Midsummer CCA Update (Part One)

CCA Bul­letin 30/06

Ottawa, Mon­day July 24, 2006

• House of Com­mons Finance Com­mit­tee Launches Pre-Budget Con­sul­ta­tions for 2006
• The CMA asks its mem­bers and allies to talk to local media and MPs this summer
• Fran­coph­one Sec­re­tariat Update

The sum­mer months usu­ally include longish vaca­tions and much-needed relax­ation time away from the office, but given the activ­i­ties lined up for Par­lia­ment this fall, such as: a pre-budget con­sul­ta­tion (more on that in a moment); the Com­mit­tee and Min­is­te­r­ial reviews of DCH port­fo­lio agen­cies; the CRTC’s impend­ing review of tele­vi­sion pol­icy and its study on the impact of new tech­nolo­gies on broad­cast­ing; the Senate’s review of the Fed­eral Account­abil­ity Act; the like­li­hood of fall leg­is­la­tion regard­ing copy­right and, poten­tially, for­eign own­er­ship restric­tions; as well as the ongo­ing pos­si­bil­ity of an upcom­ing fed­eral elec­tion, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) is enjoy­ing a par­tic­u­larly busy sea­son. And we’re not just sweat­ing because of the swel­ter­ing hot weather, the per­spi­ra­tion is due to the many activ­i­ties that are keep­ing CCA’s staff and board very occu­pied this sum­mer! (Hey, where’s the beach?!?)

House of Com­mons Finance Com­mit­tee Launches Pre-Budget Con­sul­ta­tions for 2006

The House of Com­mons Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance recently announced plans to hold its pub­lic hear­ings on the 2006 pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions from Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 18th to Fri­day, Octo­ber 27th. There will be hear­ings in Ottawa from Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 18th to Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 29th and from Mon­day, Octo­ber 16th to Fri­day, Octo­ber 20th. The cities that the Finance Com­mit­tee plans to visit out­side of the national cap­i­tal between those hear­ings are: White­horse, Van­cou­ver, Fort McMur­ray, Saska­toon, Portage la Prairie, St. John’s, Hal­i­fax, and Que­bec City.

As always, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) will pre­pare a brief and ask to appear as a wit­ness before Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans. The CCA plans once again to inter­view its national arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion mem­bers about their pri­or­i­ties and needs with the respect to the impor­tant annual fed­eral bud­get process, and this work should com­mence in a few weeks. Addi­tion­ally, the CCA encour­ages all of its mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­ual mem­bers to put their fed­eral budget-related issues in writ­ing to the atten­tion of the CCA’s National Direc­tor and its Board of Gov­er­nors. In order to allow us ample time to pre­pare a brief in keep­ing with the Finance Committee’s Sep­tem­ber 5 th dead­line, please send your com­ments and sug­ges­tions before noon East­ern, Fri­day August 18th.

If CCA mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions wish to appear as wit­nesses in front of the Finance Com­mit­tee dur­ing its pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions, please advise the Clerk of the com­mit­tee, Ms. Eliz­a­beth Kingston, indi­cat­ing the date and city of your choice, no later than Fri­day, August 11th. The dead­line to sub­mit the accom­pa­ny­ing brief is no later than Tues­day, Sep­tem­ber 5th in order that the brief can be trans­lated and dis­trib­uted to Com­mit­tee mem­bers. There is also the option of sub­mit­ting a brief even if you do not wish to appear in front of the Com­mit­tee. All briefs that are sub­mit­ted should be less than ten pages in length and should include an exec­u­tive sum­mary of one page. An exec­u­tive sum­mary should indi­cate pri­or­i­ties with respect to your pro­pos­als and briefs can be sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cally or by mail.

The theme for this year’s con­sul­ta­tion is “CANADA’S PLACE IN A COMPETITIVE WORLD”. The Committee’s June 27 news release states:

“If Canada is to have a mean­ing­ful place in the world of the future, then cit­i­zens and busi­nesses — and, by exten­sion, the Cana­dian econ­omy — must pros­per. We must pros­per rec­og­niz­ing the con­straints we face, not the least of which is an uncer­tain — and rapidly chang­ing — future. We must be pre­pared, and we must be proac­tive. We must con­stantly strive to adopt the lat­est tech­nol­ogy, to ensure we have the needed skills, to seize mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties, to make cer­tain that our tax regimes enable us to attract work­ers and for­eign invest­ment, and to max­i­mize our poten­tial as a nation. And deci­sions must be taken today to ensure that we are able to do all of those things tomorrow.

