Five Dollars More — Canadian Arts Coalition Lobbies Parliament

Ottawa, Octo­ber 26, 2005 – Over 70 activists from across the coun­try, includ­ing such lumi­nar­ies as
film­maker Deepa Mehta, actress Cyn­thia Dale, and dancer Veron­ica Ten­nant, con­verged on Par­lia­ment
Hill on Tues­day 25 Octo­ber to state the case for new arts fund­ing.
Divided into teams of 2 to 5 peo­ple, they met with roughly 78 Cab­i­net min­is­ters, party lead­ers, MPs and
Sen­a­tors from all par­ties. Their mes­sage was as loud and clear as it was sim­ple: increase fed­eral arts
fund­ing by $5 per Cana­dian, and do it through the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts.
CCA board and staff (CCA Pres­i­dent Robert Spick­ler, Board mem­ber Bastien Gilbert, Interim National
Direc­tor Andrew Ter­ris) and numer­ous CCA mem­bers were among the many peti­tion­ers mak­ing the
rounds on the Hill. In gen­eral, the Coalition’s rec­om­men­da­tions were met with inter­ested atten­tion,
informed ques­tions, and what appeared to be gen­uine promises of sup­port – almost across the board.
The Coalition’s Lobby Day ended with a lively recep­tion in the Sen­ate Cham­bers which allowed
par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and their staff of meet infor­mally with Coali­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Among those
attend­ing were Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Anne McClel­lan, Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage Liza Frulla,
Min­is­ter of National Defence Bill Gra­ham, Min­is­ter of National Rev­enue John McCal­lum, Min­is­ter of
Human Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment Belinda Stronach, NDP Leader Jack Lay­ton, CPC cul­ture critic
Bev Oda, and NDP cul­ture critic Char­lie Angus. The high­light of the recep­tion was an impas­sioned plea
by Albert Schultz from Soulpep­per The­atre in Toronto, who made the case, in no uncer­tain terms, for
gen­er­ous pub­lic sup­port of Cana­dian cre­ativ­ity.
While Coali­tion activists may have left the Hill feel­ing exhil­a­rated by the events of the day, they are well
aware that this is just the begin­ning of the cam­paign. The next step is to ensure that the issue is not
for­got­ten, and that indi­vid­ual MPs are aggres­sively lob­bied in their own rid­ings by local artists and arts
orga­ni­za­tions.
Tuesday’s Lobby Day was pre­ceded on Mon­day by a meet­ing of the National Arts Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tions
(NASOs) at the offices of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts. Coun­cil staff out­lined the Arts Division’s new
action plan and tabled the 2004 Mac­Skim­ming report on Council’s rela­tion­ship with the NASOs. The
report con­tained three key rec­om­men­da­tions, one of which was that Coun­cil should hold an annual
NASO sum­mit in con­junc­tion with the CCA’s annual Chalmers Con­fer­ence. Given its man­date for arts
lead­er­ship, this is a rec­om­men­da­tion that the CCA will def­i­nitely be act­ing on.