Review of Summer 2009 Consultations

CCA Bul­letin 20/09

July 16, 2009

 

Who said that sum­mers were a period of rest and hol­i­days? As the CCA rolls through its own ver­sion of sum­mer, prepa­ra­tions for impor­tant con­sul­ta­tions are underway.

The 2009 pre-budget consultation

The CCA has sub­mit­ted this year again a request to appear in front of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance for the 2009 pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions. In the mean time, con­sul­ta­tions within our mem­ber­ship are under­way as we pre­pare our writ­ten sub­mis­sion which must be pre­sented no later than August 14.

As usual, the Com­mit­tee has pro­vided ques­tions to frame the spe­cific issues it wants to examine:

1. What fed­eral tax and pro­gram spend­ing mea­sures are needed to ensure pros­per­ity and a sus­tain­able future for Cana­di­ans from an eco­nomic, social and/or envi­ron­men­tal perspective?

2. What fed­eral stim­u­lus mea­sures have been effec­tive and how might rel­a­tively inef­fec­tive mea­sures be changed to ensure that they have the intended effects?

This year again, the rules imposed on inter­ven­ers have strict guide­lines: briefs should be no longer than five pages in length (includ­ing an Exec­u­tive Sum­mary!!!), should include an exec­u­tive sum­mary, should con­tain a max­i­mum of three rec­om­men­da­tions that reflect your most impor­tant fed­eral tax or pro­gram spend­ing pri­or­ity, and should – where pos­si­ble – indi­cate the expected fed­eral cost of your pro­posal. In the event that briefs con­tain more than three rec­om­men­da­tions, or three rec­om­men­da­tions that con­tain a num­ber of parts, only the first three rec­om­men­da­tions or the first part of a multi-part rec­om­men­da­tion will be con­sid­ered by the Committee.

The restric­tions on the length and scope of the sub­mis­sion will surely pro­vide a chal­lenge to orga­ni­za­tions like the CCA whose man­date is to rep­re­sent the inter­ests of the arts, cul­ture and her­itage sec­tors in Canada!

The Com­mit­tee hopes to hold pub­lic hear­ings in 10 com­mu­ni­ties accord­ing to the fol­low­ing timetable:

Ottawa, Ontario: Sep­tem­ber 14, Octo­ber 26 and Novem­ber 2, 2009

Van­cou­ver, British Colum­bia: Sep­tem­ber 28, 2009

Edmon­ton, Alberta: Sep­tem­ber 29, 2009

Yel­lowknife, North­west Ter­ri­to­ries: Sep­tem­ber 30, 2009

Sum­mer­side, Prince Edward Island: Octo­ber 5, 2009

St. John’s, New­found­land: Octo­ber 6, 2009

Que­bec City, Que­bec: Octo­ber 7, 2009

Regina, Saskatchewan: Octo­ber 19, 2009

Win­nipeg, Man­i­toba: Octo­ber 20, 2009

Toronto, Ontario: Octo­ber 21, 2009

What can I do?

If you or your orga­ni­za­tion wishes to make an appear­ance before the Com­mit­tee dur­ing the pre-budget con­sul­ta­tions, you have to send an email to Mr. François Pagé, Clerk of the Com­mit­tee, no later than Fri­day July 31, indi­cat­ing three loca­tions where you are will­ing to appear. The Com­mit­tee will try to accom­mo­date all wit­nesses request­ing an appear­ance, but can­not guar­an­tee that every­one will have an oppor­tu­nity to make an oral pre­sen­ta­tion. The dead­line to sub­mit the accom­pa­ny­ing writ­ten brief is no later than Fri­day, August 14 2009 in order for the brief to be trans­lated and dis­trib­uted to Com­mit­tee mem­bers. You are able to sub­mit a brief even if you do not wish to make an oral presentation.

If you would like to receive a copy of the CCA draft sub­mis­sion, please con­tact CCA Pol­icy Advi­sor, Jes­sica Litwin, at Jessica.Litwin@ccarts.ca . The CCA would very much appre­ci­ate receiv­ing a copy of your own submission.

