CCA ADVOCACY ALERT — THE TIME TO DEFEND FEDERAL ARTS AND CULTURE FUNDING IS NOW !

Ottawa , Novem­ber 15, 2004 — The press has been abuzz this past week with news of meet­ings in which Cana­dian Her­itage Min­is­ter Liza Frulla has been appeal­ing to the arts and cul­ture com­mu­nity to step up their advo­cacy efforts in sup­port of the renewal of the Tomor­row Starts Today (TST) fund­ing program.

The orig­i­nal TST ini­tia­tive was announced as a three year $560 mil­lion invest­ment in 2001 and was extended for a fourth year in 2004 for an addi­tional $207 mil­lion.   It is cur­rently sched­uled to con­clude at the end of March 2005.   CCA mem­bers are united in their sup­port for the exten­sion of TST on a per­ma­nent basis as the need for sus­tain­able fund­ing is urgent.   This rec­om­men­da­tion is issue #1 front and cen­tre in CCA’s 2004 Pre-Budget Sub­mis­sion (see CCA bul­letin 48/04), which we will present to the Finance Com­mit­tee on Novem­ber 23 rd .    CCA has also been ask­ing our mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als to write their MPs for many months now (see CCA bul­letins 41/04, 44/04 and 47/04) in order to advo­cate for TST .

In the Novem­ber 10 th edi­tion of Le Devoir , Paul Cau­chon reports that Mme. Frulla, in a speech to the film and tele­vi­sion indus­try in Mon­treal , urged atten­dees to “work together” with her to ensure that a pos­si­ble 5% reduc­tion in all fed­eral depart­men­tal spend­ing does not extend to Cana­dian Her­itage.   In par­tic­u­lar, the Min­is­ter cited the effec­tive­ness of the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund and the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts in demon­strat­ing how fed­eral fund­ing goes directly to the sup­port of cul­ture.   Any cuts would be seri­ously dam­ag­ing to the arts and cul­ture sec­tor in this coun­try, which is men­tioned in CCA’s 53/04 bul­letin when the 2004/05 Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates (A) were tabled in the House.

More reveal­ing is a Novem­ber 13 th arti­cle by Richard Ouzoun­ian in the Toronto Star that reports on a meet­ing this past Fri­day that the Min­is­ter held with major Toronto per­form­ing arts orga­ni­za­tions.   Accord­ing to the story, Mme. Frulla’s major agenda was alert­ing every­one to the pre­car­i­ous sta­tus of the TST pro­gram.   Kevin Gar­land, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the National Bal­let of Canada, is quoted as say­ing “There are ques­tions being raised in the House about the way the funds are being admin­is­tered and (Frulla’s) been called to defend it next week.”   The arti­cle goes on to say that, accord­ing to both Gar­land and Mar­tin Bragg, Artis­tic Pro­ducer of CanStage, “There (is) a very real chance Tomor­row Starts Today would not be renewed for another year.”   Report­edly, this Tues­day Novem­ber 16 th the Min­is­ter will have to defend the pro­gram in the House against the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party, which is con­cerned with its “accountability”.

CCA applauds its mem­ber orga­ni­za­tion the Pro­fes­sional Asso­ci­a­tion of Cana­dian The­atres ( PACT ) for ini­ti­at­ing an email-writing cam­paign in response to news of this immi­nent threat to the future finan­cial sup­port of Canada ‘s arts and cul­ture.   For details and infor­ma­tion on how you should par­tic­i­pate, see: http://www.pact.ca/act_GetFile.cfm?pdf=Advocacy%20Alert%20November%2015%2C%202004%2Epdf

The fol­low­ing is an excerpt from the Novem­ber 15 th PACT release:   “ PACT is urg­ing every­one in the cul­ture com­mu­nity, includ­ing those mem­bers of our audi­ence and local com­mu­nity who sup­port a strong Cana­dian cul­ture, to ACT TODAY.   Mr. Harper will be appear­ing in Par­lia­ment tomor­row — Tues­day, Novem­ber 16 th  — and is expected to address party con­cerns about account­abil­ity in the fund­ing processes at the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage and with the Tomor­row Starts Today program.”

“Each year, the offi­cial oppo­si­tion can request that a Min­is­ter come before Par­lia­ment to defend their portfolio’s spending. This year, PACT has been advised that the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party has tar­geted the Her­itage Depart­ment and will spend four hours ques­tion­ing the value of the Department’s direct spend­ing (for exam­ple on the pro­grams includ­ing Sta­bi­liza­tion, Cul­tural Spaces Canada, and Arts Pre­sen­ters that are part of the “Tomor­row Starts Today” pack­age) — and, possibly, funding to cul­tural agen­cies, includ­ing The Canada Council.  The Con­ser­v­a­tives have indi­cated that their con­cerns revolve around account­abil­ity, mea­sur­able results, whether the Department’s spend­ing pro­grams are ben­e­fi­cial to the com­mu­nity, and whether they pro­mote sus­tain­abil­ity. They are prepar­ing to mount the same attack on the exten­sion of “Tomor­row Starts Today” when it comes up for renewal.”

“This infor­ma­tion was obtained at a lun­cheon Fri­day Novem­ber 12 th from the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage Liza Frulla through staff of PACT Mem­ber the Lor­raine Kimsa The­atre for Young People.”

Fur­ther, CCA strongly encour­ages its mem­bers and mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions from through­out the sec­tor to not only write the leader of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party ( Harper.S@parl.gc.ca ), but to also send con­crete exam­ples of how TST works — and should be con­tin­ued! — to all the par­ties’ Cana­dian Her­itage crit­ics in the House of Com­mons, includ­ing the Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary.   Please address your let­ters to the fol­low­ing Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans as well, and copy CCA:

- Char­lie Angus, New Demo­c­ra­tic Party:   Angus.C@parl.gc.ca

- Maka Kotto, Bloq Québe­cois:   Kotto.M@parl.gc.ca

- Bev Oda, Con­ser­v­a­tive Party:   Oda.B@parl.gc.ca

- Hon. Sar­mite Bulte, Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Cana­dian Her­itage, Lib­eral Party:   Bulte.S@parl.gc.ca

“The non-renewal of TST would put thou­sands of projects at risk and affect employ­ment in the arts across the coun­try.   It would dras­ti­cally reduce Cana­di­ans’ access to their cul­ture,” says Jean Malavoy, CCA National Direc­tor.  “CCA recently sent each of the 308 Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment a copy of the book The Art of Devel­op­ment and the Devel­op­ment of Art: A Pow­er­ful Part­ner­ship — Busi­ness, Com­mu­nity and the Arts , by Sil­ver Don­ald Cameron.  We urge MPs to take the time to read this small book and learn just how valu­able a role the arts play in Cana­dian communities.”

The time to advo­cate is now… tomor­row may be too late!