NONE OF THE ABOVE!

Ottawa , June 8th , 2004 — All the major par­ties have now issued their offi­cial plat­forms — and they may well instill a sense of fore­bod­ing in those who sup­port the arts.   To spare CCA mem­bers the gloomy task of sift­ing through the detri­tus, a matrix com­par­ing and con­trast­ing the plat­forms is avail­able.

The Massey-Lévesque report (Royal Com­mis­sion on National Devel­op­ment in the Arts, Let­ters and Sci­ences 1949–1951), stated that “It has been sug­gested to us that one mea­sure of the degree of civ­i­liza­tion attained by a nation might fairly be the extent to which the nation’s cre­ative artists are sup­ported, encour­aged and esteemed by the nation as a whole.” Given this def­i­n­i­tion, Canada might soon become one of the most unciv­i­lized coun­tries in the West­ern world!

In an attempt to elicit fur­ther infor­ma­tion on spe­cific issues, CCA con­tacted many of the par­ties’ head­quar­ters, with mixed results.

The Lib­eral party, which has a good track record of sup­port for cul­ture (espe­cially since 2001), might rea­son­ably have been expected to build on this suc­cess.   Com­mu­ni­cat­ing directly with offi­cials we dis­cov­ered that it is their inten­tion to, at a min­i­mum,   main­tain all fund­ing now in place.   Why this is not stated clearly in the plat­form becomes the ques­tion.   Were the Prime Min­is­ter to speak clearly of his com­mit­ment to the arts, her­itage and cul­tural indus­tries, his posi­tion going into the elec­tion would cer­tainly improve.

•  While cit­ing past suc­cesses, the plat­form fails to men­tion the pro­posed renewal   of the Tomor­row Starts Today fund­ing (which runs out at the end of the cur­rent fis­cal year), although assur­ances were given by gov­ern­ment spokes­peo­ple that the renewal is in process.

•  Although there is men­tion of the Liberal’s sup­port for the Cul­tural Diver­sity treaty being devel­oped by UNESCO, it fails to men­tion whether they will be uphold­ing restric­tions on for­eign own­er­ship of the broad­cast­ing indus­try, cur­rently threat­ened by a report from the Indus­try Committee.

•  There is men­tion of increased fund­ing for the Canada Coun­cil for “the major arts orga­ni­za­tions” but what is absent is a com­mit­ment to main­tain and build on the $25 mil­lion which was added to the bud­get in 2001 for a lim­ited time.   Ver­bal assur­ance has been given that the $25 mil­lion stays.

•  Indica­tive of a party with no solid pol­icy frame­work, Lib­eral HQ was unable to answer spe­cific ques­tions on the plat­form and referred CCA st af f to the office of the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, an unusual prac­tice dur­ing an election.

•  On the ques­tion of the party’s posi­tion regard­ing the artis­tic merit defence and the threat to free­dom of expres­sion posed by Bill C-12, the CCA was referred to the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice, who referred us to Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials, who were sur­prised in their turn and mut­tered “no comment”.

The NDP was unable to answer some of the explicit ques­tions put to them and main­tained that the party is unable to present all their poli­cies in the plat­form doc­u­ment as it would just be too long.   How­ever, it would have been heart­en­ing to have seen more detailed poli­cies on arts and her­itage from a party which has been sup­port­ive in the past.

•  In par­tic­u­lar, it is dis­ap­point­ing that the NDP did not build on Wendy Lill’s work on her pri­vate mem­bers’ bill M-293 from 2003 (an exemp­tion of tax on income derived from artis­tic work) to pro­pose a new tax­a­tion mea­sure for artists.

•  The NDP has been a strong sup­porter of the coali­tion of unions and arts groups called Our Canada is not for sale which is argu­ing to pre­serve restric­tions on for­eign own­er­ship of broad­cast­ing and which will hold a press con­fer­ence dur­ing the Banff tele­vi­sion fes­ti­val next week.

