RIGHT HONOURABLE PAUL MARTIN AND HONOURABLE STEPHEN HARPER RESPOND TO CCA’S MAY 6TH OPEN LETTER

Ottawa, July 6, 2005 — On May 6, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) sent an open let­ter to all the major polit­i­cal party lead­ers and the media.  The let­ter asked the fed­eral polit­i­cal par­ties to work together to ensure that key aspects of the bud­get, such as Tomor­row Starts Today, are passed before a fed­eral elec­tion is called. In the past few weeks, NDP  Leader Jack Lay­ton and Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada (CPC) Her­itage Critic Bev Oda have sent responses detail­ing the posi­tions of their respec­tive par­ties vis à vis bud­get com­mit­ments made by the fed­eral government.

Recently, the CCA received writ­ten responses from both the office of the Prime Min­is­ter and the office of the Offi­cial Oppo­si­tion. In his let­ter, the Right Hon­ourable Paul Mar­tin empha­sized his government’s com­mit­ment to pass­ing the fed­eral bud­get, not­ing the valu­able new fund­ing for the Tomor­row Starts Today pro­gram.  This let­ter arrived just prior to the bud­get pass­ing third read­ing in the House of Com­mons, and on June 29th, after a brief debate in the Sen­ate, the Lib­eral Bud­get was given Royal Assent.

The Hon­ourable Stephen Harper, in his response, artic­u­lated the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party’s sup­port for Canada’s arts and cul­ture com­mu­nity.  Out­lin­ing the Pol­icy Dec­la­ra­tion adopted by the CPC at its 2005 pol­icy con­ven­tion in Mon­treal, he explained how the party would act, if it formed a gov­ern­ment, to strengthen and expand the work of the arts and cul­ture com­mu­nity in Canada, includ­ing ear­mark­ing per­ma­nent fund­ing for needed programs.

To read the let­ters from Prime Min­is­ter Mar­tin, CPC Leader Stephen Harper, NDP Leader Jack Lay­ton and CPC Her­itage Critic Bev Oda, as well as other advo­cacy infor­ma­tion related to this ini­tia­tive, please visit the CCA website.

USEFUL STATISTICS DOCUMENT ON STATUS OF ARTS AND CULTURE IN CANADA NOW AVAILABLE

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing the sec­tor and the pub­lic with timely and rel­e­vant research on Canada’s arts and cul­ture.  The CCA has there­fore revised and released its Use­ful Sta­tis­tics doc­u­ment in order to pro­vide every­one with more cur­rent data on the sta­tus of the arts and cul­ture in Canada.

Use­ful Sta­tis­tics (updated July 2005) is an extremely valu­able advo­cacy tool.  It is meant for any­one and every­one inter­ested in con­crete data that reflects the impact of arts, cul­ture, cul­tural indus­tries and her­itage on our econ­omy and on Cana­dian society.

In this doc­u­ment, you will find sta­tis­tics on:

Eco­nomic dimen­sions of the cul­ture sector

Social dimen­sions of the cul­ture sector

Cul­tural sub­sec­tors, including:

• Cul­tural Industries
• Per­form­ing Arts
• Her­itage Institutions

The full report is avail­able by vis­it­ing the CCA web site.

REPORT FROM CCA’S 2004 NATIONAL POLICY CONFERENCE AVAILABLE ONLINE

In mid-November 2004, 137 mem­bers of the cul­tural sec­tor gath­ered at the CCA’s National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence in Regina, Saskatchewan, to dis­cuss issues relat­ing to Sta­tus of the Artist (SofA). The con­fer­ence was designed to per­mit a series of three “con­ver­sa­tions” – mod­er­ated dis­cus­sions between artists and pro­duc­ers from a broad cross-section of the cul­tural sec­tor on a vari­ety of top­ics – as well as inter­ac­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties such as themed work­shops for all participants.

Fol­low­ing the tra­di­tion of recent CCA con­fer­ences (Edmon­ton in 2002, Hal­i­fax in 2003), and in keep­ing with the CCA’s core man­date, the Regina con­fer­ence had a strong artis­tic component.

Con­fer­ence objec­tives were threefold: ·

• To dis­cuss how the exist­ing fed­eral leg­is­la­tion on SofA could be improved
• To review the need for a national coun­cil on Sta­tus of the Artist and dis­cuss how it could be reinstated
• To act as a cat­a­lyst for the devel­op­ment of provin­cial SofA leg­is­la­tion out­side Quebec

 

At the con­clu­sion of the con­fer­ence, the CCA under­took to take action on the fol­low­ing issues: ·

• Fair tax treat­ment for artists
• Cana­dian Coun­cil on Sta­tus of the Artist
• Provin­cial SofA legislation
• National meet­ing of Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tural groups.

 

To view the com­plete report of the 2004 National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence, please visit the CCA website

CULTURAL MANAGEMENT RESOURCES NOW AVAILABLE

The Cre­ative Man­age­ment Project was a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts, the Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil, the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, and Cana­dian Her­itage from 2002 to

2005. The objec­tives of this project were to fos­ter pro­fes­sional renewal and rein­vig­o­ra­tion of expe­ri­enced cul­tural man­agers, and to attract new peo­ple into the field of cul­tural man­age­ment and admin­is­tra­tion. Visit our web­site at to view the newly-posted tips, tools and papers result­ing from this project.

EXCITING NEW PROJECT LAUNCHED

Seven national orga­ni­za­tions have come together to launch an inno­v­a­tive new project intended to raise aware­ness about the Cana­dian “vol­un­tary sector”.

The pur­pose of the Vol­un­tary Sec­tor Aware­ness Project (funded by Social Devel­op­ment Canada and led by Imag­ine Canada ) is to gen­er­ate dia­logue and solicit feed­back from a broad range of char­i­ties and non– prof­its and, over the sum­mer of 2006, to launch a pub­lic aware­ness cam­paign to be deliv­ered by the sec­tor uti­liz­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions resources pro­vided by the project.

The project offers a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to chal­lenge diverse and dif­fer­ent vol­un­tary orga­ni­za­tions to con­sider com­mon­al­ity and to think about how speak­ing to Cana­di­ans through a shared vision-centered cam­paign may enhance their indi­vid­ual abil­i­ties to achieve goals.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

The CCA wants to hear from its mem­bers!  Send us your thoughts on what the CCA means to you, your pro­fes­sion, or the arts and cul­ture com­mu­nity in gen­eral. Sub­mit your quote, along with your name and orga­ni­za­tion, to info@ccarts.ca with the sub­ject head­ing: QUOTE.

Your state­ment could be fea­tured in future CCA publications!