CCA’S 2005 FEDERAL BUDGET ANALYSIS NOW AVAILABLE

Bul­letin 23/05

Ottawa, May 12, 2005 — The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) would like to announce that our annual in-depth analy­sis of the Fed­eral Bud­get is now avail­able on our web­site in both Eng­lish and French.  Please visit: http://ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/publications/policy/index.html#Budget

 

Enti­tled “Tomor­row Sees Another Day” , with ref­er­ence to the renewal of the essen­tial Tomor­row Starts Today cul­tural fund­ing pro­gram, CCA’s 2005 bud­get analy­sis con­tains some wel­come news for the sec­tor, as it attempts to make con­nec­tions between fis­cal allo­ca­tions and fed­eral gov­ern­ment pol­icy direc­tions.  More­over, the analy­sis does not shy away from ask­ing the tough ques­tions where dis­crep­an­cies arise and, obvi­ously, the doc­u­ment now sits in the shadow of the fed­eral elec­tion clouds cur­rently loom­ing over­head in Ottawa. Just hours ago, Prime Min­is­ter Rt. Hon. Paul Mar­tin announced that there will be a con­fi­dence vote on the buget bill in the House of Com­mons on Thurs­day, May 19.

 

“Tomor­row Sees Another Day” exam­ines over­all fed­eral fund­ing lev­els to the Depart­ment of

Cana­dian Her­itage (DCH), cul­tural agen­cies and crown cor­po­ra­tions; orga­ni­za­tional and fund­ing changes within the DCH; fed­eral fund­ing of key pro­grams across the arts, her­itage, and cul­tural indus­tries, and other note­wor­thy devel­op­ments for the sector.

 

The analy­sis will pro­vide mem­bers, as well as pol­icy and deci­sion mak­ers, with insights regarding:

 

• The “big pic­ture” of fed­eral fund­ing lev­els to arts, cul­ture, and her­itage, i.e.Where is the money going?; How are indi­vid­ual pro­grams work­ing?; How will expen­di­ture review affect the sector?
• A detailed exam­i­na­tion of cru­cial fund­ing issues, trends, chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties on a sub-sectoral basis, with ref­er­ence to spe­cific programs.
• Recent fund­ing and orga­ni­za­tional changes in the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage.

 

• Cur­rent devel­op­ments in the sec­tor beyond fed­eral fund­ing, includ­ing: the Work­place skills strat­egy, Copy­right Reform, the Cana­dian Coun­cil on Learn­ing, and the Com­mis­sion on the Review of Fed­eral Labour Standards.

 

Sev­eral key find­ings emerge from CCA’s 2005 bud­get analy­sis, including:

 

• A com­mit­ment of $860 mil­lion over five years for the renewal of Tomor­row Starts Today, until March 2010.

 

• A rel­a­tively steady level of fed­eral fund­ing for the arts, cul­ture, and her­itage sec­tor, with only a mod­est decline in fund­ing to some pro­grams, orga­ni­za­tions and agen­cies across the sector.

 

• Uncer­tainty sur­round­ing the afore­men­tioned fund­ing com­mit­ments for Tomor­row Starts Today in the event of a fed­eral election.

 

• Uncer­tainty sur­round­ing the impli­ca­tions of real­lo­ca­tion and expen­di­ture reviews for the cul­tural sector.

 

• How DCH has under­taken a restruc­tur­ing of its man­age­ment frame­work by refor­mu­lat­ing the way it con­ceives its key pol­icy out­comes, pro­gram activ­i­ties, and the rela­tion­ship between its out­comes and activities.

 

Over­all, notwith­stand­ing the poten­tial areas of con­cern, this bud­get attests to the strong and suc­cess­ful advo­cacy efforts of CCA mem­bers through­out the last year.  Unfor­tu­nately, as was men­tioned in CCA’s pre­vi­ous bul­letin (see CCA Bul­letin 22/05 “ADVOCACY ALERT– Pre-Election Advo­cacy Starts To Take Shape”), in the cur­rent polit­i­cal envi­ron­ment in Ottawa, and with the increas­ing like­li­hood of an early fed­eral elec­tion call, the future of the 2005 Fed­eral Bud­get is some­what uncertain.

