CCA Bul­letin 49/06

Ottawa, Novem­ber 28, 2006

Let us start with a short update on a Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) pol­icy pri­or­ity, namely the need for a new Museum pol­icy. You will no doubt remem­ber that the cut of $4.6 M to the Museum Assis­tance Pro­gram (MAP) announced at the end of Sep­tem­ber as part of the fed­eral government’s real­lo­ca­tion pro­gram of $1B for 2006-07 has caused quite a lot of protest and press across the coun­try. The CCA has objected to this mea­sure, which the gov­ern­ment described as a “waste­ful pro­gram”. We have con­tin­ued to unequiv­o­cally sup­port the Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion (CMA) in call­ing for the Gov­ern­ment to accel­er­ate the imple­men­ta­tion of a new, much-needed muse­ums pol­icy and fund­ing pro­gram, sup­ported unequiv­o­cally by the Her­itage Min­is­ter when she was Her­itage Oppo­si­tion critic.

It would appear that there is some move­ment on that front and that there is hope this could be part of the next bud­get. which most cur­rently expect to lead to a spring elec­tion. Recently, rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the CMA, the Société des musées québé­cois, the Alberta Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion, and the Her­itage Canada Foun­da­tion appeared before the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage over the new Cana­dian Muse­ums Policy.

Together, the group made clear and con­sis­tent rec­om­men­da­tions based on CMA’s recent meet­ing with Min­is­ter Oda, and on the com­pre­hen­sive work done to date across the coun­try by the muse­ums sec­tor. CMA rec­om­men­da­tions include the cre­ation of multi-year fund­ing agree­ments, the replace­ment of MAP with a new arms’ length agency, and the new invest­ment of funds.

There is still no indi­ca­tion from the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage as to when the new muse­ums pol­icy may be intro­duced in the House of Com­mons. So, not­ing that this pol­icy has been long in the mak­ing, has resulted from wide-ranging con­sul­ta­tions, and has been the object of a broad polit­i­cal con­sen­sus prior to the last fed­eral elec­tion, on Novem­ber 20 th, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Her­itage adopted by a vote of 7 against 4 a Bloc Québé­cois motion rec­om­mend­ing that the gov­ern­ment sub­mit for study a new museum pol­icy within 120 days.

At the same meet­ing, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Her­itage has also taken the ini­tia­tive con­cern­ing a CBC man­date review, which many observers expected Min­is­ter Oda to announce last June at the Banff Tele­vi­sion Fes­ti­val. The Stand­ing Com­mit­tee has adopted a NDP motion stat­ing that the “com­mit­tee under­take a full inves­ti­ga­tion of the role for a pub­lic broad­caster in the 21st cen­tury, an exam­i­na­tion of the var­i­ous ser­vices includ­ing the ade­quacy of regional pro­gram­ming, and an exam­i­na­tion of the issues posed by new media; the study will gather pub­lic input from stake­hold­ers and deliver a report to the Min­is­ter advis­ing her of our find­ings; this under­tak­ing shall com­mence upon the return of the House in Jan­u­ary 2007.”

The CCA intends to inter­vene in the process and is launch­ing inter­nal con­sul­ta­tions to that end. The CBC man­date review, if it makes any progress before an elec­tion is called, will be a timely segue to the Cab­i­net com­mis­sioned CRTC report on the impact of new tech­nolo­gies on broad­cast­ing, due in mid-December, and to the CRTC hear­ings on some aspects of the con­ven­tional “over-the-air” tele­vi­sion pol­icy review, which have started this Mon­day in Hull and where the CCA is inter­ven­ing.

Regard­ing “Cul­tural Rights”

Since the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) released its revised mis­sion state­ment, we have received inquiries about what is intended by our evo­ca­tion of the term “cul­tural rights”. Do such rights exist cur­rently, or is it the long-term goal of the CCA to artic­u­late a char­ter of cul­tural rights for Cana­di­ans? The answer to both of these impor­tant ques­tions is: yes!

Cana­di­ans enjoy a wide range of “cul­tural rights”, enshrined in leg­is­la­tion such as the British North Amer­ica Act and the Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms, offi­cial lan­guage pro­tec­tion, the recog­ni­tion of Abo­rig­i­nal cul­tures and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism. In addi­tion, there are other more spe­cific forms of “cul­tural rights” that respect the moral and eco­nomic rights of cre­ators and copy­right own­ers, and the sta­tus of the artist in Cana­dian society.

In addi­tion to these domes­tic rights, Canada has been a sig­na­tory to inter­na­tional agree­ments, covenants and rec­om­men­da­tions that fur­ther the field of cul­tural rights to include the UNSECO pro­mo­tion of cul­tural diver­sity, exemp­tions in NAFTA for cul­tural goods and ser­vices, and the need to pro­tect and pro­mote artis­tic and cul­tural expres­sion in all of its forms.

At our March 2006 National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence, del­e­gates made a rec­om­men­da­tion to the CCA Board regard­ing the devel­op­ment of a Char­ter of Cul­tural Rights as a wor­thy tar­get for the ener­gies of the orga­ni­za­tion. The Board of Gov­er­nors has endorsed this con­cept and the CCA Sec­re­tariat will soon begin work on putting addi­tional flesh on the bones of this impor­tant con­cept. As Cana­di­ans we enjoy a con­sid­er­able num­ber of cul­tural rights, the chal­lenge is to pre­serve and enhance those rights to bet­ter reflect the rich­ness of Cana­dian life.

If you have any ideas about a Char­ter of Cul­tural Rights, please do not hes­i­tate to con­tact us at info@ccarts.ca.

And remem­ber: if you ever have any ques­tions about any­thing that you read in a CCA pub­li­ca­tion or Bul­letin, please be in touch and we will do our best to answer you!