CCA Bul­letin 1/10

Jan­u­ary 6, 2010

Just the facts

On Decem­ber 30, 2009, the Gov­er­nor Gen­eral of Canada approved a pro­ro­ga­tion which put an end to the sec­ond ses­sion of Canada’s 40th Par­lia­ment.  The Par­lia­ment of Canada will be sus­pended until its return on March 3, 2010 when the Speech from the Throne will be given, fol­lowed the next day by the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2010 fed­eral budget.

This is the sec­ond such pro­ro­ga­tion under the 40th Par­lia­ment: just a year ago, the gov­ern­ment used the same approach to avoid being defeated in the House by a coali­tion led by the Lib­eral Oppo­si­tion. This year, the rea­sons given by the gov­ern­ment for the pro­ro­ga­tion include time to con­sult with Cana­di­ans, stake­hold­ers and busi­nesses as it moves into the “next phase” of its eco­nomic action plan amid signs of eco­nomic recovery.

Crit­ics of the pro­ro­ga­tion claim that purely polit­i­cal rea­sons are behind the sus­pen­sion of Par­lia­ment. Some claim the goal is to appoint more Con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers to the Sen­ate of Canada and give the gov­ern­ment a major­ity in the Upper House. Oth­ers note that pro­ro­ga­tion puts an end to Par­lia­men­tary Com­mit­tee busi­ness, which will allow for any inves­ti­ga­tion into the Afghan detainee issue to be wiped off the news dur­ing Vancouver’s upcom­ing Olympics, ensur­ing that no polit­i­cal scan­dals cloud the moment for Canada’s gov­ern­ment, when the whole world will be focused on the Games.

At the start of a new ses­sion, as long as the House agrees unan­i­mously, a gov­ern­ment pub­lic bill may be rein­stated at the stage it had reached at the time of pro­ro­ga­tion, while pri­vate member’s’ bills are auto­mat­i­cally rein­stated at the same stage. At the time of pro­ro­ga­tion, there were none of the for­mer and a hand­ful of the lat­ter that had direct rel­e­vance for the arts and cul­ture sec­tor. It is worth point­ing out that pri­vate mem­bers’ bills rarely make it to Royal Assent. The pro­ro­ga­tion will there­fore not have much of an impact on the arts and cul­ture sec­tor as very lit­tle leg­is­la­tion of con­cern was in front of Parliamentarians.

Thank­fully, Bill C-56 passed Royal Assent on Decem­ber 15, thus com­plet­ing its leg­isla­tive cycle. This act amends the Employ­ment Insur­ance Act and other acts by estab­lish­ing a scheme to pro­vide for the pay­ment of spe­cial ben­e­fits to self-employed per­sons who are not cur­rently enti­tled to receive them. This will ben­e­fit artists and other cul­tural prac­ti­tion­ers seek­ing ben­e­fits, mater­nity leave, parental/adoptive ben­e­fits, sick­ness ben­e­fits and com­pas­sion­ate care benefits.

Tell me more

In the Sen­ate, pub­lic Bill S-201 was intro­duced by Sen­a­tor Jerry Graf­stein. This bill sought to amend the Library and Archives of Canada Act, to cre­ate a National Por­trait Gallery in the for­mer Amer­i­can Embassy in Ottawa, as orig­i­nally planned by the gov­ern­ment of Jean Chré­tien. Sim­i­lar bills were intro­duced in June and Novem­ber 2008. This lat­est ver­sion reached its sec­ond read­ing and had been sent for Com­mit­tee review. Since Sen­a­tor Graf­stein retired on Jan­u­ary 2, hav­ing reached his 75th birth­day, sup­port­ers of the National Por­trait Gallery project can only hope that another Par­lia­men­tar­ian will pick up the cause. Sen­a­tor Grafstein’s bill will go back to square one in the Sen­ate, but with the Gov­ern­ment gain­ing con­trol of the Upper House, it is unlikely to go anywhere.

Some pri­vate mem­bers’ bills rel­e­vant to the arts and cul­ture sec­tor in process in the sec­ond ses­sion of the 40th Par­lia­ment include:

What can I do?

Other forms of Par­lia­men­tary busi­ness are also on hold until March 3. The All-Party Arts Cau­cus which was to meet on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2010 will now have to re ignite its energy when the House returns in March.  In the mean­time, you can con­tact your MP while at home in his/her con­stituency to encour­age him/her to join the Arts Cau­cus. You can also con­tact cur­rent mem­bers of the Arts Cau­cus to express your sup­port for their work.