A NEW CANADIAN CULTURAL POLICY

Bul­letin 4/05

Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 21, 2005 — The Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, Liza Frulla, has frequently

men­tioned her inter­est in devel­op­ing a fed­eral cul­tural pol­icy for Canada:

“Let us talk about cul­tural pol­icy. It has three objec­tives. The first and most

impor­tant one is to put the cre­ator at the core of our con­cerns. The sec­ond one is to

strengthen our Cana­dian iden­tity. Finally, the third objec­tive is to promote

acces­si­bil­ity. We want to ensure that peo­ple not only appre­ci­ate what our creators

do, but that they have access to their work.”

(Com­mit­tee of the Whole, Novem­ber 16, 2004).

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has been involved in the fed­eral cul­tural policy

debate for decades. In June 1998, it pub­lished the Final Report of the Work­ing Group on Cultural

Pol­icy for the 21st Cen­tury.  As the Work­ing Group stated in the Exec­u­tive Sum­mary, it viewed

“the imple­men­ta­tion of a fed­eral cul­tural pol­icy as an essen­tial affir­ma­tion of the sov­er­eign right of

Canada to man­age its domes­tic cul­tural affairs in the way it best sees fit”. The Report’s

rec­om­men­da­tions remain rel­e­vant today.  For your infor­ma­tion in the cur­rent debate, CCA

has posted the Exec­u­tive Sum­mary and rec­om­men­da­tions on CCA’s website.

Why now?

There has prob­a­bly never been a bet­ter time in Canada to re-assess the fed­eral policy

frame­work.  There is a min­is­ter in charge of Cana­dian Her­itage with an expressed inter­est in

the issue. DCH is cur­rently devel­op­ing a Green Paper on the issue. Also, in a rare show of

sol­i­dar­ity, all par­ties are cur­rently demon­strat­ing a com­mon inter­est in cul­ture (wit­ness their

sup­port for the renewal of Tomor­row Starts Today).

What will a cul­tural pol­icy do?

It will pro­vide a frame­work of coher­ent prin­ci­ples, objec­tives and means to knit together the

many threads that exist today in the cul­tural arena. Our cur­rent cul­tural poli­cies are a

piece­meal affair, and there is very lit­tle dia­logue to cre­ate a com­mon vision. A cul­tural policy

will dis­play a long-term vision for those who con­trol the pub­lic purse — min­is­ters, MPs, and

bureau­crats.

Mea­sures which relate to cul­ture are not only housed in the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage;

depart­ments such as Finance, Indus­try, National Rev­enue, For­eign Affairs, and Human

Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment also need to be consulted.

Tell us what you think

Devel­op­ment of a fed­eral cul­tural pol­icy is a very impor­tant next step for Canada.

Con­se­quently, CCA’s next national pol­icy con­fer­ence, sched­uled for Novem­ber 2005 (exact

date and venue TBA), will focus on this issue, with strate­gic study ses­sions for cer­tain specific

issues.  What are your thoughts on a fed­eral cul­tural pol­icy?  How should it be developed?

What are the key ele­ments?  Please direct your com­ments over the next few weeks to

info@ccarts.ca; dead­line for sub­mis­sion: 14 Feb­ru­ary 2005.

Jean Malavoy

National Direc­tor