CCA Bul­letin 45/06

Octo­ber 27, 2006

Just the Facts

On Tues­day Octo­ber 24, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) attended, along with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of some 40 national arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions, a meet­ing con­vened by the Canada Coun­cil of the Arts ( the Coun­cil) to explain how it intends to dis­trib­ute the $20M + $30M it expects to see added respec­tively to its 2006-07 and 2007-08 bud­gets. You will remem­ber these one-time increases were announced as part of the May 2, 2006 bud­get of the new fed­eral gov­ern­ment.

Council’s offi­cials were very cau­tious to explain that although the increase has been promised, there remained steps to be taken before the money is theirs to dis­trib­ute. A key step in this process is the tabling in Par­lia­ment of the Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates, some­thing which is expected to hap­pen in the com­ing weeks. But it remains pos­si­ble that the whole process of gov­ern­ment lead­ing to the allo­ca­tion of the first or the sec­ond install­ment of the announced increases may be derailed by the fall of the minor­ity gov­ern­ment. Thence the cau­tion shown by the Coun­cil, which opted nonethe­less for this ten­ta­tive dec­la­ra­tion of intent on how it will spend the addi­tional money if and when it gets it.

Why then did the Coun­cil make any form of announce­ment at this par­tic­u­lar moment? Essen­tially because of the time crunch involved in the allo­ca­tion processes this fis­cal year and to give the national arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions a heads up on the Council’s inten­tions to help ensure that eli­gi­ble orga­ni­za­tions have as much time as pos­si­ble to pre­pare their sub­mis­sion for addi­tional funds.

The Coun­cil says that faced with the impos­si­ble task of ade­quately respond­ing to all the needs of the artis­tic com­mu­ni­ties (even with what has, until fur­ther notice to be con­sid­ered one-time increases to its bud­get), it has deter­mined to make strate­gic invest­ments. The focus will be on strength­en­ing the arts sec­tor by enhanc­ing the work of Canada ‘s highest-achieving arts orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­ual artists and by giv­ing the pub­lic increased access to the work of Cana­dian artists. In allo­cat­ing these new funds, the Coun­cil intends to take into account the need to deal with the future growth of orga­ni­za­tions of all sizes, regions and with diver­sity in all its forms. The Coun­cil says it wants to report to Par­lia­ment on the impact of the $50M, to demon­strate the value Cana­di­ans get for their tax dol­lars and to help sup­port requests for larger and per­ma­nent increases to its base budgets.

Tell me more

Here, in a nut­shell, is how the Coun­cil intends to proceed:

• The full addi­tional $ 50M will be allo­cated: the Coun­cil will absorb all addi­tional related admin­is­tra­tive costs out of inter­est rev­enue com­ing from its endow­ment fund;
• 2/3 of the money ($33M) has been ear­marked for the 900 or so orga­ni­za­tions on oper­at­ing grants, for enhance­ment of their cur­rently planned activ­i­ties (either in terms of exist­ing artis­tic, audi­ence devel­op­ment or admin­is­tra­tive capac­ity). The projects must lead to out­comes that can be attained and mea­sured, or doc­u­mented within the two year period;
• The first part of the increase (i.e. the $33M) will be allo­cated fur­ther to a com­pet­i­tive process, through the estab­lished peer jury sys­tem. Offi­cials said clearly that this being a com­pet­i­tive process, not all eli­gi­ble orga­ni­za­tions would get money. They added that arts orga­ni­za­tions which have a major impact on the national and inter­na­tional arts scene and which tend to receive the largest Coun­cil grants will be sub­ject to an addi­tional level of scrutiny by a multi-disciplinary com­mit­tee that includes inter­na­tional peers;
• The remain­ing third of the increase will be split evenly between one-time sup­port to indi­vid­ual artists and financ­ing access projects (tour­ing and dis­sem­i­na­tion) which have been pre­sented already, have been deemed wor­thy by peer juries but could not be funded fully, or funded at all, out of the base bud­get. This por­tion of the one-time increase will not require any new appli­ca­tions but will be allo­cated to 2006-07 appli­ca­tions which could not be funded;
• In all cases, it is the inten­tion of the Coun­cil to issue noti­fi­ca­tion of sup­ple­men­tary grants before the end of the cur­rent fis­cal year for spend­ing to be com­pleted before the end of fis­cal year 2007-08;
• For the 300 or so orga­ni­za­tions whose three-year cycle is com­ing up fore renewal in 2007-08, the Coun­cil has decided to extend the cur­rent arrange­ment for one year, except for pub­lish­ers, who will move on as sched­uled to the 2-year cycle already devel­oped. The Coun­cil fur­ther indi­cated that it is work­ing with the provinces which have multi-year fund­ing cycles to syn­chro­nize processes.

Coun­cil offi­cials insisted many times on the ten­ta­tive nature of their com­mu­ni­ca­tion and said that their intended process had been com­mu­ni­cated to the gov­ern­ment. The Coun­cil has sub­se­quently told the CCA that the appli­ca­tion forms and guide­lines for the new funds will be on the Council’s web­site on Mon­day Novem­ber 6.

Par­tic­i­pants to the meet­ing clearly appre­ci­ated being given a heads up by the Coun­cil, but quite a few expressed dis­ap­point­ments on behalf of those orga­ni­za­tions which once again would be shut out of fund­ing. There how­ever seemed to be a con­sen­sus that the cul­tural sec­tor must rally around mak­ing the $50M part of the base bud­get of the Coun­cil and work together to clearly estab­lish the need for larger (and per­ma­nent) increases to the Council’s bud­get to meet the real needs of artists and arts orga­ni­za­tions of all kinds across the country.