CCA Bul­letin 37/07

Decem­ber 4, 2007

Just the Facts

As reported by the CCA , the fed­eral gov­ern­ment has tabled Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates A announc­ing a total of $13.6 bil­lion work of sup­ple­men­tary expen­di­tures of which $8 bil­lion were voted appro­pri­a­tions ( i.e. dis­cre­tionary spend­ing pro­grams) and $5.5 bil­lion were changes to statu­tory bud­get spend­ing ( trans­fer pay­ments, employ­ment insur­ance, pen­sions etc.)

The Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates A allow us to have a closer look at the details of the Main Esti­mates and how announce­ments in the 2007 fed­eral bud­get are being imple­mented. The Main Esti­mates were tabled before the fed­eral bud­get, there­fore the Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates A add another layer of detail to the pic­ture of actual fed­eral spending.

It is impor­tant to note that these fig­ures do not include details regard­ing the bil­lion dol­lar real­lo­ca­tion pro­gram under­way within gov­ern­ment which seeks to move money from lower pri­or­ity areas to higher ones within the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. As pre­vi­ously reported , the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage and sev­eral Cana­dian Her­itage Port­fo­lio Agen­cies are on the list of depart­ments and agen­cies tar­geted in this year’s exercise.

For more details, the CCA has devel­oped a four page Analy­sis of the Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates 2007-08 A.

What does this mean?

Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to those of us in the arts and cul­ture sec­tor are trans­ac­tions that affect the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage and its Port­fo­lio Agen­cies such as the CBC, the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, the National Muse­ums, the National Arts Cen­tre, etc. The CCA notes for the first time to our knowl­edge, the gov­ern­ment has uti­lized the Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates to pro­vide spend­ing directly to spe­cific projects – ordi­nar­ily the Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates pro­vide new appro­pri­a­tions to gen­eral pro­grams as opposed to spe­cific projects.

Trans­fers out of the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage included $671 000.00 to the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade to sup­port depart­men­tal staff in mis­sions abroad. The fund­ing will partly sup­port addi­tional cul­tural rep­re­sen­ta­tives ($269 000.00) and exist­ing com­mit­ments ($402 000.00) Oth­ers include $400 000 to Agri­cul­ture and Agri­food and $15 000 to Indus­try Canada for the devel­op­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guage Minor­ity Communities.

Under the ratio­nal­iza­tion of pro­grams, the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts will receive $230 000 from the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage to sup­port mul­ti­lat­eral col­lab­o­ra­tion on French-language the­atre and Canada’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in meet­ings of the Com­mis­sion inter­na­tionale du théâtre fran­coph­one, and another $250 000 to sup­port the Cana­dian Musi­cal Diver­sity Com­po­nent of the Canada Music Fund. The Coun­cil has in turn trans­ferred $24 000 to the Depart­ment for arts statistics.

As expected the CBC has received an addi­tional $60 mil­lion to sup­port French and Eng­lish lan­guage programming,

Library and Archives Canada received $12.4 mil­lion in voted appro­pri­a­tions for a range of pur­poses includ­ing dig­i­tal pub­li­ca­tions and record, improv­ing access to infor­ma­tion in mul­ti­ple for­mats and for plan­ning a facil­ity to con­serve Canada’s doc­u­men­tary her­itage.  It also received $23.2 mil­lion for the estab­lish­ment of the Por­trait Gallery of Canada.

Other port­fo­lio agen­cies received funds for urgent cap­i­tal repairs:

* National Arts Cen­tre                                                                 $20.4 million

* National Gallery of Canada                                                       $4.7 million

* Museum of Civ­i­liza­tion                                                              $400 000

* National Museum of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy                         $4.2 million

* National Avi­a­tion Museum                                                        $250 000

The Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage also trans­ferred $550 000 to Tele­film Canada for the devel­op­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guage Minor­ity Communities.

There were also new fund­ing made avail­able to pro­grams within the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage;

Games Host­ing Pro­gram for the 2010 Olympics                        $50.5 million

Sports Sup­port Pro­gram                                                            $ 490 000

Enhance­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guages Pro­gram                           $ 3 million

Devel­op­ment of Offi­cial Lan­guages Communities

National Arts Train­ing Con­tri­bu­tion Pro­gram                               $ 5.9 million

Sum­mer Museum Intern­ships Pro­gram                                       $ 5 million

Arts Pre­sen­ta­tion Canada                                                          $ 199 000

Build­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Through the Arts and                               $ 3.1 million

Her­itage Program

What Next?

It is unclear when the gov­ern­ment will release details regard­ing the cur­rent bil­lion dol­lar real­lo­ca­tion pro­gram. The CCA will watch for this infor­ma­tion and share it with you as soon as it is available.