Funding Arts and Culture under Canada’s 39th Parliament

CCA Bul­letin 39/08

Sep­tem­ber 22, 2008

This doc­u­ment looks at the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage’s bud­gets from 2005/06 to 2008/09. It is based on the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts’ Fed­eral Bud­get Annual Analy­ses for those years. By lin­ing up side by side the fund­ing allo­cated over that period to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage, its agen­cies and pro­grams, this analy­sis points to trends in spend­ing dur­ing Canada’s 39th Parliament.

The Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage: Selected Grants and Contributions

(Table 1)

An impor­tant point of clar­i­fi­ca­tion is in order before exam­in­ing and com­par­ing expen­di­tures across this time period. When look­ing at fig­ures, one must bear in mind that the bud­getary process for 2005-06 and 2006-07 was dis­rupted by a fed­eral elec­tion. This makes com­par­isons between the end of the 38th and 39th Par­lia­ments some­what tricky. All expen­di­tures, includ­ing those for arts and cul­ture, are under-represented in Bud­get ’05/06 and inflated in Bud­get ‘06/07 because of this kink in the process: expen­di­tures for 2005/06 are under­stated because only Main Esti­mates were tabled in that fis­cal year. The 2005/06 Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates tabled by the gov­ern­ment in the fall of 2005 were not passed by Par­lia­ment before it dis­solved in Novem­ber for the fed­eral elec­tion. As a con­se­quence, expen­di­tures for 2006/07 are over­stated as the sup­ple­men­tary expen­di­tures from 2005/06 were rolled into the 2006/07 Main Esti­mates documents.

 

As a result of these depar­tures from the nor­mal expen­di­ture bud­get cycle, a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of increases and decreases in expen­di­ture lev­els over the last three fis­cal years must be under­taken with care. In brief, the lack of sup­ple­men­tary esti­mates in 2005/06 makes it chal­leng­ing to under­take apples-to-apples com­par­isons in the sec­tor in the 2006/07–2008/09 period.

Hav­ing said that, over­all fund­ing to key grants and con­tri­bu­tion pro­grams at the Depart­ment of Her­itage has remained rel­a­tively sta­ble over the past three fis­cal years.  How­ever, there have been a num­ber of bud­get real­lo­ca­tions within the Department.

Cana­dian Her­itage (PCH) oper­ates under two broad Strate­gic Out­comes (see Appen­dix 1 below). Under the first out­come, the gov­ern­ment sup­ports Cana­di­ans to express and share their diverse cul­tural expe­ri­ences with each other and the world: this is where fund­ing for the arts, her­itage and cul­tural insti­tu­tions and indus­tries occurs. The sec­ond Strate­gic Out­come posi­tions Canada as an inclu­sive soci­ety built on inter-cultural under­stand­ing and cit­i­zen participation.

While the over­all bud­get of the Depart­ment remains fairly sta­ble, there seems to be a trend for fund­ing to be real­lo­cated from the first strate­gic out­come towards the sec­ond one: thus, in 2008, the largest increase ($46.1 mil­lion) accrues to the Department’s sec­ond Strate­gic Out­come while the first one shows a net decrease of $17.8 mil­lion. Sta­tis­ti­cally, in 2007/08 the pro­por­tion of over­all depart­men­tal fund­ing to the first strate­gic out­come was 57%. This fig­ure declined in 2008/09 to 54.6%.

A notable real­lo­ca­tion of fund­ing within Her­itage includes the cuts which have sur­faced since April 1, 2008, with sav­ings being directed, amongst other pri­or­i­ties, toward the recur­rent $30 mil­lion to the Canada Coun­cil bud­get $30 mil­lion and three other pro­grams under the sec­ond Strate­gic Out­come of PCH: the 2010 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Torch Relays, the Road to Excel­lence for sum­mer Olympic ath­letes, and the Offi­cial Lan­guages Action Plan. Bud­get 2008-09 pro­vided $25 mil­lion to the torch relays, and $24 mil­lion over two years and $24 mil­lion ongo­ing annu­ally to the Road to Excel­lence pro­grams, while the pro­gram for the Devel­op­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guages Com­mu­ni­ties received an increase of $24.7 million.

