FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: CCA’S NEW YEAR BEGINS WITH FURTHER FEDERAL ELECTION ADVOCACY

CCA Bul­letin 1/06

Jan­u­ary 3, 2006

After a short break for the hol­i­day sea­son, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) greets the begin­ning of 2006 in full “elec­tions advo­cacy mode”.  We will con­tinue our efforts to put arts and cul­ture issues on the agenda dur­ing the cur­rent cam­paign and I invite all mem­bers, stake­hold­ers, and the pub­lic to visit the grow­ing sec­tion of our web­site www.ccarts.ca/en/2005ElectionNews1.htm ded­i­cated to CCA’s 2006 fed­eral elec­tion advocacy.

This bul­letin will high­light the grow­ing list of arts and cul­ture cam­paigns ini­ti­ated by CCA mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions dur­ing the cur­rent fed­eral elec­tion cam­paign.  Should you or your orga­ni­za­tion know of any cur­rent advo­cacy efforts not men­tioned in this bul­letin or on our web­site, includ­ing (but not lim­ited to): ques­tion­naires sent to and responses received from the polit­i­cal par­ties; all-candidates debates that dis­cussed arts and cul­ture issues; and per­ti­nent state­ments by can­di­dates and/or party lead­ers, please keep us informed so that we can echo them (info@ccarts.ca).

ARTS AND CULTURE CAMPAIGNS ACTIVE IN THE 2006 FEDERAL ELECTION (in alpha­bet­i­cal order)

ACTRA — “Cana­dian Cul­ture: We Are Los­ing the Signal!“www.actra.ca/actra/images/05December/ELECTPSTCRD.pdfACTRA’s use­ful post­card can help to illu­mi­nate where polit­i­cal can­di­dates stand on three key cul­tural issues.  ACTRA’s ques­tions are:

1. Will your party issue an order to the CRTC to impose both con­tent and spend­ing require­ments on pri­vate broadcasters?

2. Will your party com­mit to increased, sta­ble sup­port for the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund, Tele­film andthe CBC?

3. Will your party keep the cur­rent lim­its to for­eign own­er­ship of our air­waves to ensure that Cana­di­ans con­trol our broad­cast­ing industry?

ACTRA con­tin­ues to work in sol­i­dar­ity with the United Steel­work­ers and pre­sented the following“election plat­form pitch” on Par­lia­ment Hill on 24 Novem­ber 2005.www.actra.ca/actra/images/05November/ACTRAUSWLobbyPitch.pdf

Cana­dian Arts Coali­tion — “Vote Arts 2006“www.votearts2006.ca

“Vote Arts 2006” is an ini­tia­tive of the Cana­dian Arts Coali­tion (CAC); the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) remains an active mem­ber of the CAC’s Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and many CCA mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions have for­mally endorsed its campaign.

The CAC rep­re­sents a broad range of arts orga­ni­za­tions who con­tinue to advo­cate for a sig­nif­i­cant increase in fed­eral fund­ing for the arts through the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts.  On 23 November2005 the Gov­ern­ment of Canada announced it would meet the CAC’s request when it com­mit­ted $306million in new money to the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts over 2006–2009.  “Vote Arts 2006” pro­vides use­ful infor­ma­tion and tools to help to ensure that that this new fund­ing, now com­mit­ted on paper,will become a real­ity once a new gov­ern­ment is elected.

Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion – “Elec­tion Tool Kit 2006”www.museums.ca/Cma1/WhatsNew/ADVOCACY/electiontoolkit.htm

A new Cana­dian muse­ums pol­icy was very close to final approval when the fed­eral elec­tion was called.  The Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion (CMA) is ask­ing its mem­bers and sup­port­ers to, “Make sure muse­ums are on the agenda in your region dur­ing the elec­tion, and that, if elected, can­di­dates are com­mit­ted to intro­duc­ing a new muse­ums pol­icy.”  Their web­site pro­vides a list of key actions to take to help achieve their advo­cacy goal.  On 21 Decem­ber 2005 the CMA posted state­ments from all five major polit­i­cal par­ties in response to the fol­low­ing three questions:

1) Does your party sup­port the devel­op­ment of a new Cana­dian Muse­ums pol­icy to replace the cur­rent pol­icy that dates back to the 1970s?

