CCA Update from Parliament Hill

Bul­letin 40/05

Ottawa, Octo­ber 19, 2005 – The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) pre­sented “Set­ting the Stage”, its 2005 pre-budget sub­mis­sion, to the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance on Wednes­day Octo­ber 5. The

CCA appeared as wit­nesses along­side ACTRA, one of its mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions, as well as the Cana­dian Arts Sum­mit, the Cana­dian Library Asso­ci­a­tion, the Cana­dian Asso­ci­a­tion of Archivists and the Cana­dian Asso­ci­a­tion of Research Libraries. The full text of the 2005 pre-budget sub­mis­sion is available

on our web­site:  www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/publications/policy/documents/prebud06sep05v2.pdf

The hear­ing was unfor­tu­nately cut short due to Mem­bers of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee being called to the House for nine votes. The Chair, Mr. Mas­simo Pacetti (Saint-Léonard–Saint-Michel, Que­bec), remained until all of the pre­sen­ta­tions were fin­ished and then adjourned the meet­ing before com­mit­tee mem­bers had a chance to ask ques­tions of the wit­nesses. The pre­sen­ters agreed to the adjourn­ment, as they were told that the votes could take any­where between two to three hours.  Full tran­scripts of the short­ened meet­ing are avail­able online at: http://www.parl.gc.ca/infocomdoc/38/1/FINA/Meetings/Evidence/FINAEV88-E.HTM#Int-1402503

There appears to be a broad con­sen­sus around the call for increased fed­eral fund­ing to the arts in keep­ing with the plat­form of the Cana­dian Arts Coali­tion, which is call­ing for a fund­ing increase of five dol­lars per capita to the arts through the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts. There was also strong con­sen­sus about the res­o­lu­tion of the tax sta­tus of artists and arts pro­fes­sion­als, as well as the need for increased fund­ing to Canada’s muse­ums as part of the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage’s exer­cise to update its muse­ums policy.

The pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions are an annual rit­ual and it goes with­out say­ing that no one appears before the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee to express sat­is­fac­tion with fed­eral fis­cal invest­ments at their cur­rent level.

Every group has a “shop­ping list” of finan­cial and pol­icy requests and the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee mem­bers patiently and atten­tively lis­ten to each presentation.

The Com­mit­tee report on the con­sul­ta­tions is deliv­ered to the Min­is­ter of Finance and his Depart­ment in prepa­ra­tion for the next fed­eral bud­get. It is only on bud­get day that Cana­di­ans learn which of the rec­om­men­da­tions have made their way into the national finan­cial plan. The fed­eral bud­get is usu­ally unveiled in Feb­ru­ary or March each year. How­ever, the pos­si­bil­ity of an early elec­tion after the antic­i­pated release of Jus­tice John Gomery’s report could derail this tra­di­tion in 2006, push­ing a bud­get into April or May.

The CCA also met recently with Mr. Will Adams, Pol­icy Advi­sor to the Hon. Ralph Goodale, Min­is­ter of Finance, and Rob Cham­bers, from the Social Pol­icy Divi­sion of the Depart­ment of Finance to dis­cuss fund­ing of the arts.  Andrew Ter­ris, Interim National Direc­tor of the CCA, and James Mis­sen, Cul­tural Pol­icy Advi­sor, explained that the share of fed­eral fund­ing to the arts is quite dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the size and growth rate of the sec­tor.  The meet­ing was orga­nized in order to dis­cuss key find­ings about regional and sec­toral dis­pro­por­tions in fed­eral fund­ing addressed in CCA’s July 2005 report, “Gov­ern­ment Spend­ing on Cul­ture in Canada, 1992–93 to 2002–03”.  Pre­pared by Kelly Hill of Hill Strate­gies Research Inc., the report is avail­able online at: www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/publications/policy/documents/KellyHillFinal_001.pdf