Speech From The Throne — Prelude to the Federal Stimulus Budget

CCA Bul­letin 2/09

Jan­u­ary 26, 2009

 

Just the Facts

On a day where the wind-chill was –31 Cel­sius, the Gov­er­nor Gen­eral of Canada, the CRT. Hon. Michaëlle Jean, deliv­ered the Speech from the Throne that was all about economy.

The usual tra­di­tional trap­pings of hon­our guards and trum­pet salutes were dis­posed of in favour of a stripped down pre­sen­ta­tion which lasted just over eight min­utes. The Speech was a pre­lude to the unveil­ing of the Fed­eral Stim­u­lus Bud­get which will be announced tomor­row, Jan­u­ary 27, 2009 at 4:00 p.m. EST.

The Gov­er­nor Gen­eral high­lighted the forth­com­ing bud­get, which she noted was a col­lab­o­ra­tive process:

“Our Gov­ern­ment approached the dia­logue in a spirit of open and non-partisan coop­er­a­tion. There is no monop­oly on good ideas because we face this cri­sis together. There can be no pride of author­ship – only the sat­is­fac­tion of iden­ti­fy­ing solu­tions that will work for all Canadians.”

In out­lin­ing the thrust of the pack­age, Her Excel­lency described the government’s action as follows:

• Our Gov­ern­ment is stim­u­lat­ing the econ­omy, through direct gov­ern­ment action and by encour­ag­ing pri­vate expenditure.
• Our Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing imme­di­ate action to build Canada through new invest­ment in infrastructure.
• Our Gov­ern­ment is act­ing to pro­tect the sta­bil­ity of our finan­cial system.
• Our Gov­ern­ment is act­ing to ensure access to credit for busi­nesses and consumers.
• Our Gov­ern­ment is act­ing to sup­port Cana­dian indus­tries in dif­fi­culty – includ­ing forestry, man­u­fac­tur­ing, auto­mo­tive, tourism, agri­cul­ture and com­mu­ni­ties that depend on those jobs.

Tell me more… about the budget!

While the Gov­er­nor Gen­eral did not enter into the details of mea­sures con­tained within the fed­eral Stim­u­lus Bud­get, Cab­i­net Min­is­ters have shown no sim­i­lar restraint. The morn­ing news­pa­pers were replete with num­bers con­tained within the bud­get and where the funds would be directed.

The new Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage informed one fran­coph­one media out­let over the week­end that $ 160 mil­lion for the arts and cul­ture sec­tor would be included in the stim­u­lus bud­get. We have tried in vain to seek con­fir­ma­tion that this would be new money and not sim­ply the re con­duc­tion of exist­ing pro­grams which are com­ing to a term. Tomor­row, the CCA has been invited to the pre-budget lock-up to ana­lyze the Stim­u­lus Bud­get, and we should be in a bet­ter posi­tion to share the details fol­low­ing the release of the budget.

Usu­ally the fed­eral bud­get is fol­lowed by the release of the Main Esti­mates which is expected later this week. This volu­mi­nous doc­u­ment pro­vides a line-by-line analy­sis of each pro­gram, depart­ment and agency for expen­di­ture across the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. This should pro­vide the CCA and stake­hold­ers with a more detailed under­stand­ing of what the gov­ern­ment intends to invest in arts and cul­ture in the com­ing years.

In the com­ing week, the CCA is plan­ning to host tele­phone con­fer­ences to pro­vide more details on the 2009–2010 fed­eral bud­get, field your ques­tions and gather your reac­tions. Once the Main Esti­mates have been stud­ied, fur­ther details on how you can par­tic­i­pate in these con­fer­ence calls will be provided.