ADVOCACY ALERT! SMALL WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN ONLINE 2006 PRE-BUDGET CONSULTATIONS!

CCA Bul­letin 20/06

April 10, 2006

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has learned that just last Thurs­day April 6 the Hon. Jim Fla­herty, Min­ster of Finance, announced that the Gov­ern­ment of Canada is indeed car­ry­ing out pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions for its upcom­ing 2006-07 fed­eral bud­get.

How­ever, this year’s process dif­fers sig­nif­i­cantly from the pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions held by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment in recent years.  With rumours of a bud­get being tabled in late April or early May and the gov­ern­ment con­tin­u­ing to oper­ate on more than $2.3 bil­lion in Gov­er­nor Gen­eral Spe­cial War­rants accu­mu­lated since the begin­ning of the elec­tion, this year’s con­sul­ta­tion is being car­ried out online… and in a record num­ber of days: thir­teen (which includes the Easter Hol­i­day week­end in the middle!).

In his April 6 press release, Min­is­ter Fla­herty notes that the con­sul­ta­tion process “is another exam­ple of how the new gov­ern­ment is tak­ing account­abil­ity and open­ness to a higher level”.  Unfor­tu­nately there has been very lit­tle media cov­er­age of the Minister’s invi­ta­tion to Cana­di­ans to par­tic­i­pate, nor does it appear there has been any sig­nif­i­cant plan­ning on the part of his Min­istry to allow for more thor­ough pub­lic hear­ings to allow for tes­ti­monies from Cana­di­ans from across the coun­try and from all walks of life. While the CCA wel­comes the man­i­fest inten­tion of broad­en­ing account­abil­ity through such forms of con­sul­ta­tion process, we can­not but help sug­gest that it could be bet­ter orga­nized and adver­tised next time.

Regard­less, the CCA will inter­vene online in the com­ing days by re-circulating our 2006 pre-budget sub­mis­sion from last autumn, enti­tled “Set­ting the Stage”, along with a cov­er­ing let­ter to Min­is­ter Fla­herty artic­u­lat­ing the CCA’s top five key short-term pri­or­i­ties for the arts and cul­tural sec­tor that emerged from our recent National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence and Board meetings.

The CCA’s own imme­di­ate five pri­or­i­ties for the 2006 fed­eral bud­get are for the Gov­ern­ment of Canada to:

1. Intro­duce all com­po­nents of the Novem­ber 23, 2005 announce­ment to increase fed­eral fis­cal invest­ment in the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, the cul­tural pro­grams of the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs, national train­ing insti­tu­tions, etc.;
2. Announce a new fed­eral muse­ums pol­icy with increased funding;
3. Finance the CBC’s plan to expand regional programming;
4. Rein­state income aver­ag­ing for artists and cul­tural work­ers, as well as poli­cies to enable cre­ators to exempt copy­right income from taxation;
5. Expand the planned tax credit of $500 for par­ents of young Cana­di­ans under the age of 16 who enroll their chil­dren in pro­grams pro­mot­ing phys­i­cal activ­ity to also include a tax credit for par­ents enroll their chil­dren enrolled in arts and cul­tural activities.

Orga­ni­za­tional and indi­vid­ual mem­bers of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) are strongly encour­aged to take the time to par­tic­i­pate in the online pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions before the clos­ing date of next Wednes­day April 19 2006 by advo­cat­ing for increased fis­cal invest­ment and bet­ter tax­a­tion poli­cies for Canada’s artists and the cul­tural sec­tor as a whole.  This is in par­tic­u­lar an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to sup­port the Cana­dian Arts Coalition’s demand for more invest­ment in artis­tic cre­ativ­ity and excel­lence through a sub­stan­tial increase to the Canada Council’s budget.

Again, details of this gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tive can be found online. One can par­tic­i­pate by send­ing com­ments in writ­ing to budget2006consult@fin.gc.ca.  Accord­ing to the Minister’s April 6 release, “The con­sul­ta­tion is open to any­body inter­ested in par­tic­i­pat­ing”, so let us work col­lec­tively to demon­strate that Canada’s arts and cul­tural sec­tor is indeed very inter­ested in the government’s plans for invest­ing in our shared cul­ture, “for Bud­get 2006 and beyond.”