New economic update unclear on additional money for culture

Bul­letin 45/05

Ottawa, Novem­ber 16, 2005 – Recently there has been a remark­able amount of polit­i­cal the­atre in Ottawa. The
plot is com­pelling, the cast uneven, and the out­come uncer­tain enough to keep Par­lia­ment watch­ers on the edge
of their col­lec­tive seats.
It would seem likely that Prime Min­is­ter Rt. Hon. Paul Martin’s minor­ity gov­ern­ment is in its last days. The
lead­ers of the three oppo­si­tion par­ties have come together in a strat­egy that will give Cana­di­ans a chance to vote
in the com­ing months and to enjoy a healthy serv­ing of elec­tion­eer­ing with their hol­i­day turkeys.
What is clear is that if the plug is pulled on the cur­rent Par­lia­ment, sev­eral things will hap­pen:
• all leg­is­la­tion on the Order Paper will die,
• the next fed­eral bud­get will not likely take place until April or May 2006, at the ear­li­est,
• some of the pro­grams in the pipeline will not be given Par­lia­men­tary author­ity to spend,
• Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates, which are a vehi­cle to move funds around within the fed­eral gov­ern­ment,
will not pass. This will cre­ate some real finan­cial pres­sures on sev­eral agen­cies of the Depart­ment
Cana­dian Her­itage Port­fo­lio who have been await­ing trans­fers to fund pro­grams and ini­tia­tives,
• The details of the Eco­nomic Update by the Min­is­ter of Finance, the Hon. Ralph Goodale, will be in real
jeop­ardy of lengthy delays or can­cel­la­tion if the gov­ern­ment does not win re-election.
What does the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor stand to lose if the fed­eral gov­ern­ment falls? In review­ing the Eco­nomic
State­ment issued this past Mon­day by the Min­is­ter of Finance the answer would seem to be “unclear” when it
comes to addi­tional fed­eral spend­ing on the arts and cul­tural indus­tries. Despite the impres­sive pack­ag­ing of the
Eco­nomic Update, which promises to redi­rect some $39 bil­lion dol­lars to high pri­or­i­ties of the gov­ern­ment, one
would be hard pressed to find dime one of new monies des­tined for the cul­tural sec­tor. In fact, the only explicit
men­tions of cul­tural spend­ing in the lengthy state­ment and the accom­pa­ny­ing “A Plan for Growth and
Pros­per­ity” doc­u­ment refer to fund­ing for the “Tomor­row Starts Today” pro­gram, which was already allo­cated
monies in the Feb­ru­ary 2005 bud­get.
The work of the Cana­dian Arts Coali­tion and other in the sec­tor that have been urg­ing the gov­ern­ment to
increase its invest­ment in the arts appears to not have res­onated with the gov­ern­ment in these hec­tic polit­i­cal
times. How­ever, a glim­mer of opti­mism appears in Chap­ter 5 of The Eco­nomic and Fis­cal Update, in a sec­tion
enti­tled “Build­ing Canada’s Com­mu­ni­ties”, which reads as fol­lows:
“To build safe, cre­ative and sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties that are mag­nets for invest­ment and sup­port a qual­ity of life
sec­ond to none, the Gov­ern­ment will build on recent major invest­ments such as those made under the
Government’s infra­struc­ture pro­grams, the New Deal for Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties, the National Secu­rity Pol­icy
and Tomor­row Starts Today with new mea­sures in Bud­get 2006.”
If the gov­ern­ment truly wanted to sig­nal it had heard the mes­sage of advo­cates for the arts and cul­ture, they
cer­tainly did not use Monday’s Eco­nomic Update to acknowl­edge this. Widely regarded in the media as a
pre­view of things to come in the impend­ing Lib­eral party elec­tion plat­form, the Eco­nomic Statement’s lack of
atten­tion to arts and cul­tural pri­or­i­ties proves a dis­cour­ag­ing sign of the cam­paign to come, wherein the sector’s
key issues are rel­e­gated to off-the-political radar sta­tus. One is left with only vague promises to “build on recent
major invest­ments” in the form of “new mea­sures”, which are open to inter­pre­ta­tion in polit­i­cally tur­bu­lent times
like these.
How­ever, such an over­sight has never been a deter­rent for the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts and its mem­bers.
In fact, it pro­vides us a clear oppor­tu­nity to press the point home with all polit­i­cal par­ties that will be can­vass­ing
for the sup­port of Cana­di­ans come elec­tion day, when­ever that may be. It is a moti­va­tion to redou­ble our
col­lec­tive efforts to per­suade all polit­i­cal par­ties to pro­nounce their inten­tions for the cul­tural sec­tor should they
win the next elec­tion.
The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts will keep you apprised of fur­ther devel­op­ments as this drama con­tin­ues to
unfold. Our work is cut out for us, but we are con­fi­dent that Cana­dian artists and arts pro­fes­sion­als are equal to
the task.