Wrapping up 2006: Useful Information on “Odds & Ends”

CCA Bul­letin 54/06

Ottawa, Decem­ber 21, 2006

This CCA Bul­letin, our last one for 2006, con­tains use­ful infor­ma­tion about:

• Self-employed sta­tus: CCA’s let­ter of clar­i­fi­ca­tion to the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance
• The Canada Coun­cil for the Arts’ new “50 for 50″ Arts Challenge
• Arts Fund­ing: record dona­tions by indi­vid­u­als to cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions in 2004
• Her­itage build­ings: a new online cam­paign by the Her­itage Canada Foundation

The CCA Clar­i­fies a Key Ele­ment of its Pre-Budget Submission

When the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance issued its report, “Canada: Com­pet­ing to Win”, they noted on page 59 that the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) and Cana­dian Actors’ Equity Asso­ci­a­tion (CAEA), “Urged the Com­mit­tee to rec­tify what they believe to be inequitable treat­ment of self-employed indi­vid­u­als — artists, in par­tic­u­lar — under the EI pro­gram, since self employed indi­vid­u­als — who are clas­si­fied as inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors — are required to pay both the employer and employee share of EI con­tri­bu­tions but do not have access to all of the program’s benefits”.

Unfor­tu­nately, this is a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the key point the CCA was try­ing to make to the Com­mit­tee and we regret any mis­do­ing in cre­at­ing this con­fu­sion. In order to address this mis­un­der­stand­ing the CCA has sent a let­ter of clar­i­fi­ca­tion on Decem­ber 18 to the Chair of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee, MP Brian Pal­lis­ter, where we note:

“Self-employed work­ers nei­ther pay the pre­mi­ums for the EI pro­grams nor do they cur­rently have access to any of the ben­e­fits asso­ci­ated with the pro­gram. In fact, efforts are ongo­ing to adapt the EI pro­gram so that inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors can pay a mod­i­fied pre­mium to access the so-called “soft ben­e­fits” of the pro­gram; namely maternity/paternity ben­e­fits, com­pas­sion­ate leave, and extended sick leave. Both the CAEA and the CCA will con­tinue to work with other orga­ni­za­tions within the cul­tural sec­tor and beyond to achieve some progress on this issue. The Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil (CHRC) is also actively engaged in nego­ti­a­tions with fed­eral offi­cials to this end.”

“50 for 50″ : Canada Council’s 50th Anniver­sary Cel­e­bra­tion to Pro­mote Pub­lic Engage­ment in the Arts

Canada ‘s national arts fund­ing agency is chal­leng­ing Cana­di­ans to help it cel­e­brate its 50th anniver­sary in 2007 by step­ping up their involve­ment in the arts. The Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, cre­ated by an Act of Par­lia­ment on March 28, 1957, just launched the “50 for 50″ Arts Chal­lenge, an ini­tia­tive aimed at encour­ag­ing peo­ple to become more involved in the arts as both audi­ence mem­bers and active participants.

The Coun­cil is ask­ing peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in 50 arts activ­i­ties dur­ing the anniver­sary year — rang­ing from read­ing a poem to singing in a choir to attend­ing a film fes­ti­val to look­ing at a paint­ing — keep a record of their expe­ri­ences and let the Coun­cil know about it. Accord­ing to Canada Coun­cil Direc­tor Robert Sir­man, “Fifty arts activ­i­ties in 2007 may sound like a lot, but when you con­sider it’s less than one a week, you real­ize how easy it is to meet the chal­lenge. The arts are all around us: on TV, radio and the Inter­net, in our local book or record stores, in our schools, com­mu­nity cen­ters and parks as well as in such spe­cial­ized venues as art gal­leries, the­atres and con­cert halls.” The CCA agrees that the vast major­ity of Cana­di­ans are already engaged in the arts in one way or another, even if some peo­ple don’t real­ize it.

Par­tic­i­pants in the chal­lenge are encour­aged to tell the Canada Coun­cil about their expe­ri­ences by e-mail at 50@canadacouncil.ca, or by writ­ing to: The “50 for 50″ Arts Chal­lenge, Canada Coun­cil for the Arts, 350 Albert St, P.O. Box 1047, Ottawa, ON K1P 5V8. High­lights will be posted on the Council’s web site. The 50 for 50 Arts Chal­lenge is one of a num­ber of spe­cial activ­i­ties related to the Canada Council’s 50th anniver­sary, includ­ing more than 80 anniver­sary con­certs, per­for­mances and other events ded­i­cated to the Canada Coun­cil by arts orga­ni­za­tions across Canada. Start­ing in Jan­u­ary, you can visit www.canadacouncil.ca for ongo­ing updates on the “50 for 50″ Arts Chal­lenge and other 50th anniver­sary activities.

