CCA Bul­letin 04/07

Ottawa, Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 7, 2007

CBC Man­date Review

Changes within the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Heritage

Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund cri­sis and other issues

The Canada Coun­cil for the Arts launches spe­cial 50th anniver­sary website

The House of Com­mons resumed sit­ting last Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 29 th, mark­ing the begin­ning of a ses­sion that many expect will lead to another fed­eral elec­tion. As to when the tim­ing of any future vot­ing might occur that is as good as anyone’s guess and local psy­chics around Par­lia­ment Hill appear to be doing quite a boom­ing busi­ness these days!

Each week’s new edi­tion of The Hill Times arrives full of all kind of spec­u­la­tive teasers: Will an elec­tion result from the expected March 20 th fed­eral bud­get? Or, will the bud­get be announced later than antic­i­pated, or ear­lier, and how would that affect things? Could the bud­get pass a poten­tial con­fi­dence motion, delay­ing a trip to the polls until the fall or per­haps even next year?

One thing that is cer­tain is the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) will con­tinue to advance its pol­icy agenda for Cana­dian arts and cul­ture at the fed­eral level in advance of (and dur­ing!) any pos­si­ble fed­eral elec­tion. In the mean­time, here are a few recent devel­op­ments in Ottawa worth noting:

CBC Man­date Review

As expected, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage announced last week that it will pro­ceed with “A Full Inves­ti­ga­tion of the Role for a Pub­lic Broad­caster in the 21 st Cen­tury”. Orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als inter­ested in mak­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion to the Com­mit­tee have until Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 26 th to file their max­i­mum 10-page brief, in the offi­cial lan­guage of Canada of their choice. The CCA will cer­tainly draft a writ­ten inter­ven­tion and we would be pleased to receive com­ments from mem­bers and sup­port­ers by 5PM Fri­day Feb­ru­ary 16th at info@ccarts.ca about the issues they would like to see dealt with in this study. Please con­sult the Par­lia­men­tary doc­u­ment in order to assess what ques­tions are being posed by the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee in terms of the man­date for their work.

The Com­mit­tee was sched­uled to start its review this Thurs­day, but has been delayed 2 weeks in order to get through the CTF cri­sis that emerged in the last two weeks. MPs expect to inter­view as many as 72 wit­nesses in Ottawa right through to May, and will be trav­el­ing in the break weeks: St. John ’ s, Win­nipeg, Van­cou­ver, Mon­tréal and Toronto are con­firmed so far, with the pos­si­bil­ity of some small-town meet­ings and a trip to the far North (Yel­lowknife is a pos­si­bil­ity). The Com­mit­tee aims to have the draft report done by mid-June – unless, of course, there’s an elec­tion before that!

Changes within the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Heritage

And speak­ing of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage, avid polit­i­cal watch­ers will want to know there were some ros­ter changes over the hol­i­days to “the who’s who” in terms of Com­mit­tee members.

Tina Keeper, a first-time Lib­eral MP for Churchill, Man­i­toba who served on the Com­mit­tee in the last Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion, has been named Cana­dian Her­itage critic for the Hon. Stephane Dion’s newly-minted “shadow cab­i­net”. Ms. Keeper, per­haps best known for her role on CBC TV’s “North of 60”, takes over for the Hon. Mau­ril Bélanger, who was reas­signed as the Lib­eral critic for Infrastructure.

The CCA would like to thank Mon­sieur Bélanger for the effort and energy he brought to his role in the pre­vi­ous House ses­sion, and we look for­ward to work­ing with Ms. Keeper (whom we met with last week for the first time) as she assumes her new role. The CCA would also like to con­grat­u­late four other new mem­bers on their appoint­ment to the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee for the new ses­sion of the 39 th Par­lia­ment of Canada: Diane Bour­geois (Bloc Québé­cois MP, Terrebonne-Blainville); Gord Brown (Con­ser­v­a­tive MP, Leeds-Grenville); Andy Scott (Lib­eral MP, Fred­er­ic­ton ) and Hedy Fry (Lib­eral MP, Van­cou­ver Centre).

Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund cri­sis and other issues

Last, and fur­ther to the pre­vi­ous CCA Bul­letin 03/07, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage has adopted a motion to con­duct a study on Feb­ru­ary 8 th regard­ing the cur­rent state of the dis­puted Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund (CTF). The Hon. Bev Oda, Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, released a state­ment fol­low­ing her Jan­u­ary 30th meet­ing with “the prin­ci­pal fun­ders of the CTF”, and the sit­u­a­tion appears far from being resolved.

Between the CTF and the 21 st Cen­tury pub­lic broad­cast­ing review, not to men­tion var­i­ous gov­ern­ment pro­grams (like its Trav­el­ing Exhi­bi­tions pol­icy) up for statu­tory review and per­sis­tent rumours that new draft copy­right leg­is­la­tion might (per­haps?) be intro­duced, there are plenty of activ­i­ties and issues to keep the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Her­itage occu­pied for some time to come. The CCA will con­tinue to mon­i­tor any and all devel­op­ments, which we will share with our mem­bers and sup­port­ers via the bulletin.

The Canada Coun­cil for the Arts launches spe­cial 50th anniver­sary website

2007 is the 50th anniver­sary of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts. For five decades, the Coun­cil has given Cana­di­ans access to their own sto­ries through the imag­i­na­tion of artists in every cor­ner of the coun­try. As you will see, while cel­e­brat­ing past achieve­ments, the Coun­cil is delib­er­ately look­ing to the future and con­cen­trates on arts, cul­ture and the younger gen­er­a­tion of Canadians.

Want to know more about Cana­dian artists? Check out the artists’ sto­ries and his­tor­i­cal time­line. Look­ing for arts events in your area? The Coun­cil has up-to-date infor­ma­tion on arts events, includ­ing over 100 events across Canada ded­i­cated to the Council’s 50th anniversary.

Take the 50 for 50 Arts Chal­lenge! Seek out 50 spe­cial arts expe­ri­ences this year that will put you in closer touch with the artis­tic life of your com­mu­nity.   Tell Coun­cil about your expe­ri­ences at 50@canadacouncil.ca