The Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) Releases Its Annual In-Depth Analysis of the Federal Budget re: Arts and Culture Issues

CCA Bul­letin 21/07

June 5, 2007

The Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) is pleased to announce the pub­li­ca­tion of its annual in-depth analy­sis of the fed­eral bud­get related to arts and cul­ture issues.  E-mail us if you would like a copy of this year’s analysis.

This doc­u­ment ana­lyzes the Bud­get pre­sented by the Min­is­ter of Finance, the Hon. Jim Fla­herty, on March 19, 2007, by look­ing at fed­eral fund­ing to the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage (DCH), its agen­cies and crown cor­po­ra­tions, from 20050–2006 to 2007–2008.  This multi-annual com­par­i­son is nec­es­sary because 2005–2006 expen­di­tures are under­stated, while those for 2006–2007 are over­stated, due to the fact that the Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates tabled by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment were not adopted before the last fed­eral election.

The analy­sis also looks into orga­ni­za­tional and fund­ing changes within the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage; fed­eral fund­ing of key pro­grams across the arts, her­itage and cul­tural indus­tries, and other note­wor­thy devel­op­ments affect­ing the sector.

Just The Facts

A num­ber of key find­ings emerge.  First, over­all cul­tural fund­ing lev­els hold steady or rise mod­estly in Bud­get 2007–2008, which is wel­come news for the sec­tor.  There was also good news in late 2006, when the gov­ern­ment announced close to $100 mil­lion in infra­struc­ture fund­ing for a num­ber of fed­eral cul­tural insti­tu­tions in Ottawa, and in early 2007, when the gov­ern­ment announced a two-year renewal of the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund (but still at the same $100 M1996 level).

Notwith­stand­ing this good news, there is ambiva­lence and uncer­tainty for the sec­tor.  The title of this year’s bud­get analy­sis (“Sign Sign Every­where a Sign?”) seeks to cap­ture this ambiva­lence, as there are a num­ber of signs that the gov­ern­ment may be adopt­ing a dif­fer­ent fed­eral approach to arts and culture.

There are grow­ing signs that the Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment favours a greater role for the pri­vate sec­tor in the cul­tural domain (e.g. the newly cre­ated Canada’s National Trust is to be man­aged and directed by “private-sector indi­vid­u­als”).  This ori­en­ta­tion is in keep­ing with the government’s fall 2006 eco­nomic update. In its mid-to-long range fis­cal pol­icy plan, enti­tled Advan­tage Canada, the gov­ern­ment com­mits that it will seek part­ner­ships with the pri­vate sector.

A per­fect exam­ple of this ori­en­ta­tion is to be found in the newly cre­ated Canada’s National Trust whose man­date is to pro­mote her­itage pro­tec­tion. The gov­ern­ment is only pro­vid­ing seed fund­ing to the orga­ni­za­tion, with long term fund­ing expected to come through dona­tions. More­over, the Fund is to be man­aged and directed by “private-sector indi­vid­u­als.”

Adding to this sense of uncer­tainty is the seem­ing reduc­tion in open­ness and trans­parency in decision-making – e.g. the Sep­tem­ber 25, 2006 real­lo­ca­tion fund­ing cuts to the Muse­ums Assis­tance Pro­gram (MAP) – and the propen­sity of the gov­ern­ment to post­pone deci­sions that are very impor­tant for the sec­tor – like the financ­ing of the Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (CBC) or the long-awaited new museum pol­icy.  The gov­ern­ment still invokes the need for fur­ther stud­ies and eval­u­a­tions before mak­ing clear what its cul­tural poli­cies and pri­or­i­ties will be.

In this con­text, it is dif­fi­cult to feel reas­sured about the future of fed­eral cul­tural pol­icy and pro­grams.  As a result, this year’s bud­get analy­sis reit­er­ates the key mes­sage of the analy­sis of last year: it is more impor­tant than ever for those in the arts and cul­ture sec­tor to impress upon the fed­eral gov­ern­ment the impor­tance of cul­tural pol­icy for Canada and Canadians.

Tell Me More

The CCA urges you to read the full Bud­get Analy­sis, which is divided into four broad sec­tions.  The first exam­ines “the big pic­ture” by dis­cussing over­all fed­eral fund­ing lev­els to key fed­eral cul­tural insti­tu­tions.  This is where, for exam­ple, one finds increases in fund­ing for sev­eral orga­ni­za­tions at very dif­fer­ent lev­els – e.g. 51.4% for the Museum of Nature, under major ren­o­va­tions – to 4.1% for the Museum of Civ­i­liza­tion, also under an infra­struc­ture pro­gram.  Other exam­ples: CBC’s bud­get stays sta­ble (+ 0.2%) while one sees sim­ple bud­get trans­fers from Tele­film Canada to the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund.

The sec­ond sec­tion focuses on the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage, and exam­ines its orga­ni­za­tional struc­ture and pro­gram expen­di­tures across key areas of activ­ity.  This part reveals increases often more appar­ent than real, the over­all fund­ing of the Depart­ment remain­ing rel­a­tively stable.

The third sec­tion under­takes a detailed analy­sis of expen­di­tures across cul­tural sub-sectors, bring­ing for­ward the main changes, chal­lenges, and oppor­tu­ni­ties.  This sec­tion shows the detailed fluc­tu­a­tions in the bud­gets of each cul­tural sub-sector and sug­gests which files should be looked at care­fully over the com­ing year.  Not sur­pris­ingly, because of the 2010 Win­ter Olympics, Sport is the sub-sector with the most impres­sive increases.

The final sec­tion explores a num­ber of devel­op­ments in the arts and cul­ture sec­tor beyond expen­di­tures, and looks at other government-wide ini­tia­tives with poten­tial impacts on the sec­tor.  This is where you will find infor­ma­tion on the Vol­un­teer Initiative’s demise, the Fed­eral Account­abil­ity Act and sub­se­quent updates to the Lob­by­ist Reg­is­tra­tion Act, the UNESCO Con­ven­tion on Cul­tural diver­sity, etc.

A Word on the Fes­ti­vals Fund

In the 2007–2008 Bud­get, the Min­is­ter of Finance announced an invest­ment of $60M over two years for fes­ti­vals across the coun­try.  This announce­ment has cre­ated much inter­est and raised many ques­tions in the weeks fol­low­ing, includ­ing an emerg­ing con­tro­versy about the intent of the pro­gram and the cri­te­ria and processes through which the money would be attributed.

Based on what the CCA knows at this time, it appears that the pro­gram announced in the March Bud­get is NOT meant to replace a sim­i­lar one abruptly cut by the pre­vi­ous Lib­eral gov­ern­ment in the con­text of the “spon­sor­ship scan­dal” fall­out.  Inter­est­ingly, respon­si­bil­ity for devel­op­ing the cri­te­ria and processes for the pro­gram has been given to the Cit­i­zen­ship and Iden­tity sec­tor of Min­is­ter Oda’s port­fo­lio, not to Arts and Cul­ture. In any event, it seems highly unlikely that the $30 M ear­marked for the cur­rent fis­cal year will be dis­trib­uted before sev­eral months, if at all in the cur­rent fis­cal year.

The CCA’s Analy­sis of the Fed­eral Bud­get is avail­able at no cost to mem­bers of the orga­ni­za­tion.  If you don’t yet have your copy, send us an  e-mail.