FROM THE DESK OF Alain Pineau: What’s happening with the CCA?

CCA Bul­letin 29/11

Octo­ber 24, 2011

I am back from pre-consultation ses­sions in Toronto and Mon­tréal, with my head full of the sev­eral expres­sions of sup­port and the con­struc­tive sug­ges­tions offered, and I real­ize that I have not com­mu­ni­cated with you in a long time.  I can assure you that it is not because we have been idle at the CCA dur­ing the past month, far from it! I will come back to the con­sul­ta­tion process at the end of this bul­letin, but first, here is a quick wrap-up of high­lights of what’s been hap­pen­ing in Par­lia­ment and at the CCA.

Bill C-11 on Copy­right reform is mov­ing for­ward quickly

It was to nobody’s sur­prise that on Sep­tem­ber 29^th, the gov­ern­ment tabled Bill C-11, a bill to mod­ern­ize the Copy­right Act, which is the exact copy of its pre­de­ces­sor Bill C-32. C-11 was debated in sec­ond read­ing on Octo­ber 18^th and 21^st and will be sent to a Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee as soon as this debate is over. Min­is­ters Moore and Par­adis, both in charge of the file, want to see the bill adopted as soon as pos­si­ble so that the new Act can be offi­cially pro­mul­gated before the end of the year or as soon as pos­si­ble in the New Year. The gov­ern­ment seems to be open to some purely tech­ni­cal amend­ments, but will not move on the basic prin­ci­ples behind the bill. Given the new polit­i­cal con­text cre­ated by the May elec­tion, those cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions which, while wel­com­ing some aspects of Bill C-32, had expressed a strong oppo­si­tion to many of its arti­cles have been forced to change their approach and through such tech­ni­cal amend­ments, will  try to min­i­mize what they still con­sider to be the neg­a­tive impacts con­tained in C-11. As soon as we know more about the com­mit­tee process, we will pro­vide you with a short analy­sis of the make-up of the Leg­isla­tive Com­mit­tee, the posi­tions of the par­ties and a descrip­tion of what is to come.

Free-trade nego­ti­a­tions with the Euro­pean Union

The ninth round of nego­ti­a­tions between Canada and the EU for the con­clu­sion of a Com­pre­hen­sive Eco­nomic and Trade Agree­ment (CETA) took place last week in Ottawa. These con­ver­sa­tions con­tinue to be sur­rounded by secrecy and to raise the oppo­si­tion of a num­ber of civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions both here and in Europe. We are fol­low­ing the file closely and will report on the brief­ing ses­sion by Steve Ver­heul, the Cana­dian chief nego­tia­tor, sched­uled for the end of the week. We may find out if cul­tural issues have been broached finally dur­ing this lat­est ses­sion; they have so far been kept on the back burner while more press­ing issues were being discussed.

150^th anniver­sary of Canada – Min­is­ter Moore at the Her­itage Committee

Her­itage Min­is­ter James Moore appeared before the Her­itage Com­mit­tee on Octo­ber 20^th to dis­cuss plans for Canada’s 150^th anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tions. At this point there are not yet any con­crete plans, how­ever the Min­is­ter dis­cussed the vision of the cel­e­bra­tion as an event to pro­mote pride and belong­ing amongst all Cana­di­ans and as an occa­sion to pro­mote edu­ca­tion and shar­ing of cul­ture across the coun­try. He said that they would be solic­it­ing input from Cana­di­ans and work­ing with regions and orga­ni­za­tions across the coun­try in order to include what is impor­tant to those com­mu­ni­ties. The impor­tance of sup­port and involve­ment from the pri­vate sec­tor was dis­cussed as well as re-assessing and updat­ing the phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture from the cen­ten­nial in order to leave long-term legacy. The Min­is­ter also stressed that this would be a cul­mi­na­tion of many grand cel­e­bra­tions over the next few years, includ­ing the Dia­mond Jubilee of Queen Eliz­a­beth and the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the War of 1812. He added that he would like to work with Mon­treal for cel­e­bra­tions of its 375^th anniver­sary in 2017.

