TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY FOR THE ARTS AND CULTURE IN CANADA

Ottawa, Feb­ru­ary 23, 2005 — Finance Min­is­ter Ralph Goodale intro­duced his sec­ond federal

bud­get in the House of Com­mons late this after­noon, and his first for Paul Martin’s Liberal

minor­ity gov­ern­ment. Many in the arts and cul­tural sec­tor across Canada have been on pins

and nee­dles over what this bud­get might have in store for the sec­tor.  For weeks, the Canadian

media has been flush with rumours that this would be a “some­thing for every­one” budget,

though the arts, cul­ture, and her­itage sec­tor have heard this song before and have rarely been

invited to the dance.

Of pri­mary con­cern to Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) and its mem­bers – would the

essen­tial Tomor­row Starts Today (TST) fund­ing pro­gram, which began in 2001 with $560 million

over three years, and was re-announced as a one year $192 ini­tia­tive by Cana­dian Heritage

Min­is­ter Liza Frulla this past Decem­ber, be extended long term?

CCA was pleased to find that Deliv­er­ing on Com­mit­ments: Bud­get Plan 2005 does indeed

include a sub­stan­tial exten­sion of the TST fund­ing enve­lope. Page 99 of the doc­u­ment states:

“Bud­get 2005 fur­ther extends the $172 mil­lion of new fund­ing per year for another four years,

for a total of $688 mil­lion.  This brings total new fund­ing for Tomor­row Starts Today to $860

mil­lion over five years.  This multi-year invest­ment will help cre­ate sta­bil­ity within the arts

and cul­ture com­mu­nity by pro­vid­ing pre­dictable lev­els of fund­ing in the years to come.”

CCA appre­ci­ates this sig­nif­i­cant invest­ment com­mit­ment and applauds Min­is­ter Goodale for

heed­ing the advice of his col­leagues on the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance, whose mid­De­cem­ber report made a unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tion to extend the TST pro­gram.  However,

it would appear that some­where along the way, the entirety of the sector’s mes­sages to the

Finance Com­mit­tee and the Finance Min­is­ter got lost, as the mes­sage of increased fund­ing to

the sec­tor did not make its way into the bud­get in a sub­stan­tial way. In fact, CCA is concerned

that the TST pro­gram will be reduced by $20 mil­lion annu­ally from 06–07 onwards.  What

pro­grams will be affected?  The esti­mates will tell, but are still weeks away. In short, yes, the

renewal of TST rep­re­sents much-needed multi-year fund­ing, but the announced level will not

ade­quately address grow­ing finan­cial needs.

“We are grate­ful for the exten­sion of Tomor­row Starts Today,” said CCA National Director

Jean Malavoy. “We con­grat­u­late Min­is­ter Frulla and her col­leagues on this sig­nif­i­cant step,

and we expect that this five-year exten­sion rep­re­sents the foun­da­tion on which increased

fund­ing for cul­ture can be built.”

Over­all, arts, cul­ture and her­itage still has a long way to go in terms of mak­ing itself a priority

in the hearts and mind of this gov­ern­ment, as Minister’s Goodale’s Bud­get Speech made but

one ref­er­ence to the sec­tor when he said, “(Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties) are engines of growth,

employ­ment and inno­va­tion, cen­tres of art, cul­ture and learning.”

Fund­ing for the CBC

Also seek­ing long-term and sus­tain­able fund­ing was the CBC, who had been rumoured in the

media to be receiv­ing a fund­ing bump to help increase its regional pro­gram­ming strategy.

What the CBC appears to have received instead is the same single-year, $60 mil­lion funding

“top-up” that has been present in the past few bud­gets. This would not rep­re­sent any actual

increase in core fund­ing for the CBC, but would rather main­tain the CBC’s fund­ing at current

lev­els for a sin­gle year, leav­ing the CBC unable to make long term pro­gram­ming decisions.

What else is in the bud­get for arts, cul­ture and heritage?

-          $5 mil­lion per year to the Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Program

-          $10 mil­lion per year to Cel­e­brate Canada for “community-based events and activities”

-          $46 mil­lion over five years to Parks Canada for “the restora­tion and preser­va­tion of Canada’s built

her­itage” and “to work with part­ners to imple­ment a national reg­is­ter of his­toric places and con­ver­sa­tion standards”

What is not there?

-          No action on a rec­om­men­da­tion from the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance for the federal

gov­ern­ment to increase the Cana­dian Film or Video Pro­duc­tion Tax Credit to 30%

-          No spe­cific men­tion of fund­ing key, though unsta­ble pro­grams, which are essen­tial ele­ments of

fed­eral sup­port of arts and cul­ture, includ­ing but not lim­ited to: the Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund and the

Muse­ums Assis­tance Program

-          No men­tion of sig­nif­i­cant changes to EI and income tax­a­tion that would pos­i­tively impact

Canada’s pro­fes­sional artists and creators

What is unclear?

-          The agenda for “Cities and Com­mu­ni­ties” and its poten­tial impact on arts, cul­ture and her­itage at

local and regional lev­els remains vague at best. The gov­ern­ment did announce a five year $5 bil­lion plan

to share gas tax rev­enues with munic­i­pal­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ties, so will cit­i­zens locally work to ensure that cul­tural ini­tia­tives are sup­ported as well?

-          $375 mil­lion over five years for the three fed­eral research grant­ing coun­cils, which could

poten­tially be accessed by the sector.

-          Will increased fund­ing of $800 mil­lion for regional eco­nomic devel­op­ment agen­cies in Atlantic

Canada, West­ern Canada, Que­bec and North­ern Ontario allow dol­lars to flow to cul­tural initiatives?

More to come in the days and weeks ahead…

With Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage Liza Frulla set to make tele­phone calls to the media and lead­ers in the cul­tural sec­tor overnight, CCA hopes to have a clearer idea of the ministry’s inten­tions by the end of the week. We also anx­iously await the release of the Main Esti­mates later on, so that we might see how the many spe­cific pro­grams that fall under the TST rubric may be affected.

CCA will con­tinue to scru­ti­nize the bud­get and mon­i­tor pub­lic state­ments about its con­tents, the results of which will be cir­cu­lated via our bul­letins, when nec­es­sary.  As always, CCA will author a substantial,

detailed analy­sis of the impli­ca­tions of the fed­eral bud­get on Canada’s arts, cul­ture and her­itage sector,

which will be avail­able in both offi­cial lan­guages in a cou­ple of months.