Reality check – Where business left off in the House of Commons

CCA Bul­letin 2/06

Jan­u­ary 9, 2006

The dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment for a win­ter elec­tion means that work in the House of Com­mons grinds to a halt.  Now that the writ has dropped, there is much to report on where busi­ness left off.  Sev­eral pieces of leg­is­la­tion that would have impacted Canada’s artists, arts orga­ni­za­tions, and cul­tural indus­tries fell from the Order Paper; oth­ers passed and received Royal Assent; and the activ­i­ties of var­i­ous Stand­ing Com­mit­tees cer­tainly lost momentum.

ACTIVITIES OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

Much of the work of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage over the past year focused on a study on the “influ­ence and effec­tive­ness of the Gov­ern­ment of Canada’s Cana­dian Fea­ture Film Pol­icy (2000)”, includ­ing “the struc­ture and effec­tive­ness of exist­ing direct and indi­rect sup­port mech­a­nisms” (i.e. Tele­film Canada, the National Film Board, the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund, fed­eral pro­duc­tion and ser­vices tax cred­its, etc.).

A final report, enti­tled “Scripts, Screens, and Audi­ences: A New Fea­ture Film Pol­icy For The 21stCentury”, http://www.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=137485, was released just days before the non-confidence motion passed.  Unfor­tu­nately, the fre­netic pace of Par­lia­ment in the weeks lead­ing up to Novem­ber 28 pre­vented Stand­ing Com­mit­tee mem­bers from com­plet­ing a planned third and final phase of con­sul­ta­tions, which was to involve a round­table for key stake­hold­ers in Ottawa.  CCA will cer­tainly mon­i­tor what pol­icy and/or leg­isla­tive reforms may emerge from the report’s rec­om­men­da­tions when the next gov­ern­ment of Canada is formed (and what­ever form it may take).

Addi­tion­ally, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Cana­dian Her­itage pre­sented two sep­a­rate reports in mid-November, which specif­i­cally addressed the Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.  The Sev­en­teenth Report, which is avail­able atwww.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?COM=8974&SourceId=135564, is notable asit declares, “That the gov­ern­ment should under­take to estab­lish an inde­pen­dent task force to review the man­date role and ser­vices of the CBC-SRC; to estab­lish the role the pub­lic broad­caster must have and the ser­vices it must pro­vide in light of the new media envi­ron­ment and tech­no­log­i­cal advances.

“Mean­while, the Eigh­teenth Report, which is avail­able atwww.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=136788, states, “That in the opin­ion of the com­mit­tee, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment must tighten its poli­cies in broad­cast­ing, as the Com­mit­tee said in the report named Our Cul­tural sov­er­eignty: The Sec­ond Cen­tury of Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing, so that Canada entirely con­trols broad­cast­ing in radio and tele­vi­sion on its ter­ri­tory.”  Undoubtedly,there should be pres­sure dur­ing this cur­rent elec­tion cam­paign to ensure that this work car­ries for­ward in 2006.

CANADA’S INTERNATIONAL POLICY STATEMENT

Another exer­cise that will be delayed is the review by the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade of the Inter­na­tional Pol­icy state­ment released last spring.  The lengthy document,which is avail­able online at www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/cip-pic/ips/ips-en.asp, is the result of col­lab­o­ra­tion between the four lead depart­ments, namely:Finance, Inter­na­tional Trade,  For­eign Affairs and Defence1

If any­one expects stir­ring prose and vision­ary lan­guage in such a doc­u­ment, they will be dis­ap­pointed. The doc­u­ment, while it will not be nom­i­nated for any lit­er­ary awards, must be taken seri­ously due to the major redi­rec­tion of emphases in Cana­dian for­eign policy.

