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FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT RELEASED

Bul­letin 1/05

Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 7, 2005 — The report of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance (Mov­ing Forward:

Bal­anc­ing Pri­or­i­ties and Mak­ing Choices for the Econ­omy of the Twenty-First Cen­tury) was released

just prior to the Christ­mas break.  It can be found at

http://www.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=96733

 

The report con­tains a sep­a­rate chap­ter for Cul­ture, with three sec­tions: what the federal

gov­ern­ment pro­vides; what the wit­nesses said; and what the Com­mit­tee believes.  The

rec­om­men­da­tion at the end of this chap­ter states:

 

Rec­om­men­da­tion 11

 

The fed­eral gov­ern­ment pro­vide sta­ble, long-term fund­ing to the fol­low­ing ele­ments of federal

sup­port for arts and cul­ture: the Tomor­row Starts Today pro­gram; the Canada Coun­cil for the

Arts; Tele­film Canada; the Muse­ums Assis­tance Pro­gram; the Com­mu­nity Access Program;

the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund and ini­tia­tives designed to pro­mote Cana­dian culture

inter­na­tion­ally.

 

More­over, the gov­ern­ment should increase fund­ing for the Cana­dian Broadcasting

Cor­po­ra­tion and Radio-Canada.

 

As well, the gov­ern­ment should allo­cate funds to build capac­ity and assist archives with

respect to archival content.

 

Finally, the gov­ern­ment should increase the Cana­dian Film or Video Pro­duc­tion Tax Credit to

30%.

 

The fol­low­ing is taken from the sec­tion “What the Com­mit­tee believes”:

 

… cul­ture is cen­tral to our qual­ity of life.  It helps to define who we are as indi­vid­u­als and who we are

as a nation….  The Com­mit­tee believe[s] that long-term and sta­ble fund­ing in a num­ber of areas is

required in order that activ­i­ties can be planned appro­pri­ately.  We are proud of what our artists -

regard­less of their medium — have accom­plished domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally, and feel that con­tin­ued fed­eral sup­port of arts and cul­ture is both desir­able and in the best inter­ests of Cana­di­ans….  We also believe that her­itage build­ings and muse­ums must be sup­ported and pre­served for our ben­e­fit, the ben­e­fit of future gen­er­a­tions, and the ben­e­fit of those who visit our country.”

 

Other com­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions of note include:

  • Sup­port was expressed for the role taken by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment as the

Inter­na­tional Con­ven­tion on the Pro­tec­tion of the Diver­sity of Cul­tural Con­tent and

Artis­tic Expres­sion is being devel­oped at UNESCO.  In par­tic­u­lar, cul­ture would be

exempted from inter­na­tional trade agreements.”

  • Rec­om­men­da­tion 25 urged the gov­ern­ment to amend the Employ­ment Insurance

Act “to estab­lish a trans­par­ent employ­ment insur­ance rate-setting process”.

 

In the dis­sent­ing opin­ions, Bloc Québé­cois made the fol­low­ing statement:

 

”The var­i­ous arts groups called for the can­cel­la­tion of cuts and rein­vest­ment in the bud­gets of various

orga­ni­za­tions such as the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, Tele­film Canada, the Canada Tele­film Fund, and

the Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.  The Com­mit­tee report reflects these issues, but omits an

impor­tant rec­om­men­da­tion from the pub­lish­ing world to elim­i­nate the GST on books.”

 

CCA was par­tic­u­larly grat­i­fied this year that cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions were grouped together for

the pre­sen­ta­tions — an almost unprece­dented occur­rence — as this undoubt­edly made the

mes­sages stronger.  One com­mon theme from all groups was the neces­sity to renew the

Tomor­row Starts Today (TST) ini­tia­tive, with a per­ma­nent fund­ing com­mit­ment.  This is an

issue which has united the sec­tor as no other in recent times, and the mes­sage was heard loud and clear

by the Com­mit­tee, as evi­denced in the above rec­om­men­da­tion.  [The TST fund­ing was renewed for a one year period just before the hol­i­days, with a fur­ther two years’ of fund­ing rumoured to be announced in the Bud­get next month (see Bul­letin 62/04, dated 15 December).]

 

Many groups also advo­cated for increased sup­port for the Canada Coun­cil and CBC.  On the heritage

front, the government’s out­dated museum pol­icy was cited, plus the need for increased fed­eral support

for muse­ums.

 

The Com­mit­tee is to be com­mended for pro­duc­ing such a com­pre­hen­sive report, espe­cially as the

par­lia­men­tary sched­ule imposed a short time frame.  The con­sul­ta­tions under­taken by the Standing

Com­mit­tee on Finance, and its sub­se­quent report, are an impor­tant ele­ment of the fed­eral budgetary

process but, as the report itself states, it is “just one tool that may be used to com­mu­ni­cate the pri­or­i­ties of Cana­di­ans to the Min­is­ter of Finance”.

 

CCA encour­ages its mem­bers to stay in con­tact with their own Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment dur­ing the House’s Jan­u­ary adjourn­ment, as a cau­cus meet­ing will be sched­uled for the end of the month — likely the last oppor­tu­nity for MPs to bring their con­stituents’ views to the table on the upcom­ing Budget.

 

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