CCA urges the government to keep investing in arts and culture beyond Canada’s Economic Action Plan

CCA Bul­letin 21/10

August 16, 2010

 

 

Just the Facts

On Fri­day August 13, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) sub­mit­ted its pre-budget brief for 2011 to the House of Com­mons Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance. In it, the CCA frames the man­ner in which the fed­eral gov­ern­ment should invest in arts and cul­ture, and empha­sizes the need for the gov­ern­ment to con­tinue its com­mit­ment of sta­ble fund­ing for arts and cul­ture as we come to the end of Canada’s Eco­nomic Action Plan.

The CCA out­lines pri­or­i­ties to sta­bi­lize and enrich the eco­nomic capac­ity of the cre­ative sec­tor. The com­plete sub­mis­sion defines six rec­om­men­da­tions for investment:

1. Audi­ence and mar­ket devel­op­ment at home and abroad: The CCA asks the gov­ern­ment to ded­i­cate $40 mil­lion of “new money” in order to expand its capac­ity to sup­port mar­ket devel­op­ment nation­ally and inter­na­tion­ally for Cana­dian artists, cul­tural insti­tu­tions and industries.

2. Canada Coun­cil for the Arts: The CCA asks the gov­ern­ment to increase the base bud­get of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts by an addi­tional $30 mil­lion per year begin­ning in 2011-12, with a view to reach $300 mil­lion by 2015.

3. Train­ing and Internship/Mentorship Oppor­tu­ni­ties: The Depart­ment of Human Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment (HRSDC) should expand access to EI train­ing sup­port for the self-employed. Also, HRSDC should ded­i­cate $1 mil­lion per year for five years to fos­ter the pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment of cul­tural work­ers through intern­ships and mentorships.

4. National Museum Pol­icy: The CCA asks that in the con­text of a new National Museum Pol­icy, the gov­ern­ment ded­i­cate an addi­tional $50 mil­lion to pro­mote Canada’s national her­itage, exhibit Cana­dian sto­ries and pre­serve our culture.

5. Cul­tural Sta­tis­tics: The CCA requests that the gov­ern­ment give an addi­tional $1 mil­lion to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage (PCH) to develop and main­tain a satel­lite account for cul­ture at Sta­tis­tics Canada, as is done for tourism and the vol­un­tary sector.

6. Invest­ment Incen­tives: Finally, the CCA sup­ports Imag­ine Canada’s sug­ges­tion to estab­lish a “stretch” tax credit that would increase the fed­eral char­i­ta­ble tax credit by an addi­tional 10% on all new giv­ing up to $10,000, in order to increase the flow of char­i­ta­ble gifts from Canadians.

Tell me more

Accord­ing to a report pre­pared by the Con­fer­ence Board of Canada for the Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil (CHRC), “the cul­tural sec­tor of Canada’s econ­omy will be hit harder by the global reces­sion than the over­all Cana­dian econ­omy.” The real value-added out­put in the cul­tural sec­tor “is expected to be 4.8% lower in 2009 than it would have been had there not been a reces­sion”. This reduc­tion, which amounts to $2.2 bil­lion, is more sig­nif­i­cant than the 4.0% reduc­tion expected in the over­all Cana­dian econ­omy. On the other hand, rev­enues for Canada’s cul­ture sec­tor are expected to be 4.3% —or about $3.1 billion—lower in 2009 than they would have been in the absence of a global recession.

Apart from gov­ern­ment fund­ing, cul­tural non-profit groups rely on phil­an­thropy to sur­vive. This is why it is wor­ry­ing to note that, “endow­ment, dona­tions and other rev­enues are expected to be most strongly affected (a 16% reduc­tion), due to the weak econ­omy and the decline in stock mar­kets.” The [CHRC] report indi­cates that this will likely have the largest effect on the per­form­ing arts and her­itage sec­tors. Cer­tain arts and cul­ture fields depend heav­ily on busi­ness adver­tis­ing, and endow­ments will suf­fer an even greater loss in rev­enues because of the impact of the global reces­sion on these two rev­enue sources.

In its sub­mis­sion, the CCA applauds the deci­sion of the gov­ern­ment to allow cul­tural agen­cies under review to keep the 5% of their funds which they had iden­ti­fied as “lower pri­or­ity”. The CCA wel­comes the view of the gov­ern­ment that the CBC, the National Film Board, Tele­film and the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts are all meet­ing the objec­tives and pri­or­i­ties of this gov­ern­ment. How­ever, the CCA opposes the deci­sion to replace the manda­tory long-form cen­sus with a vol­un­tary house­hold sur­vey, whose qual­ity and use­ful­ness has been crit­i­cized by all experts.  The CCA deems it con­trary to respon­si­ble man­age­ment of Cana­dian tax­pay­ers’ money to waste an extra $30 mil­lion to gather data that can­not be relied upon to develop fact-based pub­lic poli­cies.

In con­clu­sion, the CCA states that while it under­stands the neces­sity to start elim­i­nat­ing the annual fed­eral bud­get deficit, it would be very short-sighted to slash invest­ments in the arts and cul­ture sec­tor, par­tic­u­larly given the fact that it still has to expe­ri­ence the main impacts of the recent eco­nomic crisis.

Arts and cul­ture are impor­tant com­po­nents of the cre­ative econ­omy — where Canada’s future lies. In the dig­i­tal age, it is of utmost impor­tance for a nation to not only invest in dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture, but also in con­tent devel­op­ment. Cana­di­ans have a duty to sup­port the devel­op­ment of all forms of cul­tural con­tent that reflects their iden­tity as a nation, con­tributes to the country’s rep­u­ta­tion abroad and sup­ports our com­mer­cial objec­tives on the inter­na­tional scene, while at the same time, mak­ing an impor­tant finan­cial con­tri­bu­tion to the domes­tic economy.

What can I do?

Voice your sup­port for the CCA’s rec­om­men­da­tions by send­ing an email to your MP, Min­is­ter James Moore, Min­is­ter Jim Fla­herty and Prime Min­is­ter Harper. Also con­tact the Leader of the Oppo­si­tion and the lead­ers of the NDP and the Bloc Québé­cois.