FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: “Is the new Federal Accountability Act a responsible piece of legislation to pass ‘full steam ahead’?”

CCA Bul­letin 24/06

Ottawa, May 15, 2006

This was the ques­tion on everyone’s mind after a two and a half hour brief­ing meet­ing last week in the 22 nd floor board­room of the Depart­ment of Finance, orga­nized by the Cana­dian Asso­ci­a­tion of Man­u­fac­tur­ers and Exporters and attended by myself and Cul­tural Pol­icy Advi­sor, James Mis­sen , on behalf of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA).

Par­tic­i­pants were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of national advo­cacy and lobby groups, mostly from the busi­ness, inter­ested in know­ing what the lengthy omnibus bill means for them and the work that they do.

The ques­tions raised, the “enor­mous con­cerns and frus­tra­tions” expressed by the par­tic­i­pants, and the obvi­ous uneasi­ness of Trea­sury Board rep­re­sen­ta­tives faced with so many pointed ques­tions and com­ments could only draw sym­pa­thy for them!  This 273 page Act was cob­bled together in just over nine weeks: it was clear to all present that civil ser­vants were not engaged in policy-making but rather in con­tribut­ing at break-neck speed to a plat­form of deliv­ered goods for a minor­ity gov­ern­ment whose sole focus is on get­ting a major­ity at the ear­li­est strate­gi­cally con­ve­nient time. Blank faces and “you’ll have to wait for the reg­u­la­tions” were too often the only reac­tions that could be extracted from peo­ple at the head of the table.

The main con­cerns raised by par­tic­i­pants dealt with the risk of being unwit­tingly ensnared by the new leg­is­la­tion and reg­u­la­tions; the numer­ous loop­holes mak­ing imple­men­ta­tion dif­fi­cult; the nefar­i­ous impacts of the Act on recruit­ing peo­ple to work for orga­ni­za­tions like the CCA; unnec­es­sary addi­tional admin­is­tra­tive bur­dens, prob­lems with pri­vacy aspects, etc. A par­tic­i­pant even sug­gested some of the pro­vi­sions would likely be chal­lenged under the Char­ter of Rights.

Pick­ing up only on areas of inter­est to the arts and cul­tural sec­tor, Bill C-2, as the Fed­eral Account­abil­ity Bill is known, pur­ports amongst other things:

1. to reform the polit­i­cal process (financ­ing of polit­i­cal par­ties, role of Ethics Com­mis­sioner, tough­en­ing the Lob­by­ists Reg­is­tra­tion Act, etc.);
2. to make the pub­lic sec­tor (politi­cians, bureau­crats and grant recip­i­ents) more trans­par­ent and account­able as to how pub­lic money is spent;
3. to make qual­i­fied gov­ern­ment appointments;
4. to strengthen audit­ing and account­abil­ity within departments.

All lofty objec­tives, no doubt, but the devil is in the details and there seems to be ample rea­son for con­cern about such a piece of leg­is­la­tion being rail­roaded through Par­lia­ment to suit a largely elec­toral agenda.

While indi­ca­tions are that the gov­ern­ment is push­ing this through the House of Com­mons to have the law passed as soon as pos­si­ble, there will likely be oppor­tu­ni­ties to inter­vene when the bill goes to Sen­ate. There will also be a broader and “more flex­i­ble” con­sul­ta­tion when the reg­u­la­tions are devel­oped through­out the fall and win­ter. The Act is not expected to be fully imple­mented much before March 2007, coin­cid­ing nicely with the expected elec­tion and prior to the equally expected prob­lems it will create.

The CCA is open­ing a file on this impor­tant piece of leg­is­la­tion and will keep you posted.  Stay tu ned !

In other news.

Those of you who attended the CCA March Con­fer­ences will remem­ber that I had announced that the Sec­re­tariat would soon launch a new elec­tronic mag­a­zine called @gora and that the first con­tent would be ded­i­cated to the Con­fer­ences and to the Pol­icy Pri­or­i­ties estab­lished by the Board as a sequence to this major con­sul­ta­tive process.

I am glad to report that the work is pro­gress­ing, even if we are some­what late in deliv­ery. Changes in staffing and work processes within our team, added to gov­er­nance real­i­ties to make CCA’s pri­or­i­ties offi­cial and to the chal­lenges of cre­at­ing a brand new com­mu­ni­ca­tion tool have post­poned the first edi­tion some­what. We should be able to present you with the very first issue of @gora in the third week of June, after the next Board meet­ing has for­mally approved CCA’s Pol­icy Pri­or­i­ties and Action Plan for the com­ing year or so.

And finally, the Cen­sus!

The CCA fully sup­ports the fol­low­ing mes­sage from our good friends at Hill Strate­gies: we encour­age all mem­bers of the Cana­dian arts and cul­ture sec­tor to fill out their 2006 Cen­sus ques­tion­naires as fully and accu­rately as pos­si­ble — espe­cially those who receive the longer Cen­sus form, which con­tains a num­ber of work-related ques­tions .

Past Cen­sus infor­ma­tion has been used to exam­ine the sit­u­a­tion of artists and cul­tural work­ers in Canada . It is of utmost impor­tance, par­tic­u­larly with this gov­ern­ment, to be able to line up fac­tual and sta­tis­ti­cal argu­ments as to the impor­tant con­tri­bu­tions the arts and cul­tural sec­tor make to Canada . No accu­rate data, no sound sta­tis­ti­cal argu­ments nor analysis!

So, accu­racy and full par­tic­i­pa­tion are cru­cial! Cen­sus day is Tues­day, May 16th . If your house­hold had not received a Cen­sus ques­tion­naire by May 13, please imme­di­ately con­tact Sta­tis­tics Canada at 1–877-594‑2006.

For the first time this year, you have the option of com­plet­ing your Cen­sus infor­ma­tion online, using a code included on your Cen­sus form.

Please visit the 2006 Cen­sus Web­site for more information.