2) Does your party sup­port the CMA’s four prin­ci­pal objec­tives for a new policy?

3) Does your party sup­port the invest­ment of $75 mil­lion per year, as rec­om­mended by the CMA, in sus­tained, multi-year, pre­dictable pro­grams, to meet these pol­icy goals?

Direc­tors Guild of Canada – “Elec­tion 2006 Action Alert”www.dgc.ca/PHPUploads/election%20mailing%202005–12-01.pdf

The Direc­tors Guild of Canada (DGC) is urg­ing its mem­bers to, “Help make sure this fed­eral elec­tion cam­paign leads to a stronger Cana­dian film and tele­vi­sion indus­try.”  Their web­site pro­vides a one page back­grounder of sta­tis­tics to, “Help ensure that your local can­di­dates and their par­ties sup­port poli­cies to strengthen our indus­try – let them know how impor­tant film and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion is for our national cul­ture and our econ­omy.”  The DGC is ask­ing can­di­dates the fol­low­ing three questions:

1) Will you and your party com­mit to increased, sta­ble fund­ing for Cana­dian film and tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion? Will you and your party com­mit to pro­tect­ing and enhanc­ing the fed­eral film pro­duc­tion tax credits?

2) Will you and your party com­mit to order the CRTC to revise its 1999 Tele­vi­sion Pol­icy and bring back broad­cast­ers’ expen­di­ture requirements?

3) Will you and your party com­mit to keep­ing the cur­rent restric­tions on for­eign own­er­ship in Cana­dian broadcasting?

Friends of Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing –“Cam­paign for Canada“http://friends.ca/About_Us/subscribe_short.aspx

Friends of Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing is an inde­pen­dent, Canada-wide, non-partisan vol­un­tary orga­ni­za­tion sup­ported by 66,000 house­holds. Its mis­sion is to defend and enhance the qual­ity and quan­tity of Cana­dian pro­gram­ming in the Cana­dian audio-visual sys­tem.  Dur­ing the 2006 elec­tion cam­paign, FRIENDS invites peo­ple to sign up to its “Cam­paign for Canada” in order to:Receive timely updates on FRIENDS’ elec­tion activ­i­ties Hear about oppor­tu­ni­ties to take action dur­ing the cam­paign Take part in riding-specific elec­tion ini­tia­tives Learn about crit­i­cal devel­op­ments the moment they sur­face Join with other Cana­di­ans to let can­di­dates in your rid­ing know that broad­cast­ing mat­ters to you Friends of Cana­dian Broadcasting’s first in a series of internet-based actions focuses on the issue of strength­en­ing the CBC’s grass­roots and infor­ma­tion and can be found at www.friends.ca/strengthencbc-grassroots , CCA bul­letins will cir­cu­late news of future FRIENDS elec­tion advo­cacy cam­paigns as they are unveiled through­out the month of January.

The Writ­ers’ Union of Canada — “Ask Questions“www.writersunion.ca/indexpagenotice1.htm

The Writ­ers Union of Canada (TWUC) has sent the fol­low­ing ques­tions to all of the polit­i­cal par­ties and is encour­ag­ing its mem­bers to use them “to con­tinue to inform can­di­dates of the impor­tance of arts and cul­ture to Cana­di­ans.”  At the moment, only the Bloc Que­be­cois has responded to TWUC’s ques­tion­naire, which is as follows:

1) Do you sup­port the cur­rent ini­tia­tive to bring the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts’ bud­get back up to mean­ing­ful lev­els after decades of cutbacks?

2) Are you com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that Canada meets its oblig­a­tions to rat­ify the World Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Orga­ni­za­tion (WIPO) treaties by bring­ing our laws into con­for­mity with our treaty com­mit­ments? Will you sup­port the rights of authors to be com­pen­sated for the use of their work?