1. What spe­cific fed­eral tax and/or pro­gram spend­ing mea­sures should be imple­mented in the upcom­ing bud­get to ensure that our cit­i­zens are healthy, have the right skills, etc. for their own ben­e­fit and for the ben­e­fit of their employers?

2. What spe­cific fed­eral tax and/or pro­gram spend­ing mea­sures should be imple­mented in the upcom­ing bud­get to ensure that our busi­nesses are competitive?

3. What spe­cific fed­eral tax and/or pro­gram spend­ing mea­sures should be imple­mented to ensure that our nation has the infra­struc­ture required by cit­i­zens and businesses?

4. What spe­cific fed­eral actions should be taken to ensure that the gov­ern­ment is able to afford the tax and/or spend­ing mea­sures needed to ensure that Canada ‘s cit­i­zens and busi­nesses can pros­per in the world of the future?”

The CMA asks its mem­bers and allies to talk to local media and MPs this summer

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) sup­ports the efforts of the Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion ( CMA ) to real­ize a pro­posed Cana­dian Muse­ums Pol­icy with increased fund­ing and they have started a sum­mer advo­cacy cam­paign, which is in full swing. The CMA has over 100 vol­un­teers hard at work in their rid­ings and is encour­ag­ing other allies to get involved as well.

CMA has pro­duced a sum­mer cam­paign tool kit to help advo­cates when they explain the urgent needs of muse­ums and the need for new fed­eral invest­ment. The kit includes brief­ing notes, key mes­sages, and so on. This mate­r­ial can be used to sup­port com­mu­ni­ca­tions activ­i­ties, par­tic­u­larly for talk­ing to MPs and local media.

The CMA ‘s objec­tive, which is backed by the CCA as part of our advo­cacy pri­or­i­ties, is to get a num­ber of MPs from all par­ties to sup­port the pro­posed new Cana­dian Muse­ums Pol­icy and the much needed new fis­cal invest­ment. Fur­ther details on the CMA ‘s pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions for a new $75 mil­lion in fund­ing to sup­port muse­ums can be found at www.museums.ca. For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact Monique Horth, CMA ‘s Direc­tor of Pub­lic and Pro­fes­sional Affairs.

Fran­coph­one Sec­re­tariat Update

As announced in CCA Bul­letin 26/06 Min­is­ter Bev Oda did hold a con­sul­ta­tion on June 9 in Aylmer, Québec, on the notion of cre­at­ing within her Her­itage Depart­ment ( PCH ) a Fran­coph­one Sec­re­tariat. Over thirty rep­re­sen­ta­tives from fran­coph­one orga­ni­za­tions from all over the coun­try (and par­tic­u­larly from Québec) attended the one day event, a remark­able fact given that invi­ta­tions had been sent barely a week before and the dis­cus­sion paper dis­trib­uted two days before. Every­one present was very curi­ous about the con­cept, which some even described it as med­i­cine look­ing for an ail­ment. Min­is­ter Oda joined the group at lunchtime and in the speech which opened the after­noon ses­sion, she made it clear that it was an idea which she had put for­ward for dis­cus­sion and development.

Accord­ing to the dis­cus­sion paper and to expla­na­tions given by the sev­eral high-ranking offi­cials of PCH in atten­dance, the man­date of the Sec­re­tariat would bear only on cul­tural activ­i­ties related to lan­guage and would not apply to other Depart­ments or even to agen­cies and Crown Cor­po­ra­tions in the port­fo­lio. The role of the Sec­re­tariat would be to mon­i­tor the devel­op­ment of PCH pro­grams and poli­cies, national and inter­na­tional, to ensure « fair con­sid­er­a­tion of the fran­coph­one real­i­ties within the coun­try » (CCA trans­la­tion); to con­duct research to define those real­i­ties; to report to the high­est lev­els within PCH on the results of this research and even­tu­ally make rec­om­men­da­tions; finally, to com­mu­ni­cate best prac­tices. The mech­a­nism would have to be “nim­ble, flex­i­ble and matrix like”.

Polite but scep­ti­cal, par­tic­i­pants have insisted that one should not dupli­cate what already exists. They seemed inter­ested how­ever in the notion of a national equiv­a­lent to the Cul­tural Obser­va­tory in place in Québec. And if the project were to be real­ized, it should be financed from new money, not from redi­rec­tions. The min­is­ter is sup­posed to be briefed shortly on the results of the con­sul­ta­tion. CCA will keep you posted!