MINISTER CLARIFIES COMMENTS ON MUSEUMS

Ottawa, Decem­ber 2, 2004 — The Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, Liza Frulla, attempted to set the record straight dur­ing her appear­ance before the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage (Wednes­day 24 Novem­ber).   Com­ments attrib­uted to her in Le Devoir (10 Novem­ber) indi­cated that she felt it would be eas­ier to iden­tify sav­ings on spend­ing in muse­ums than in other dis­ci­plines.   Cana­dian Muse­ums Asso­ci­a­tion ( CMA ) issued a response on 18 Novem­ber which artic­u­lated its strong con­cerns with the Minister’s comments.

Last Wednes­day, Min­is­ter Frulla explained that her pub­lished com­ments had been in rela­tion to national muse­ums, and that she regret­ted she hadn’t empha­sized that point.   She stated the national muse­ums have been asked to iden­tify “com­mon needs”, to make effi­cien­cies around admin­is­tra­tive expen­di­tures which might be shared, as part of the 5% real­lo­ca­tion process all gov­ern­ment depart­ments are under­go­ing.   Min­is­ter Frulla has since con­tacted CMA , accord­ing to its 29 Novem­ber Advo­cacy Alert, avail­able at:

http://www.museums.ca/Cma1/WhatsNew/Advocacy/2004/ministersupportsmuseums.htm

The Min­is­ter also stated emphat­i­cally “I do not have the inten­tion, unless I’m being forced to, of deliv­er­ing 5%, nor the inten­tion of touch­ing artists’ pro­grams, or [ask­ing] the help for those insti­tu­tions that have very lit­tle money in order to give to soci­ety and the com­mu­nity”.   She empha­sized that the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts had not been asked to par­tic­i­pate in the 5% real­lo­ca­tion at all (see CCA Bul­letin 53/04).

Announce­ment on TST shortly?

In response to a num­ber of ques­tions regard­ing the impor­tance to the sec­tor of the Tomor­row Starts Today (TST) fund­ing pro­gram, the Min­is­ter con­firmed she is very aware that the issue is urgent and can­not wait until bud­get time for renewal; men­tion was made of “an announce­ment shortly”.   There was also men­tion of the need for sta­ble fund­ing for cul­ture, by both gov­ern­ment and oppo­si­tion Members.

Other snip­pets from this hear­ing :

•  Min­is­ter Frulla’s three key objec­tives are to: encour­age cre­ativ­ity; increase access to the arts and cul­ture; and pro­mote Cana­dian cul­tural iden­tity on the national and inter­na­tional stages.

•  Chal­lenges iden­ti­fied include: for­eign own­er­ship in broad­cast­ing; copy­right and Inter­net piracy.

•  The Sen­ate Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Trans­port and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which is exam­in­ing con­cen­tra­tion of media, is sched­uled to bring down its report in December.

•  The Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage is work­ing on a more detailed response to the “Lin­coln Report” (Our Cul­tural Sov­er­eignty: The Sec­ond Cen­tury of Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing, from June 2003).

•  On copy­right, the Min­is­ter is work­ing on a new Bill in close coop­er­a­tion with the Min­is­ter of Indus­try and hopes to present it to Cab­i­net before Christmas.

•  This gov­ern­ment stands firm in its con­vic­tion that cul­ture is non-negotiable in trade treaties.

•  Numer­ous cul­tural appoint­ments are still in limbo; no assur­ances were given regard­ing when they would be filled as the process takes a long time.

•  Assis­tant Deputy Min­is­ter Jean-Pierre Blais has been asked to form a task force to exam­ine the film indus­try in Canada , includ­ing the tax ben­e­fits that are cur­rently in place and what can be done to bet­ter sup­port local productions.

•  In response to a ques­tion rec­om­mend­ing that changes need to be made to the struc­ture of the CRTC to include rep­re­sen­ta­tion by artists and those actively involved in pro­duc­tion, the Min­is­ter replied by point­ing out how dif­fi­cult it is to find qual­i­fied peo­ple with the tech­ni­cal knowl­edge required.

VISUAL ARTISTS CONCERNED ABOUT PROPOSED PROGRAM CHANGES AT THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS

Over the past few weeks, CCA has received many let­ters from its orga­ni­za­tional and indi­vid­ual mem­bers regard­ing the pro­posed pro­gram changes under dis­cus­sion in the Visual Arts sec­tion of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts.   Many expressed strong con­cerns regard­ing the impact of the pro­posed pro­grams and the media has begun to report on this story. CBC ‘s Arts News item is avail­able at: http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2004/11/26/Arts/artsfund041126.html )

Cur­rently in the “sec­ond phase” of con­sul­ta­tions, the pro­posed pro­gram changes would impact the way in which the sec­tion admin­is­ters grants to estab­lished, mid-career and emerg­ing pro­fes­sional visual artists.   Details of the changes being con­sid­ered, as well as his­tory of the process to date, are avail­able on the Canada Council’s web­site at:

http://www.canadacouncil.ca/visualarts/va_consultations.htm (in English)

http://www.canadacouncil.ca/artsvisuels/va_consultations.htm (in French)

Canada Coun­cil has assured CCA it is tak­ing the community’s con­cerns very seri­ously; the con­sul­ta­tion process is ongo­ing and no deci­sions have been made.   John Hob­day, Direc­tor of the Canada Coun­cil, said the Coun­cil is in the process of send­ing a let­ter to the approx­i­mately 400 peo­ple who expressed con­cern about the pro­posal, assur­ing them that no final deci­sion has been made. The let­ter is also being sent to arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions in the visual arts, artist-run cen­tres, and pub­lic gal­leries and museums.

“Our next step is to bring together all responses from the con­sul­ta­tion meet­ings, as well as the com­ments sub­mit­ted through e-mail, let­ters or the web,” he said. “After review­ing the reac­tions from the com­mu­nity, we will engage in a process of in-depth, Council-wide dis­cus­sion and reflec­tion over the next few months.   In addi­tion, we will con­vene a spe­cial advi­sory com­mit­tee com­posed of visual arts pro­fes­sion­als which will have a man­date to make rec­om­men­da­tions to the Visual Arts Section.”

He added that the Coun­cil is lis­ten­ing to the con­cerns of the com­mu­nity and is study­ing avail­able options with respect to the pro­gram, which last year received 2,400 appli­ca­tions and had suf­fi­cient funds to award only 220 grants.

Cana­dian Artists’ Rep­re­sen­ta­tion / Le Front des Artistes Cana­di­ens (CARFAC) announced 29 Novem­ber that it will be meet­ing with the Canada Coun­cil next week “…to dis­cuss the community’s con­cerns with its newly pro­posed grant pro­gram for Visual Artists…   Many indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions have writ­ten to CARFAC directly and pub­licly to protest the grant pro­gram pro­posal by Coun­cil as gen­er­ated from their recent con­sul­ta­tions.   These opin­ions are gen­er­ally con­sis­tent with the posi­tion CARFAC has taken on these mat­ters, and will be rep­re­sented strongly, and fairly.”   Other CCA mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions that have made their opin­ions known to Coun­cil and the pub­lic at large include:   le Regroupe­ment des Artistes en Arts Visuels (RAAV); le Regroupe­ment des Cen­tres d’Artistes Auto­gérés du Québec (RCAAQ); the Pacific Asso­ci­a­tion of Artist-Run Cen­tres (PAARC); and the Artist-Run Cen­tres and Col­lec­tives of Ontario (ARCCO).