Table 1 — Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage: Selected Grants and Contributions

(for a detailed descrip­tion of each pro­gram, please refer to full CCA Bud­get Analy­sis)

Grant/Contribution
Arts	2005-06 (Main Estimates)	2006-07 (After Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates A/B)  (A)	2007-08 (After Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates A/B)	2008-09 (Main Esti­mates and Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates A)
Arts and Her­itage Sus­tain­abil­ity Program
Capac­ity Building	5,854,997	6,310,043	6,310,043	6,134,043
Endow­ment Incentives	15,500,000	14,884,420	14,884,420	14,884,420
Sta­bi­liza­tion Funds	4,026,436	626,760	626,760	626,760
Net­work­ing Initiatives		1,000,000	1,000,000	1,000,000
Arts Pre­sen­ta­tion Canada Program	22,642,028	21,418,998	20,761,498	28,362,112  (see note B)
Build­ing Com­mu­ni­ties through Arts & Heritage			3,092,000	7,000,000  (see note B)
Cel­e­brate Canada!		12,951,037	21,988,600	31,970,426  (see note C)
Cul­tural Cap­i­tals of Canada	2,000,000	3,862,680	3,862,680	3,862,680
Cul­tural Spaces Canada Program	27,672,259	26,901,423	30,442,423	29,342,801
National Arts Train­ing Con­tri­bu­tion Program	16,172,750	15,903,920	16,618,000	16,703,920
Her­itage
Com­mer­cial Her­itage Prop­er­ties Incen­tive Fund		9,873,000
Muse­ums Assis­tance Program	11,730,350	12,023,284	10,098,000	14,445,845  (see note D)
Cul­tural Industries
Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund	99,550,000	119 950 000	119,950,000	119,950,000  (see note E)
Book Pub­lish­ing Indus­try Devel­op­ment Prog.	38,368,948	39,764,798	38,094,798	37,637,660
Canada Mag­a­zine Fund	9,652,000	16,067,998	15,567,998	15,381,182
Canada Music Fund	n/a	22,889,658	22,889,658	22,614,982
Canada New Media Fund	8,150,000	17,032,000	14,025,000	14,196,077
Pub­li­ca­tions Assis­tance Program	41,400,000	45,400,000	45,400,000	45,400,000
Other Grants and Contributions
Sport Grants & Contributions
Ath­lete Assis­tance Program	27,000,000	27,000,000	27,000,000	26,676,000
Sport Sup­port Program	36,074,345	97,825,345	101,847,481	101,563,183
Games’ Host­ing Program	19,165,000	167,585,000	148,823,284	61,889,404
Offi­cial Languages
Enhance­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guages Program	103,943,510	109,219,100	108,923,289	111,020,927
Devel­op­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guage Com­mu­ni­ties Program	219,842,501	214,828,820	216,344,930	241,113,473
Abo­rig­i­nal Peo­ples’ Program	30,295,707	66,787,262	66,203,732	57,757,982

(A) While cul­tural fund­ing lev­els rose mod­estly in Bud­get 2006, it is cru­cial to bear in mind that there were no Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates in fis­cal year 2005/06. Addi­tional expen­di­tures in 2005/06 were made through Gov­er­nor General’s Spe­cial War­rants and these incre­men­tal amounts were included in the 2006 Main Esti­mates. As such, fund­ing increases in 2006-07 must be inter­preted with cau­tion as they include expen­di­tures under­taken in the pre­vi­ous fis­cal year.

(B) Increases to the Arts Pre­sen­ta­tion Canada Pro­gram and the Build­ing Com­mu­ni­ties through Arts & Her­itage Pro­gram were des­ig­nated to local arts and her­itage fes­ti­val programs.

© The gov­ern­ment has indi­cated that increases to Cel­e­brate Canada are due to funds for the 400th Anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion of Québec City in sum­mer 2008, and for Eucharist Con­gress, also in 2008. This pro­gram gen­er­ally pro­vides finan­cial assis­tance for com­mu­nity events between June 21st and July 1st, but the pro­gram is only intended to cover a por­tion of the costs of the events.

(D) The Muse­ums Assis­tance Pro­gram increased by $5 mil­lion for the sum­mer muse­ums intern­ship pro­gram announced in Bud­get 2007.  As such, this rep­re­sents no new fund­ing to the pro­gram, which was cut by $2.3 mil­lion per year in fall 2006.

(E) In 2007, the con­tri­bu­tion of the gov­ern­ment to the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund was renewed at its 1996 level until March 2009.  $20 mil­lion were also re-allocated funds from Tele­film Canada, which reg­is­ters the equiv­a­lent decrease. Increases in 2006 can be owed to Gov­er­nor Gen­eral Spe­cial War­rants which were related to the 2005-06 bud­get (see note A above).