Copy­right Reform

On June 22, 2009 a major one-day forum titled Canada’s Dig­i­tal Econ­omy: Mov­ing For­ward was held to gather 150 indus­try lead­ers and aca­d­e­mics from across the coun­try. Notice­ably absent were rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the arts and cul­ture com­mu­ni­ties.  Fol­low­ing this event, Indus­try Min­is­ter Tony Clement and Her­itage Min­is­ter James Moore announced they would con­sult Cana­di­ans this sum­mer before intro­duc­ing any amend­ments to Canada’s copy­right laws in the fall, stat­ing that they would “be com­ing to a city, town, vil­lage, pas­ture near you and talk­ing about those issues with a view to get­ting on track with leg­is­la­tion this fall.”

The cur­rent gov­ern­ment has been firm that it will rein­tro­duce the leg­is­la­tion to update Canada’s copy­right laws in order to bring Canada in line with its oblig­a­tions to the World Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty Orga­ni­za­tion, which Canada signed onto in 1997. The government’s pre­vi­ous copyright-reform leg­is­la­tion, Bill C-61, died on the order paper last year when the fed­eral elec­tion was called. At the time, it pro­voked polar­ized reac­tions, pitch­ing copy­right own­ers against copy­right users and con­sumers asso­ci­a­tions. The cur­rent round of con­sul­ta­tions obvi­ously aims at address­ing the crit­i­cism that Bill C-61 was tabled with­out con­sult­ing the pub­lic before announc­ing the legislation.

On July 20, 2009, the two Min­is­ters will launch nation-wide con­sul­ta­tions to solicit Cana­di­ans’ opin­ions on the impor­tant issue of copy­right reform.  The con­sul­ta­tions will run until Sep­tem­ber 13, 2009. In addi­tion, there will be an online con­sul­ta­tion, which will be open to all Cana­di­ans start­ing July 20, 2009.  Those inter­ested may join in on the online dis­cus­sion forum or share views more for­mally by post­ing a submission.

The CCA has been invited to par­tic­i­pate in one of the round­table dis­cus­sions on copy­right reform but given the short notice and our restricted resources, we will for the moment sim­ply mon­i­tor the process and report on it. Accord­ing to the invi­ta­tion received, the gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted to mod­ern­iz­ing Canada’s copy­right laws, “to pro­vide mean­ing­ful rights for cre­ators and pro­mote the use of dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy by its cit­i­zens.  The process under­taken is to ensure that all per­spec­tives are taken into account in an open and trans­par­ent process, to help deliver new leg­is­la­tion in the fall that is forward-looking, reflects Cana­dian val­ues, and strength­ens Canada’s abil­ity to com­pete in the global dig­i­tal economy.”

Pub­lic con­sul­ta­tions on the Canada Media Fund

The Cana­dian Tele­vi­sion Fund (CTF) will also give stake­hold­ers the chance to par­tic­i­pate in a con­sul­ta­tion exam­in­ing the Fund’s tran­si­tion into the Canada Media Fund (CMF). The CTF will morph next year into the CMF, broad­en­ing its man­date to include the sup­port of new media.

The Pres­i­dent and CEO of the CTF said in a statement:

“Through the con­sul­ta­tion process, indus­try stake­hold­ers will play an active role in deter­min­ing the pro­gram poli­cies of the Canada Media Fund. This con­sul­ta­tion with the indus­try is crit­i­cal to a suc­cess­ful launch of the CMF and we look for­ward to hear­ing the great ideas this process will generate”.

This con­sul­ta­tion will first occur through an online town hall meet­ing. The CTF said it will later host provin­cial, ter­ri­to­r­ial, and national focus groups aimed at address­ing fur­ther ques­tions and con­cerns. The August 6, 2009 online meet­ing will see the Fund present brief­ing papers on the “key pol­icy issues” raised by its new man­date, after which stake­hold­ers may sub­mit writ­ten com­ments. Full details about the writ­ten sub­mis­sion process and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Focus Groups will be pro­vided at the vir­tual August 6 town hall, about which more infor­ma­tion will be made avail­able in the near future.

Here is where you can find more details about the whole process lead­ing to the April 1, 2010 launch of the CMF.