CCA Bul­letin 36/06

August 30, 2006

• CCA inter­venes against the Min­is­ter of Industry’s pro­posed guide­lines to CRTC
• The satel­lite radio saga continues.
• Tell us what you think on CCA’s @gora
• Get CCA’s Analy­sis of the 2006 Fed­eral Bud­get: where is the money going?
• CCA Fundrais­ing Cam­paign Continues

Like it or not, the offi­cial end to sum­mer is just over three weeks away! And here at the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) it seems as if sum­mer 2006 passed us by due to the, at times, over­whelm­ing flurry of activ­i­ties here in our Ottawa office. Sum­mer has been unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally busy and fall promises to be challenging.

This bul­letin wraps up our reports on our sum­mer activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­larly regard­ing two recent actions on two top pol­icy and advo­cacy CCA pri­or­i­ties: Cana­dian con­tent and Cana­dian own­er­ship. It also reminds read­ers of the new CCA inter­ac­tive mag­a­zine CCA’s @gora and of the fed­eral bud­get analy­sis pub­lished mid-summer.

Please be on the look out for CCA bul­letins in the com­ing weeks: the House of Com­mons resumes sit­ting on Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 18, the reg­u­la­tory agenda is heavy and sig­nif­i­cant and the num­ber of files of crit­i­cal con­cern for all Cana­dian arts and cul­ture advo­cates and sup­port­ers is some­what daunt­ing, not to men­tion the ever-looming pos­si­bil­ity of a fed­eral elec­tion where we must ensure the inter­ests Cana­dian cul­ture must be part of the debate. This is why we ask for sup­port though our fundrais­ing cam­paign. As always, we invite your feed­back via email at info@ccarts.ca or directly through CCA’s @gora.

CCA inter­venes against the Min­is­ter of Industry’s pro­posed guide­lines to CRTC

Just the facts.

In mid-August, the CCA filed an inter­ven­tion against the Min­is­ter of Indus­try the Hon. Maxime Bernier’s pro­posed pol­icy direc­tion to the Cana­dian Radio-television and Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Com­mis­sion (CRTC). Min­is­ter Bernier wants that, when deal­ing with telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions issues, the CRTC favour purely eco­nomic cri­te­ria over any of the other seven non-economic objec­tives set by Par­lia­ment in the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, which amongst oth­ers includes the pro­mo­tion of own­er­ship and con­trol of Cana­dian con­tent car­ri­ers by Cana­di­ans. As SOCAN says in its brief, “In effect, Cab­i­net is attempt­ing to use an exec­u­tive order to alter the bal­ance between the eco­nomic and non-economic objec­tives enacted by Parliament.”

What the pro­posed pol­icy direc­tion means is that the CRTC should “rely on mar­ket forces to the max­i­mum extent fea­si­ble as the means of achiev­ing the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion objec­tives” and, for exam­ple, agree to any for­eign takeover of our dis­tri­b­u­tion (and even­tu­ally, broad­cast­ing) indus­try as long as it enhances effi­ciency and com­pet­i­tive­ness, irre­spec­tive of the pos­si­ble con­se­quences on the cul­tural con­tent dis­trib­uted on those sys­tems. Given the total con­ver­gence of telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and broad­cast­ing and the call for fold­ing together both the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and Broad­cast­ing Acts, the impact on the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor is poten­tially fatal given the cur­rent trends within the CRTC and Industry.

Although Cab­i­net has had the power to issue such pol­icy direc­tions since 1993, it is the first time that is exer­cised, the more rea­son to look at it very care­fully and very publicly.

Tell me more.

CCA’s posi­tion: The CCA does not believe that the pro­posed pol­icy direc­tion is in the best inter­est of Cana­di­ans. Along with SOCAN, whose solid inter­ven­tion the CCA fully sup­ports, the CCA believes that Gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion, and not mar­ket forces, have led to the cur­rent lev­els of Cana­dian cul­tural prod­ucts in the audio-visual sector.