For the cul­tural sec­tor the most notable fea­ture in the doc­u­ment is the elim­i­na­tion of the three pil­lars of for­eign pol­icy, espe­cially the third pil­lar which was the “pro­mo­tion of Cana­dian cul­ture and val­ues.” The role of cul­ture in the rather unin­spir­ing new inter­na­tional pol­icy state­ment has been rel­e­gated to a vague state­ment of the impor­tance of “pub­lic diplomacy”.

This marks a major depar­ture for Canada’s inter­na­tional pol­icy and one which is wor­ri­some for CCA. The Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs has been woe­fully under-resourced to sup­port any sub­stan­tial pro­mo­tion of Cana­dian artists and tal­ent inter­na­tion­ally, a sit­u­a­tion that many had hoped the new pol­icy would address in pos­i­tive terms.  While the Novem­ber 23 Canada Coun­cil Fund­ing announce­ment by Liza Frulla in Mon­treal also included $11 mil­lion new dol­lars over three fis­cal years for For­eign Affairs Canada’s Inter­na­tional Tour­ing Pro­gram, this is but a small encour­ag­ing sign.  Put sim­ply, addi­tional gov­ern­ment dol­lars for pro­gram spend­ing on cul­ture mustal­ways be sup­ported by sound policy.

In prepar­ing for con­sul­ta­tions on the pro­posed pol­icy, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee had pre­pared a ques­tion­naire which it is asked those con­cerned with this issue to fill out and sub­mit. The CCA wrote to the Chair of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Novem­ber 14 (the let­ter is avail­able online atwww.ccarts.ca/en/IntlPolicyStatement.htm) not­ing that the ques­tion­naire does not pro­vide any oppor­tu­nity for respon­dents to com­ment on the sig­nif­i­cant change of direc­tion in our inter­na­tional pol­icy wrought by the elim­i­na­tion of the third pil­lar.  Just days after the elec­tion began the CCA received a response from the Clerk of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee dated Novem­ber 24, which invited to CCA to sub­mit a brief for consideration.

It is the hope of the CCA that once the elec­tion is over and the Stand­ing Com­mit­tees are refor­mu­lated that a sim­i­lar invi­ta­tion will be extended by the new Chair.  Prepar­ing and pre­sentinga brief will be an excel­lent oppor­tu­nity to address this shift in con­crete and con­struc­tive term,s and­CCA will cer­tainly con­sult its mem­bers at that time, when­ever it may be.  In the meantime,comments from mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions and mem­bers on this and other issues of cul­tural impor­tanceare always wel­come; please write to lcoletta@ccarts.ca.

BILLS THAT PASSED AND RECEIVED ROYAL ASSENT

(C-18) An Act to amend the Tele­film Canada Act

This enact­ment pro­vides Tele­film Canada with a man­date to act in the audio-visual indus­triesin­clud­ing film, tele­vi­sion, and new media. The cor­po­ra­tion is also pro­vided the author­ity to act inthe sound record­ing indus­try under agree­ments with the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage.

(C-43) An Act to imple­ment cer­tain pro­vi­sions of the bud­get tabled in Par­lia­ment on Feb­ru­ary 23,2005 (Bud­get Imple­men­ta­tion Act, 2005)

The pas­sage of this bill before the sum­mer recess con­firmed an increase the Depart­ment of CanadianHeritage’s “Tomor­row Starts Today” (TST)  fund­ing ack­age of $860 mil­lion over five years through(see CCA Bul­letin 22/05 and 23/05 for more infor­ma­tion on “TST“www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/bulletins/2005bulletins.htm).

(C-2) An Act to amend the Crim­i­nal Code (pro­tec­tion of chil­dren and other vul­ner­a­ble persons)and the Canada Evi­dence Act

The act received Royal Assent in July and will fully come into force as of Jan­u­ary 2 2006.  It amend­sob­scen­ity pro­vi­sions in the Crim­i­nal Code with respect to the type of writ­ten, visual, and audio­ma­te­r­ial that con­sti­tute child pornography.

