ALTERNATIVE FEDERAL BUDGET 2004: REBUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS

“The Alter­na­tive Fed­eral Bud­get con­tin­ues to sub­scribe to the view that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment should play a lead­ing role in eco­nomic, social and cul­tural pol­icy, in devel­op­ing national cul­tural insti­tu­tions, enforc­ing stan­dards for social pro­grams, and build­ing a strong national economy.”

Alter­na­tive Fed­eral Bud­get 2004, Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alternatives

Ottawa , March 16, 2004 —   For the past ten years, the Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alter­na­tives has pro­duced alter­na­tive fed­eral bud­gets, timed to coin­cide with the fed­eral bud­get.   The goal from the out­set has been “to show that gov­ern­ments do have choices*”, with the result­ing annual Alter­na­tive Fed­eral Bud­get (AFB) demon­strat­ing “what a gov­ern­ment could do if it were truly com­mit­ted to a pro­gres­sive social and eco­nomic agenda”.

For the first time, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts was involved in the process this year, pro­vid­ing input into the sec­tion on cul­ture.   This sec­tion stresses the need to invest not only in tra­di­tional con­cepts of infra­struc­ture (such as roads and sew­ers) but also in cul­tural infra­struc­ture.   Link­ing the pres­ence of the arts in urban regen­er­a­tion to attract­ing new busi­nesses, improv­ing qual­ity of life, and pro­mot­ing tourism, “the AFB will pro­vide increased, sta­ble, multi-year fund­ing to Canada ‘s national cul­tural insti­tu­tions and agencies”.

The sec­tion on cul­ture focusses this year on broad­cast­ing; the rec­om­men­da­tions for spe­cific bud­getary mea­sures include:

•              Restore and enhance the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund (an increase of $250 mil­lion over four years).

•              Increase fund­ing to the CBC ($1 bil­lion over four years, con­di­tional on a CBC com­mit­ment to restore capac­ity at the local/regional level).

•              Cre­ate a new invest­ment fund to encour­age local broad­cast­ing ($100 mil­lion annu­ally, phased in over four years).

The plight of Canada ‘s artists is also out­lined in the cul­ture sec­tion, with the AFB under­tak­ing to “strengthen the Sta­tus of the Artist leg­is­la­tion to ensure improved access to social ben­e­fits”.   Its sug­gested reform of the Employ­ment Insur­ance sys­tem would ensure access to ben­e­fits for artists who are employ­ees for part of their work­ing lives but whose aggre­gate hours do not qual­ify them for EI ben­e­fits, as well as access to ben­e­fits for self-employed artists sim­i­lar to the model cur­rently in use for fishers.

Other mea­sures which could also ben­e­fit Canada ‘s artists include improved access to af ford­able hous­ing and inves­ti­gat­ing the fea­si­bil­ity of a guar­an­teed ade­quate income.

The AFB urges the gov­ern­ment to “seek ways to prune back the most egre­gious aspects of NAFTA — for exam­ple, work­ing with NAFTA part­ners to strengthen social and cul­tural exemp­tions.… [through] mul­ti­lat­eral forums to forge agree­ments in the area of … cul­ture … that are enforce­able and super­sede the rules in agree­ments like the WTO and NAFTA”.

The Alter­na­tive Fed­eral Bud­get also cov­ers areas such as pub­lic infra­struc­ture, tax fair­ness, abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples, for­eign pol­icy, health care, edu­ca­tion, and much more.   To read the com­plete AFB, go to the Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alter­na­tives’ web­site at www.policyalternatives.ca

Mean­while, the “real” Bud­get is sched­uled for Tues­day 23 March.   As usual, CCA will be involved in the lock-up, and will pro­vide mem­bers with an imme­di­ate mini-analysis.   This will be fol­lowed a few weeks’ later by a com­plete analy­sis of the Bud­get and its impli­ca­tions to those in the cul­tural sec­tor.   Stay tuned!

* All quotes have been taken from the Alter­na­tive Fed­eral Bud­get 2004, pro­duced by the Cana­dian Cen­tre for Pol­icy Alternatives