By max­i­miz­ing the impor­tance of mar­ket forces, the pro­posed direc­tive could adversely affect one of the most impor­tant reg­u­la­tory instru­ments used to pro­mote Cana­dian iden­tity and cul­tural sov­er­eignty. Given that the impact of the pro­posal at hand will extend beyond the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor and the man­date of Indus­try Canada, the CCA believes it should be care­fully scru­ti­nized by other inter­ested bod­ies, includ­ing the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage and the House of Com­mons Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Heritage.

The CCA there­fore sup­ports the sug­ges­tion that there be a pub­lic hear­ing on this issue, at which it would hope to appear as an intervener.

To find out more about this inter­ven­tion and why it should mat­ter to all Cana­di­ans, par­tic­u­larly those who work in and sup­port the arts and cul­tural sec­tor, please see CCA’s sub­mis­sion.

The satel­lite radio saga continues.

In June it was Rogers Cable, in July Bell and in August, it’s Telus. All three dis­trib­u­tors have qui­etly applied to the CRTC for per­mis­sion to redis­trib­ute the so-called Cana­dian sub­scrip­tion satel­lite radio ser­vices, pos­si­bly to replace the two cur­rent Cana­dian pay audio ser­vices, Galaxie and MaxTrax.

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) and a group of co-signatories (includ­ing ACTRA, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of Musi­cians, CIRPA, Union des Artistes, Our Pub­lic Air­waves and Friends of Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing) have had to inter­vene a third time this sum­mer against such an appli­ca­tion and oth­ers could come.

Rather than merely reject­ing the appli­ca­tions, we request that the CRTC hold a pub­lic hear­ing on the fun­da­men­tal cul­tural issues at stake in such appli­ca­tions. We believe that Cana­dian con­tent reg­u­la­tions have played (and must con­tinue to play) a cru­cial role in achiev­ing the objec­tives of the 1991 Broad­cast­ing Act and that they should be applied in appro­pri­ate fash­ion to all dis­tri­b­u­tion under­tak­ings, irre­spec­tive of the tech­nol­ogy used.

Lat­est infor­ma­tion: It’s now Vidéotron apply­ing to dis­trib­ute satel­lite radio! The domino effect continues!

Tell us what you think on CCA’s @gora

As announced in CCA Bul­letin 31/06, the CCA has launched a new online inter­ac­tive mag­a­zine called CCA’s @gora. CCA’s @gora is the lat­est com­mu­ni­ca­tions tool the CCA plans to use in the pur­suit of our mis­sion as a national leader in cre­at­ing informed debate about arts and cul­tural pol­icy issues in Canada. It is not intended to replace our fre­quent bul­letins to mem­bers, but will make more detailed infor­ma­tion on issues avail­able for your con­sul­ta­tion and consideration.

Please be sure to visit as the first edi­tion fea­tures the CCA’s short, mid and long-term pol­icy and advo­cacy objec­tives estab­lished fol­low­ing the March 2006 national con­fer­ences. There is also a report on the con­fer­ence pro­ceed­ings and we invite you to pro­vide your com­ments and ideas about the CCA’s cur­rent agenda of activities.

Get CCA’s Analy­sis of the 2006 Fed­eral Bud­get: where is the money going?

The CCA recently pub­lished its analy­sis of the 2006 fed­eral bud­get. CCA’s Annual Bud­get Analy­sis exam­ines fed­eral fund­ing to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage (DCH), cul­tural agen­cies and crown cor­po­ra­tions in Cana­dian Heritage’s port­fo­lio; orga­ni­za­tional and fund­ing changes within DCH; fed­eral fund­ing of key pro­grams across the arts, her­itage and cul­tural indus­tries, and other note­wor­thy devel­op­ments. A num­ber of key find­ings emerge in the analy­sis of the 2006 fed­eral bud­get, the first intro­duced by the new minor­ity government.

CCA Fundrais­ing Cam­paign Continues

Help the CCA work for you! Given the stake we all have in the fun­da­men­tal issues fac­ing art and cul­ture in the com­ing months, the CCA has begun a fund­ing drive in order to secure the resources required to meet the expec­ta­tions of its mem­bers and sup­port­ers. Down­load and com­plete a con­tri­bu­tion form today!