It is regret­table that after two years of active advo­cacy with three dif­fer­ent gov­ern­ments, CCA’sefforts, along with the efforts of a num­ber of key CCA arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion mem­bers and­var­i­ous civil lib­er­ties and legal groups, were not enough to con­vince mem­bers of either the House orthe Sen­ate that the artis­tic merit defence should not be replaced with the new, ambigu­ous “legit­i­matepur­pose” defence.  How­ever, a small legal vic­tory for the pro­tec­tion of Cana­di­ans’ right to free­ex­pres­sion can be found in the “Obser­va­tions” sec­tion of the Stand­ing Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Lega­land Con­sti­tu­tional Affairs’s 11th report, www.parl.gc.ca/38/1/parlbus/commbus/senate/come/lega-e/rep-e/rep11jul05-e.htm, as Sen­a­tors expressed strong con­cerns about the new act’spotential impact on the work of artists and creators.

(C-23)

Depart­ment of Human Resources and Skills Devel­op­ment Act The act estab­lishes the Depart­ment of Human Resources and Skills Development.

(S-37) An Act to amend the Crim­i­nal Code and the Cul­tural Prop­erty Export and Import Act

This Sen­ate bill amends the Crim­i­nal Code to pro­hibit theft, mis­chief, arson and rob­bery again­st­cul­tural prop­erty pro­tected under the 1954 Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of Cul­tural Prop­erty in theEvent of Armed Con­flict.  Those amend­ments allow for the pros­e­cu­tion of such offences when­com­mit­ted out­side Canada by Cana­di­ans.  It also amends the Cul­tural Prop­erty Export and Impor­tAct to pro­hibit Cana­di­ans from ille­gally export­ing or oth­er­wise remov­ing cul­tural prop­erty from anoc­cu­pied ter­ri­tory.  Those amend­ments allow for the pros­e­cu­tion of such offences when com­mit­ted­out­side Canada by Cana­di­ans, and pro­vide for a mech­a­nism for the resti­tu­tion of cul­tural property.

BILLS REFERRED TO A COMMITTEE BEFORE SECOND READING

C-21 Canada Not-for-Profit Cor­po­ra­tions Act

This bill would have estab­lished a new frame­work for the gov­er­nance of not-for-profit cor­po­ra­tionsand other cor­po­ra­tions with­out share cap­i­tal. The enact­ment replaces Parts II and III of the Canada­Cor­po­ra­tions Act and is mainly based on the Canada Busi­ness Cor­po­ra­tions Act. It replaces the“letters patent” sys­tem of incor­po­ra­tion by an “as of right” sys­tem of incor­po­ra­tion. The cur­ren­tre­quire­ment for Min­is­te­r­ial review of let­ters patent and by-laws prior to incor­po­ra­tion is replaced bythe grant­ing of incor­po­ra­tion upon the send­ing of required infor­ma­tion and pay­ment of a fee.

BILLS AWAITING SECOND READING

C-60 An Act to amend the Copy­right Act

Imple­ments the pro­vi­sions of the WIPO Copy­right Treaty and the WIPO Per­for­mances and Phono­grams Treaty, to clar­ify the lia­bil­ity of net­work ser­vice providers, to facil­i­tate tech­nol­ogy enhanced learn­ing and inter­li­brary loans, and to up date cer­tain other pro­vi­sions of the Act.  See www.ccarts.ca/en/CopyrightReform.htm for more information.

C-80 An Act to imple­ment cer­tain income tax reductions

Pro­vides an increase of $500 to the basic per­sonal amount — the amount of income that Cana­di­ans can  earn with­out pay­ing fed­eral income tax — effec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2005, and makes con­se­quen­tial amend­ments to other per­sonal amounts accel­er­at­ing the increases to the per­sonal amounts imple­mented pur­suant to the 2005 fed­eral bud­get, and reduces the low­est 16% fed­eral income tax rate to 15%, effec­tive Jan­u­ary 1, 2005.