•  The NDP has worked hard to pre­serve the artis­tic merit defence which was under attack in Bill C-12 and can be expected to main­tain that posi­tion going into a new gov­ern­ment.   As an exam­ple of sup­port, the NDP orga­nized a read­ing ses­sion on Par­lia­ment Hill for Free­dom to Read Week this past Feb­ru­ary.   Why not put this in the platform?

A spokesper­son for the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party stated that “no men­tion in the plat­form indi­cates sta­tus quo for a first Con­ser­v­a­tive man­date”.   He also pointed out that as the merger of the party was so recent, the Con­ser­v­a­tives did not have time to hold a pol­icy con­ven­tion before the elec­tion was called; con­se­quently, the party is going “by prin­ci­ple” on some issues.   How­ever, the absence of so many words and phrases con­sid­ered key to the cul­tural sec­tor (see CCA ‘s analy­sis in the matrix), is alarm­ing.   If “qual­ity of life” doesn’t appear any­where in the plat­form, don’t expect any if the Con­ser­v­a­tives are elected.   (As a foot­note, it is inter­est­ing to note that, despite tra­di­tional Con­ser­v­a­tive antipa­thy to the CBC, CCA ‘s rep­re­sen­ta­tive was treated to CBC Radio while wait­ing on hold!)

The Bloc leads all par­ties in its artic­u­la­tion of sen­si­ble cul­tural pol­icy mea­sures and its sup­port of the arts.   How­ever this sup­port is lim­ited to cul­tural issues in “La belle province” and the Bloc can­not be counted on to sup­port mea­sures that ben­e­fit artists in the rest of Canada .

CCA urges its mem­bers to not only review the matrix, but also read care­fully the bud­get analy­sis enti­tled Dear Pru­dence ( http://www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/publications/policy/documents/dearprudence.pdf)   This is the first elec­tion in decades where the out­come has been so unclear, the cul­tural plat­forms so rick­ety, and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions for the cul­tural sec­tor so dangerous.

CCA will be pro­vid­ing updates to this infor­ma­tion as and when it becomes available.

Other cul­tural activ­ity on the elec­tion front:

•  The Toronto Media-Festivals Net­work is spon­sor­ing a “Debate on Cul­tural Pol­icy” on Wednes­day on Wednes­day 16 June in the ball­room at the Glad­stone Hotel ( 1214 Queen Street West , at Glad­stone ); the doors open at 8.30pm .   The line-up for this event is: Olivia Chow (NDP), and Sar­mite Bulte (Lib­er­als); Con­ser­v­a­tive can­di­date to be con­firmed.   The can­di­dates will be respond­ing to ques­tions from pan­el­lists includ­ing Atom Egoyan and Barri Cohen.   This promises to be a very lively evening, and one of great impor­tance for the cul­tural sec­tor.   For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact Judy Wolfe at 416 598 2662 ( jwmatrix@eol.ca ).

•  At its annual gen­eral meet­ing, held in Van­cou­ver on 5 June, the Inde­pen­dent Media Arts Alliance unan­i­mously passed the fol­low­ing motion:

“Whereas the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage estab­lished the Tomor­row Starts Today pro­gramme that has con­tributed greatly to the media arts in Canada,

Whereas fund­ing from this pro­gramme includes: The Arts Pre­sen­ta­tion Canada pro­gramme which funds media arts fes­ti­vals and a $25 mil­lion annual increase to the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts which in turn has increased fund­ing for the media arts sector,

And whereas this fund­ing, which is crit­i­cal to vul­ner­a­ble sec­tors of the media arts includ­ing dis­sem­i­na­tion of cul­tur­ally diverse and abo­rig­i­nal media art work and sup­port for smaller media arts   orga­ni­za­tions may not be renewed,

Be it resolved that I MAA lobby Cana­dian Her­itage to pre­serve, increase, and broaden the fund­ing for the media arts con­tained within the Tomor­row Starts Today programme.”

Kudos to IMAA for tak­ing a proac­tive stance on the issue of renew­ing the TST fund­ing. CCA urges other arts groups to take a sim­i­lar posi­tion and to insist the TST fund­ing is renewed before get­ting into spe­cific dis­ci­pli­nary needs.