3) Would you intro­duce tar­geted income aver­ag­ing to alle­vi­ate the unfair tax bur­den paid by cre­ators? Would you intro­duce a copy­right income deduc­tion for cre­ators, mod­eled on that used in the province of Que­bec? Would you exempt from tax­a­tion sub­sis­tence grants for cre­ators admin­is­tered by the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts?

4) Would you extend employ­ment insur­ance ben­e­fits to self-employed cre­ators, and to cre­ators who work in paid employ­ment to sup­ple­ment their self-employment, and make them eli­gi­ble for EI?

5) Do you sup­port Bill C-74 — intro­duced in the last leg­isla­tive ses­sion, which — would require Inter­net ser­vice providers to pro­vide police with infor­ma­tion on their cus­tomers, such as e-mailaddresses, tele­phone num­bers, and IP addresses with­out a war­rant?  Such leg­is­la­tion would hin­der a writer’s con­fi­dence in con­tact­ing con­tro­ver­sial indi­vid­u­als or research­ing con­tro­ver­sial topics.

6) Would you pro­tect and pro­mote Cana­dian writ­ing in Cana­dian bookstores?

7) Would you restore Cana­di­ans’ free­dom of expres­sion by repeal­ing the recent revi­sions to the crim­i­nal code (in Bill C-2) which exces­sively broad­ened the def­i­n­i­tion of child pornog­ra­phy and removed the artis­tic merit defence that had been inter­preted by the Supreme Court of Canada?

CORRECTION: QUESTION 4C IN CCA BULLETIN 53/05

The CCA regrets that the most cru­cial part of our word­ing on the issue of Cana­dian own­er­ship of our cul­tural indus­tries was miss­ing from Ques­tion 4C cir­cu­lated in CCA Bul­letin 53/05.  The cor­rect Ques­tion 4C, which has been updated on our web­site and will be included in all future CCA election-related com­mu­ni­ca­tions, should have read:  “Given that Canada recently rat­i­fied the UNESCO Con­ven­tion on the Diver­sity of Cul­tural Expres­sions, will your party develop poli­cies to pro­tect Cana­dian own­er­ship of and encour­age more invest­ment in our cul­tural indus­tries by Cana­di­ans? What would those be?”CCA asks you to ensure that you are using the cor­rect Ques­tion 4C when speak­ing to can­di­dates in your ridings.

STILL TO COME FROM THE CCA IN THE FOLLOWING DAYS AND WEEKS

-  A “Flash­back / Flash-forward?” follow-up bul­letin to CCA’s 49/05 bul­letin “Real­ity Check:Where Busi­ness Left Off in the House of Com­mons”.  This bul­letin will pro­file what posi­tions par­ties took on arts and cul­ture issues dur­ing the May/June 2004 fed­eral elec­tion cam­paign, and what progress (if any) was made dur­ing the past Par­lia­ment.  What issues remain un-resolved and may return after Jan­u­ary 23rd?

- The CCA will pro­vide infor­ma­tion on all polit­i­cal par­ties’ plat­forms per­tain­ing to arts and cul­ture issues.  To date, the Bloc Que­be­cois is the only party to have offi­cially unveiled its full elec­tion plat­form, but a series of post-holiday announce­ments is expected as the remain­ing par­ties maneu­ver to make all of their poli­cies known to the vot­ing public.

- The CCA will pro­vide one-page back­grounders of “facts and fig­ures” to help make the case for each of our five over­ar­ch­ing pri­or­ity issues.  In turn, we will pre­pare a “doorstep kit” of key ques­tions that you can raise about arts and cul­ture when can­di­dates come knock­ing at your door,looking for your vote.- Once again, don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us (info@ccarts.ca) to ask ques­tions, make com­ments or inform us of any other activ­ity you may be aware of con­cern­ing the arts and the cur­rent fed­eral elec­tion campaign!