The House of Commons is off for the summer

CCA Bul­letin 16/10

 

June 22, 2010

 

 

 

Just the Facts

Last week, mem­bers of the House of Com­mons left the Hill for the sum­mer, with MPs return­ing to their rid­ings to mull over the work ahead in the fall. Mean­while, the Sen­ate is still try­ing to deal with the mas­sive omnibus bud­get bill, C-9. Mem­bers of its Finance Com­mit­tee are say­ing that they will stay as long as it takes to get through the 904 page document.

So, from the arts and cul­ture per­spec­tive, what has been accom­plished in the 65 days that the House has been sit­ting since the infa­mous pro­ro­ga­tion that was granted by the Gov­er­nor Gen­eral last Decem­ber? Notably, since the open­ing of the third ses­sion of the 40th Par­lia­ment on March 3, there has been more pol­icy mak­ing with regards to our sec­tor in com­par­i­son to the two pre­ced­ing ses­sions. Sev­eral impor­tant pieces of leg­is­la­tion are now on the table for the House of Com­mons and Sen­ate, mak­ing the fall ses­sion a likely plat­form for lively debates. The only deter­rent would be another fed­eral elec­tion, a sce­nario cur­rently deemed unlikely by most observers! In this bul­letin, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) looks at the state of affairs on Parliament’s Order Paper and reviews cur­rent con­sul­ta­tions which may affect the arts, cul­ture and her­itage sector.

 

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1. The Omnibus Bud­get & For­eign Own­er­ship

The 2010 Fed­eral Bud­get moved through its three House read­ings at great speed, espe­cially given its size and the fact that the gov­ern­ment chose to load it with sub­stan­tial changes to sev­eral Acts. This cur­tailed Par­lia­men­tary and pub­lic debates by dar­ing the Oppo­si­tion to defeat the bill and pro­voke an unwanted gen­eral elec­tion. Bill C-9 was debated for only seven days in the House dur­ing the sec­ond read­ing. It was then sent to the Finance Com­mit­tee where it received five days of hear­ings. The 2,208 clauses in the bill were stud­ied in only one day and the Com­mit­tee reported back to the House on May 13 with­out any amendments!

Yet, many crit­ics includ­ing Pro­gres­sive Con­ser­v­a­tive Sen­a­tor Low­ell Mur­ray and Lib­eral Joseph Day, have pointed out that the bill includes mea­sures that will bring impor­tant changes to envi­ron­men­tal assess­ments, nuclear poli­cies, pen­sion rules and Canada Post. Of more direct rel­e­vance to the cul­tural sec­tor, Bill C-9 mod­i­fies the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Act, allow­ing for­eign own­er­ship and con­trol of satel­lite com­pa­nies.

Last week, Con­ser­v­a­tive Sen­a­tors banded together to defeat a motion by Sen­a­tor Mur­ray that would have split up the bill so that dif­fer­ent Sen­ate com­mit­tees could study the areas of the bill that specif­i­cally per­tained to them. The Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee is expected to sit through most of July while it deals with the mam­moth bill and its most ardent crit­ics try to amend it.

The Bud­get con­tains the sec­ond por­tion of the government’s two year Cana­dian Eco­nomic Action Plan. The CCA’s main con­cern with the bud­get bill is that it may spark the begin­ning of the unrav­el­ling of the long stand­ing pol­icy which stip­u­lates that cul­tural indus­tries should be owned and effec­tively con­trolled by Cana­di­ans. In the Throne Speech, the gov­ern­ment declared its inten­tion to open up the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor to for­eign invest­ment. This mat­ter has been the sub­ject of pub­lic hear­ings by the House of Com­mons’ Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Indus­try, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­ogy. Crit­ics have stated that the Committee’s June 16 report “cov­ers hardly any new ground, takes no bold posi­tions and sheds very lit­tle light on the topic despite hear­ing from dozens of peo­ple in March, April and May.” After hear­ing wit­nesses from across the spec­trum of tele­com, cable, satel­lite, broad­cast­ing, pro­duc­tion, reg­u­la­tion and cul­tural com­mu­ni­ties, the Committee’s thin report makes only two recommendations:

a) That the notion of  the “con­trol in fact” test be clarified.

b) That for­eign own­er­ship restric­tions on Cana­dian satel­lite com­pa­nies be removed, some­thing the gov­ern­ment is in effect doing through Sec­tion 2184 of the Bud­get Act.

While some main­tain that chang­ing the own­er­ship rules for the tele­coms indus­try won’t affect the Cana­dian government’s capac­ity to reg­u­late broad­cast­ing and con­tent, the CCA argues that the gov­ern­ment is tread­ing on a slip­pery slope. With over­lap­ping roles and con­cen­trated own­er­ship in the pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion busi­nesses, the broad­cast­ing sec­tor can no longer be sep­a­rated from the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and cable indus­tries. This view is sup­ported by the Chair of the CRTC. The CCA’s con­cerns were also echoed in the sup­ple­men­tary opin­ions filed by the Lib­eral Party, the NDP and the Bloc Québé­cois (whose opin­ion piece is titled “Sell­ing its Sov­er­eignty to the High­est Bid­der”).