Table 2 — Com­par­a­tive spend­ing of Selected Agen­cies and Crown Cor­po­ra­tions dur­ing Canada’s 39th Parliament

Organization1	Total Expen­di­tures 2004/05  (passed by 37th Parliament)	Total Expen­di­tures  2005/06 (passed by 38th Parliament)	Total Expen­di­tures 2006/07  (Passed by 39th Parliament)	Total Expen­di­tures 2007/08	Total Esti­mates 2008/09
Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage	1,271.4	1,324.0	1,459.5	1,440.5	1,413.8
Canada Coun­cil for the Arts	154.3	151.8	171.4	181.8  (see note F)	182.1
Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Corporation	1,026.3	1,070.4	1,114.0  (see note G)	1,104.0	1,115.4
Library and Archives of Canada	113.8	109.0	114.0	154.8  (see note H)	157.6
National Arts Cen­tre	32.4	32.2	56.3  (see note I)	55.9	49.7
National Gallery of Canada	44.2	44.7	46.6	51.4  (see note I)	53.3
Cana­dian Museum of Civilization	96.3	60.3	61.5  (see note I)	61.9	61.4
Cana­dian Museum of Nature	61.0	55.6	59.6	84.9  (see note I)	59.2
National Museum of Sci­ence and Technology	29.8	26.4	30.6  (see note I)	32.1	31.0
National Film Board of Canada	66.8	67.7	70.9  (see note J)	67.1	65.3
Tele­film Canada	128.3	124.4	105.2  (see note K)	105.2	107.7
TOTAL	3,024.6	3,065.5	3,288.9	3,339.9	3,296.5

1 These fig­ures cover only appro­pri­a­tions. All of these orga­ni­za­tions also gen­er­ate annual revenues.

(F) In the 2006 Bud­get, the gov­ern­ment announced a one time increase, over two years, to the bud­get of the Canada Coun­cil of the Arts (an addi­tional one-time $20 mil­lion in 2006/07, and a sec­ond one-time increase of $30 mil­lion in 2007/08). A per­ma­nent increase of $ 30 mil­lion to the base bud­get of the Coun­cil is reflected in the 2008-09 budget.

(G) Trea­sury Board pro­vides gov­ern­ment depart­ments and appro­pri­ated Crown Cor­po­ra­tions with com­pen­sa­tion for increases to col­lec­tive agree­ments (ie. Infla­tion fund­ing on their salary bud­gets).  Since 2004/05, CBC has received this fund­ing for salary infla­tion for fis­cal years 2005/06 and 2006/07 of approx­i­mately $20 mil­lion per year. This rep­re­sents a per­ma­nent increase to the fund­ing base.  Fis­cal year 2008/09 includes an increase of $20 mil­lion which was trans­ferred from the 2007/08 bud­get in order to off­set the cost of the 2008 sum­mer Olympics. This was a one-time adjust­ment. The 2008/09 bud­get also includes a $6.6 mil­lion cut by the gov­ern­ment as part of the Expen­di­ture Review Reduc­tion.  In 2004/05 Cana­dian Her­itage trans­ferred $2 mil­lion for dig­i­ti­za­tion of archives, but this fund­ing will not be received in 2008/09.

(H) The changes in fund­ing to Library and Archives Canada are the result of two fac­tors. The first is the inte­gra­tion of the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada in 2004, which resulted in spe­cial one-time tran­si­tion costs and fund­ing. In 2006/07 and sub­se­quent years, addi­tional funds were allot­ted to Library Archives for the col­lec­tion devel­op­ment, descrip­tion, and care of the Por­trait Gallery of Canada.

(I) In 2006, the gov­ern­ment announced that it would allo­cate a one-time $100 mil­lion for infra­struc­ture fund­ing to: the Museum of Nature, the National Gallery of Canada, the Cana­dian Museum of Civ­i­liza­tion, the Canada Museum of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy, and the National Arts Cen­tre. Accord­ingly, the 2008 decline in fund­ing to the National Arts Cen­tre and the Cana­dian Museum of Nature did not affect oper­at­ing grants but reflects the com­ple­tion of one-time cap­i­tal projects.

(H) The National Film Board owes its increase to $2.5 mil­lion trans­fer from the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage for ‘activ­i­ties to advance the cre­ation of cul­tural con­tent on-line and other dig­i­ti­za­tion projects,’ and a $420,000 trans­fer from the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage for the devel­op­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guage Minor­ity Communities.