New Hill Strate­gies Research Report Shows Record Level of Indi­vid­ual Dona­tions to Cul­tural Orga­ni­za­tions in 2004

A new report from Hill Strate­gies Research, enti­tled Indi­vid­ual Donors to Arts and Cul­ture Orga­ni­za­tions in Canada 2004, pro­vides a some­what encour­ag­ing pic­ture of arts and cul­ture fundrais­ing in 2004. The Hill Strate­gies Research report shows that 732,000 Cana­di­ans 15 years of age or older made finan­cial dona­tions worth a total of $188 mil­lion to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions in 2004. This rep­re­sents a record level of dona­tions by indi­vid­u­als to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions — much higher than amounts cap­tured in sur­veys con­ducted in 2000 and 1997.

A caveat how­ever: because of slightly dif­fer­ent sur­vey con­tent and method­olo­gies, pre­vi­ous esti­mates of dona­tions to all types of non-profit orga­ni­za­tions may have been under­es­ti­mated. This could lead to an exag­ger­a­tion of the increase in dona­tions between 2000 and 2004. How­ever, the increase in the dona­tions to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions was much higher than any other non-profit sec­tor that was defined con­sis­tently in 2000 and 2004. It is highly unlikely that this dis­pro­por­tion­ate increase could be the result of sur­vey changes alone, which did not favour arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions over other types of non-profit orga­ni­za­tions. Over­all, it is clear that there was a sub­stan­tial, real increase in dona­tions to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions between 2000 and 2004.

The report exam­ines data from cus­tom tab­u­la­tions that Hill Strate­gies Research com­mis­sioned from Sta­tis­tics Canada based on the 2004 Canada Sur­vey of Giv­ing, Vol­un­teer­ing, and Par­tic­i­pat­ing (CSGVP). This national sur­vey ques­tioned a very large and sta­tis­ti­cally rep­re­sen­ta­tive sam­ple of Cana­di­ans age 15 or older (20,832 peo­ple) about their finan­cial gifts to all types of not-for-profit orga­ni­za­tions in the 12 months pre­ced­ing the sur­vey. The report also pro­vides a sum­mary of the num­ber of donors in each province and rough esti­mates of the value of dona­tions to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions by region.

A clear chal­lenge for arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions is to sus­tain the fundrais­ing momen­tum that they have built through time-limited or project-specific cam­paigns. In the last fed­eral bud­get, the gov­ern­ment abol­ished the remain­ing cap­i­tal gains tax on reg­is­tered secu­ri­ties donated to char­i­ties and pri­vate foun­da­tions. Although it may be a bit early to do so, it will be inter­est­ing to exam­ine the impact this mea­sure may have on the level of indi­vid­ual dona­tions to arts and cul­ture orga­ni­za­tions in the next sur­vey on this topic, sched­uled for 2007.

Her­itage build­ings: “Land­marks Not Land­fill” Online Campaign

The Her­itage Canada Foun­da­tion and the Coali­tion against Demo­li­tion are call­ing upon the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to imple­ment finan­cial incen­tives for his­toric places in its 2007 Bud­get. Over the past 30 years, Canada has lost 20% of its his­toric build­ings to demo­li­tion — and the destruc­tion con­tin­ues. These orga­ni­za­tions believe the time has come for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to imple­ment finan­cial incen­tives in its 2007 bud­get to encour­age pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment in the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of his­toric places, and are call­ing on the pub­lic to sup­port their request. Inter­ested par­tic­i­pants can join by vis­it­ing: http://www.heritagecanada.org/petition_form.cfm

In clos­ing…

2006 has been a mem­o­rable and suc­cess­ful year here at the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA). We wish to take this oppor­tu­nity to thank our mem­bers and sup­port­ers, and hope that you will enjoy a very merry hol­i­day sea­son, as well as a peace­ful and pros­per­ous 2007!

As the CCA relies heav­ily on your con­tri­bu­tions to con­tinue its impor­tant ongo­ing work, char­i­ta­ble dona­tions are always gra­ciously accepted.

(Please note that the CCA offices will be closed as of Fri­day, Decem­ber 22, 2006, open­ing again on Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 8, 2007).