu­nity to draw upon our con­sul­ta­tion exper­tise in the draft­ing of cul­tural poli­cies and plat­forms for the pur­poses of any future fed­eral elec­tion campaign.

As a national non-partisan and not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tion with a renewed mis­sion state­ment, the CCA is well-positioned to pro­vide an impar­tial overview of the cur­rent real­i­ties, chal­lenges, and oppor­tu­ni­ties fac­ing the arts and cul­ture sec­tor across Canada.

In the com­ing weeks and months, the CCA will be ready to share with its mem­bers and sup­port­ers the key issues in the arts and cul­ture sec­tor wor­thy of the atten­tion of all polit­i­cal par­ties dur­ing an elec­tion cam­paign and, per­haps more impor­tantly, once the cam­paign posters come down and Par­lia­ment returns to business.