(I) Tele­film Canada fund­ing decreased to $105.2 mil­lion in 2006/07 and $104.6 mil­lion in 2007/08, owing to the trans­fer of $20 mil­lion to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage for the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund

Appen­dix 1 : Cana­dian Her­itage: Pro­gram Activ­ity Architecture

Strate­gic Outcomes	Pro­gram Activities	Pro­gram Sub-Activities	Exam­ples of Pro­gram Sub-sub activities
				Strate­gic Out­come 1:  Cana­di­ans express and share their diverse cul­tural expe­ri­ences with each other and the world	Cana­dian con­tent and per­for­mance excellence	Arts & Cul­tural Industries	Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund; Con­tent Devel­op­ment com­po­nent of Canada Music Fund, Canada Mag­a­zine Fund, Book Pub­lish­ing and New/Interactive Media
Sport	Ath­lete Assis­tance; Sport Sup­port; Sport Hosting
Sus­tain­abil­ity of cul­tural expres­sion and participation	Arts & Cul­tural Industries	Sup­port for the arts sec­tor; Capacity-Building com­po­nent of Canada Music Fund and Film & Video Sec­tor; Indus­try Devel­op­ment Com­po­nent of Book Pub­lish­ing and Canada Mag­a­zine Fund
	Her­itage	Cana­dian Her­itage Infor­ma­tion Net­work; Sup­port to Her­itage Insti­tu­tions and Organizations
	2010 Win­ter Games
	Inter­na­tional	Trade Routes; TV5; Inter­na­tional Fran­coph­o­nie; Inter­na­tional Norm & Stan­dard Set­ting; Capacity-Building & Cooperation
Preser­va­tion of Canada’s heritage	Her­itage	Fea­ture Film Preser­va­tion and Access; Cana­dian Music Preser­va­tion and Access; Cana­dian Con­ser­va­tion Institute
	Abo­rig­i­nal Liv­ing Cultures	Abo­rig­i­nal Lan­guages and Cul­tures; Abo­rig­i­nal Broadcasting
Access and par­tic­i­pa­tion in Canada’s cul­tural life	Arts & Cul­tural Industries	Arts in Com­mu­ni­ties; Book Pub­lish­ing Sup­ply Chain Ini­tia­tive; Pub­li­ca­tions Dis­tri­b­u­tion Assis­tance; Canada Music Fund Col­lec­tives Initiative
	Her­itage	Cana­dian Cul­tural Her­itage Online; Exhi­bi­tions and Col­lec­tions; Mov­able Cul­tural Property
Strate­gic Out­come 2:  Cana­di­ans live in an inclu­sive soci­ety built on inter-cultural understand-ding and cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion	Pro­mo­tion of inter-cultural understanding	Offi­cial Languages	Pro­mo­tion of lin­guis­tic dual­ity; Second-Language Learning
		Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism	Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism
	Com­mu­nity devel­op­ment and capac­ity building	Abo­rig­i­nal Partners	Abo­rig­i­nal organizations
		Offi­cial Languages	Com­mu­nity life, Minority-Language Education
	Par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­mu­nity and civic life	Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism
		Abo­rig­i­nal Communities	Abo­rig­i­nal Youth, Abo­rig­i­nal Women
		Cit­i­zen Participation	Com­mu­nity Part­ner­ships; Infor­ma­tion and Research on Canada
		Sport	Sport Sup­port; Sport Housing
		Youth	Exchanges Canada; Kati­mavik; Young Canada Works
		Cel­e­bra­tion	Cel­e­bra­tion, Com­mem­o­ra­tion and Learning
		Inter­na­tional	Inter­na­tional Expositions
		2010 Win­ter Games

Strate­gic Out­come 1 pro­gram activ­i­ties include: Cana­dian con­tent and per­for­mance excel­lence, sus­tain­abil­ity of cul­tural expres­sion and par­tic­i­pa­tion, preser­va­tion of Canada’s her­itage, and access to Canada’s cul­ture. Pro­gram sub-activities include: arts & cul­tural indus­tries, her­itage, sport, inter­na­tional, Abo­rig­i­nal liv­ing cul­tures, 2010 Win­ter Games (cul­tural pro­grams).

Strate­gic Out­come 2 pro­gram activ­i­ties include: pro­mo­tion of inter-cultural under­stand­ing, com­mu­nity devel­op­ment and capac­ity build­ing, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in com­mu­nity and civic life. Pro­gram sub-activities include: offi­cial lan­guages, mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism, Abo­rig­i­nal part­ners, cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion, sport, youth, cel­e­bra­tion, inter­na­tional, 2010 Win­ter Games.