Day on the Hill orga­nized by the Cana­dian Coali­tion for the Arts

Many of the CCA’s Board mem­bers are part of the con­tin­gent of some 85 cul­ture pro­fes­sion­als who tomor­row will have meet­ings with over 120 MPs, Sen­a­tors and high rank­ing civil ser­vants on Par­lia­ment Hill in Ottawa, the third such event orga­nized by the Cana­dian Arts Coali­tion. A triple mes­sage to be deliv­ered: the gov­ern­ment should main­tain the fund­ing of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts at $181 mil­lion in the next Bud­get 2012–13; it would be wise to invest $10 mil­lion in the same fis­cal year to bet­ter inte­grate arts and cul­ture in for­eign pol­icy ini­tia­tives; and, finally, the gov­ern­ment should con­tinue to favour access by Cana­di­ans to their cul­ture through main­tain­ing all main sup­port pro­grams by the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage.

Think­ing Cul­ture Forums

The fist forum of sea­son two of the Think­ing Cul­ture series pre­sented by the CCA and the Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa took place on Octo­ber 11 with dis­cus­sions on cul­ture, sus­tain­able com­mu­ni­ties and Agenda 21. Par­tic­i­pant feed­back was very pos­i­tive about the nature of the topic and the exchanges fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tions. The topic of the Novem­ber 17^th forum is: Where is the Cana­dian pub­lish­ing indus­try going? The guest speaker is Dou­glas Gib­son, for­mer pub­lisher and edi­tor at McClel­land & Stew­art. His lat­est book, Sto­ries About Sto­ry­tellers: Pub­lish­ing Alice Munro, Robert­son Davies, Alis­tair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau and Oth­ers will be avail­able for sale and the author will gladly sign copies.

ACSUS Con­fer­ence

I would like to remind you that the Asso­ci­a­tion for Cana­dian Stud­ies in the United States (ACSUS) is offer­ing CCA mem­bers the stu­dent rate of $150 when reg­is­ter­ing for its upcom­ing con­fer­ence in Ottawa from Novem­ber 16^th to 20^th.  This is a bar­gain when you con­sider the wealth of work­shops you can attend. Take a glimpse at the pro­gram by vis­it­ing the ACSUS website.

And in conclusion …

The month of Novem­ber will be just as busy as the one that is wind­ing down. As sev­eral of you know, the CCA has been work­ing since the begin­ning of the sum­mer on a new busi­ness plan with the goal of com­plete finan­cial auton­omy. This exer­cise fol­lows the fed­eral government’s deci­sion to put an end to more than 35 years of finan­cial sup­port for the CCA. Our Board of Direc­tors is con­vinced of the neces­sity of an orga­ni­za­tion like the CCA play­ing the unique role at the heart of the Cana­dian arts, cul­ture and her­itage sec­tor. We have decided to rise to the chal­lenge and con­se­quently, our Board has sub­mit­ted a request to Her­itage Canada for tran­si­tion financ­ing over a period of two years in order to allow the CCA to rein­vent itself.

Last Wednes­day, Octo­ber 19^th, we held con­sul­ta­tions in Mon­treal with 20 orga­ni­za­tions in the con­text of an enlarged com­mit­tee on the polit­i­cal pri­or­i­ties of the CCA.  A sim­i­lar meet­ing with approx­i­mately 30 orga­ni­za­tions took place the pre­ced­ing week in Toronto. Over the course of these two reunions, we gath­ered very help­ful com­ments that will fuel the national con­sul­ta­tion process being orga­nized by the CCA. Addi­tion­ally, these sug­ges­tions will be dis­cussed at Board meet­ings tak­ing place this week in Ottawa and will serve as the basis for group dis­cus­sions being orga­nized for the end of Novem­ber in Toronto, Mon­tréal and Ottawa.  After the hol­i­days, the con­sul­ta­tion will be opened to the whole coun­try when I meet with as many orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als as pos­si­ble in a dozen cities across the con­ti­nent, from Vic­to­ria to St. Johns.

 

And through all of this, soon we will launch our new web­site, a project that has been ongo­ing for sev­eral months, thanks to the sup­port of the Tril­lium Foun­da­tion, among others.

As you can see, there is quite enough to keep us busy! And I promise that we will keep you reg­u­larly informed of progress on all fronts.  Finally, I would like to reit­er­ate what a plea­sure it is to dis­cuss with you, over the phone or in per­son, the issues that are impor­tant to us all. Don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact me!