Fallout from the Federal Budget… Continues

CCA Bul­letin 08/12

May 3, 2012

The CCA con­tin­ues to iden­tify the cul­tural impacts of fed­eral bud­get. On April 30th, sev­eral depart­ments and agen­cies announced a third wave of cuts to the fed­eral pub­lic ser­vice. Today, the sta­tis­tics we need and impacts on col­lec­tive memory.

Sta­tis­tics Canada – Will the Cul­tural Sec­tor be Deprived of Essen­tial Data?

Addi­tional cuts at Sta­tis­tics Canada ($33.9 mil­lion between now and 2014–2015) will push many employ­ees out the door. More than 2300 employ­ees have received notice that their job is at risk with the final elim­i­na­tion of 270 posi­tions. Over the last few years, suc­ces­sive bud­get cuts at Stats Can have seri­ously affected the orga­ni­za­tion. The reduc­tions result­ing from the 2008 cuts were for the most part absorbed through inter­nal restruc­tur­ing and increas­ing effi­cien­cies. Last year the agency, like other agen­cies and depart­ments, had to take mea­sures to face three years of infla­tion on goods and ser­vices and salary increases. And to the loss of $33.9 mil­lion announced in the 2012–2013 bud­get, one must add the impact on Stats Can of the cuts imposed in other depart­ments, which are its main clients (includ­ing Cana­dian Her­itage) and which, through cost recov­ery, con­tribute 20% of the agency’s budget.

Although cul­ture sta­tis­tics at Stats Can have known a slow decline, par­tic­u­larly since the cuts of the mid-90s, the cul­tural sec­tor hasn’t suf­fered too much of those of more recent years. Still, use­ful sur­veys like radio and tele­vi­sion view­er­ship were aban­doned, depriv­ing Cana­di­ans of an impor­tant tool for analy­sis. But, the sec­tor is impacted  by other deci­sions by the gov­ern­ment which have lit­tle to do with the bud­get. The deci­sion to put an end to the long form cen­sus is bound to affect the infor­ma­tion avail­able to the cul­tural sec­tor, to the gov­ern­ment and to soci­ety in gen­eral when try­ing to assess and plan policies.

For now, it is too early to know pre­cisely how the cuts announced on Mon­day will play out. One thing is cer­tain how­ever, Stats Can pre­dicts that sev­eral eco­nomic indi­ca­tors will dis­ap­pear from the land­scape and the agency has already warned that the country’s eco­nomic overview each month will be more lim­ited. Accord­ing to many econ­o­mists and researchers these cuts can­not be applied with­out harm­ing the col­lec­tion of data.

On the good news side, Cana­dian Her­itage con­firms that the project for a satel­lite account for cul­ture sta­tis­tics con­tin­ues on its merry way. The third phase of the fea­si­bil­ity study spon­sored by the depart­ment has been suc­cess­fully com­pleted and the fourth and final phase is on its way. This means that by March 2013, we should have a com­pleted tem­plate. It remains to be seen what future gov­ern­ment deci­sions hold for this key project for the arts, cul­tural and her­itage sec­tors. First ques­tion: will some of the key data for this account still be col­lected by the Ser­vice Indus­tries Divi­sion of Stats Canada, which took over respon­si­bil­ity of the cul­ture sur­veys fur­ther to the 2008 reor­ga­ni­za­tion within the agency? For the moment, we don’t know the impact that the cuts announced this week will have on this part of Stats Can.

Her­itage

The good news announced pre­vi­ously on national muse­ums and the pro­gram in The Mag­a­zine from April 26th, does not mean that the her­itage sec­tor has been spared com­pletely. The deci­sions that are emerg­ing tend to show oth­er­wise, even while the gov­ern­ment focuses on the com­mem­o­ra­tion of his­tor­i­cal events they have deemed important.

Parks Canada: Impacts on Local Tourism?

Our parks and his­toric sites are a key ele­ment of the tourism indus­try, it seems appar­ent that many of our national parks are not get­ting enough vis­i­tors. This helps to jus­tify that 1689 posi­tions at Parks Canada have been declared at risk. Changed from the juris­dic­tion of Her­itage to Envi­ron­ment Canada a few years ago, the agency is respon­si­ble for national his­tor­i­cal sites like the Rideau Canal in Ottawa, which is a des­ig­nated UNESCO World Her­itage Site. In order to save money, the agency is con­vert­ing many of the remain­ing employ­ees from full-time to part-time sea­sonal work.  Fur­ther­more,  Some Parks such as the Forges de St-Maurice have already announced the elim­i­na­tion of guided tours and a shorter sea­son. Even one of the jew­els of Parks Canada, the Fortress of Louis­bourg, will not be spared.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC): Con­se­quences for our Col­lec­tive History

There have been severe cuts at LAC which will obvi­ously have an impact on the institution’s abil­ity to pre­serve our her­itage and serve as our con­tin­u­ing mem­ory. After this third wave being sent out, 43% (234 employ­ees) of  Pub­lic Ser­vice Alliance of Canada mem­bers who work at Library and Archives Canada have been given notices.  LAC  has con­firmed that 20% of its work­force or 105 posi­tions will be elim­i­nated. The sit­u­a­tion was already far from rosy at LAC and things have cer­tainly not improved.

Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage

Of the 1777 employ­ees at the Her­itage Depart­ment, 190 have received their notices. Over the next three years 275 posi­tions will be elim­i­nated 111 of which are vacant positions.

Under­stand­ing Canada: Cana­dian Studies

Now, if for­eign stu­dents want to study our coun­try, they must do so entirely at their own expense. This thirty year-old pro­gram has been abol­ished. Last Mon­day, the embassies and high-commissioners called ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the pro­gram to announce its elim­i­na­tion. One of our part­ners the Asso­ci­a­tion for Cana­dian Stud­ies in the United States will be deprived of $95,000 per year. A cam­paign to lobby the Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs has already begun.