CONSERVATIVE PARTY HERITAGE CRITIC RESPONDS TO CCA 22/05 ADVOCACY ALERT

Fur­ther­more, CCA received cor­re­spon­dence from Con­ser­v­a­tive Party Her­itage Critic Bev Oda on May 9 artic­u­lat­ing her own stance, as well as that of her party, regard­ing the future of fed­eral fis­cal sup­port for the arts, cul­ture, and her­itage sec­tor.  Ms. Oda’s let­ter was received via email and the full text is avail­able for view­ing at:  http://www.ccarts.ca/en/documents/BevOdaletter_001.pdf

 

Ms. Oda wrote, “I want to be clear that the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party will hon­our all com­mit­ments made in the

bud­get to the cul­tural indus­tries even if the bud­get is not passed.  And regard­ing your con­cern on

infra­struc­ture fund­ing, in an open let­ter, dated May 6 2005, to Cana­dian munic­i­pal­i­ties, Stephen Harper has stated, ‘I want to reas­sure munic­i­pal rep­re­sen­ta­tives across Canada that even if this bud­get is not passed, there is no risk what­so­ever to promised infra­struc­ture fund­ing under a Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment.’  And he goes on to say, ‘….this fund­ing will be avail­able in the cur­rent fis­cal year.’”

 

Ms. Oda also men­tioned, “You point out ‘much of last year was spent on advo­cacy efforts in order to gain unan­i­mous sup­port from all of Canada’s fed­eral polit­i­cal par­ties for the renewal and exten­sion of TST.’

As you know I was the mem­ber of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage who made the motion ask­ing the Min­is­ter indi­cate to the cul­tural com­mu­nity of her inten­tions to renew Tomor­row Starts Today before the Christ­mas break.  In a mat­ter of days she did so.  I did this on behalf of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party that does not believe it is rea­son­able to keep the entire cul­tural com­mu­nity in limbo when plan­ning for the upcom­ing year or years is tak­ing place.”

 

MINISTER FRULLA OUTLINES SEVEN POINT AGENDA FOR CANADA’S CULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY

On May 9, Hon. Liza Frulla, Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, assumed the podium at the Cana­dian Club in Toronto for a lunchtime address.  In a speech enti­tled “How Cul­ture Defines Who We Are”, Min­is­ter Frulla described her­self as “a pas­sion­ate cham­pion for cul­ture,” and stated that cul­ture, “must be nur­tured, invested in, fought for, and cel­e­brated.”  To achieve this, she out­lined a seven-point agenda for Cana­dian cul­tural sov­er­eignty, which con­sists of:

 

1. Increas­ing finan­cial sup­port for the arts and Canada’s cul­tural indus­tries, includ­ing the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts.

2. Pro­tect­ing intel­lec­tual prop­erty through a strong, enforce­able copy­right inter­na­tional frame­work based in law.

3. Reform­ing Canada’s muse­ums and archives policies.

4. Ensur­ing that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment keeps its com­mit­ment to the provinces and ter­ri­to­ries so they can offer stu­dents an oppor­tu­nity to learn their sec­ond offi­cial language.

5. Renew­ing the rela­tion­ship with abo­rig­i­nal peo­ples, and pre­serv­ing Abo­rig­i­nal lan­guages and culture.

6. Strength­en­ing Canada’s broad­cast­ing sys­tem by:

• review­ing CRTC’s poli­cies and regulations;
• rethink­ing the role of the CBC and pri­vate broadcasters;
• address­ing the chal­lenges posed by high-definition television;
• main­tain­ing its own­er­ship in Cana­dian hands.

7. Pro­tect­ing global and cul­tural diver­sity by play­ing a lead­er­ship role at UNESCO to artic­u­late a new inter­na­tional instru­ment con­ven­tion that would guar­an­tee the rights of states to take mea­sures to sup­port artist and cre­ators across all forms of cul­tural expressions.

 

Her address touched on her belief that Canada’s cul­tural indus­tries are essen­tial to our iden­tity as Cana­di­ans, and why we need to pro­tect our cul­tural sov­er­eignty, while also being open to a world being trans­formed by tech­nol­ogy, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and globalization.

The full text of Min­is­ter Frulla’s speech is avail­able at: http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/pc-ch/min/discours-speech/2005–05-09_e.cfm