A week before the Committee’s report was made pub­lic, the Min­is­ter of Indus­try, the Hon. Tony Clement, announced a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on for­eign invest­ment restric­tions in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions. Cana­di­ans have until July 30 to make their opin­ions known.

In the com­ing weeks, after it has reviewed the recently pub­lished Sup­ple­men­tary Esti­mates and received answers to a series of ques­tions raised with gov­ern­ment offi­cials, the CCA will pub­lish its annual analy­sis of the Fed­eral Bud­get,

2. Copy­right Bill C-32

On June 2, 2010, in a breach with tra­di­tion, the Min­is­ter of Indus­try tabled Bill C-32, a Copy­right Mod­ern­iza­tion Act on its own. C-32 is the third attempt since 2005 to mod­ern­ize the Copy­right Act and makes for manda­tory revi­sions every five years. Rumours had cir­cu­lated that the gov­ern­ment wanted to fast-track the sec­ond read­ing of the bill by hav­ing a spe­cial leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee made up of mem­bers of the Indus­try and Her­itage Stand­ing Com­mit­tees hold hear­ings dur­ing the sum­mer. If those rumours had any sub­stance, they were def­i­nitely dis­proved when the House adjourned a week early last Thurs­day.

The sec­ond read­ing will there­fore take place at the government’s dis­cre­tion some time next fall, after the House recon­venes on Sep­tem­ber 20. This will be fol­lowed by pub­lic hear­ings by a spe­cial leg­isla­tive com­mit­tee. There will no doubt be a very lively debate, as crit­i­cisms of Bill C-32 from the arts and cul­tural sec­tor are becom­ing more promi­nent. Dur­ing the sum­mer, the CCA will pub­lish a thor­ough analy­sis of where all the key stake­hold­ers stand on the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion.

Also on the table is Bill C-499, the pri­vate member’s bill intro­duced by NDP mem­ber Char­lie Angus. The bill includes a pro­posal to amend the Copy­right Act.  Bill C-499 had its first read­ing in the House of Com­mons in March 2010. This bill would adapt the suc­cess­ful pri­vate copy­ing levy regime to the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of copy­ing devices such as MP3 play­ers. The Bloc Québé­cois was also suc­cess­ful in hav­ing the House of Com­mons adopt a non-binding motion extend­ing the regime to all dig­i­tal record­ing devices. With the excep­tion of com­pact discs, Bill C-32 does not cur­rently extend a pri­vate copy­ing regime to new tech­no­log­i­cal plat­forms because the gov­ern­ment, spear­headed by Her­itage Min­is­ter James Moore, con­sid­ers the pri­vate copy­ing levy to be an unjus­ti­fied tax on consumers.

At the same time, Angus intro­duced a motion on fair deal­ing which, accord­ing to him, “would pro­tect the rea­son­able use of copy­righted mate­ri­als for inno­va­tion, research, and study.” While C-499 has been well received by many indi­vid­u­als in the cul­tural sec­tor, Angus’s pro­posal to include an American-style fair use notion has been strongly denounced by most right hold­ers. In any case, it is not expected that the Bill will go much beyond the first reading.

3. Bill C-470 Cap on Char­ity Salaries

Bill C-470 is now on its third read­ing in the House of Com­mons. Intro­duced by the Hon. Albina Guarnieri, MP for Mis­sis­sauga East – Cooksville, this bill’s pur­pose is to revoke the reg­is­tra­tion of char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions and pub­lic or pri­vate foun­da­tions if the annual com­pen­sa­tion of any sin­gle exec­u­tive or employee exceeds $250,000. Com­pen­sa­tion refers to salaries, wages, com­mis­sions, bonuses, fees and hon­o­raria, plus the value of tax­able and non-taxable benefits.

The pri­vate bill seeks to enhance the trans­parency of the char­i­ta­ble sec­tor by requir­ing reg­is­tered char­i­ties to pro­vide the name, job title and annual com­pen­sa­tion of the five most highly com­pen­sated exec­u­tives or employ­ees. Under the pro­posed bill, the Min­is­ter of National Rev­enue would have the dis­cre­tion to dereg­is­ter any char­ity, pri­vate foun­da­tion or pub­lic foun­da­tion that exceeds the annual limit of $250,000 in total compensation.

Imag­ine Canada has pre­pared a thor­ough brief out­lin­ing its main con­cerns with the bill. The essen­tial prob­lem with this piece of leg­is­la­tion is that it fails to rec­og­nize the com­plex­ity of char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions within Canada. Non-profit arts orga­ni­za­tions reg­is­tered as char­i­ties may oper­ate on small bud­gets, mean­ing their man­age­ment will not receive large pay­ment pack­ages. How­ever, there are a num­ber of foun­da­tions and arts orga­ni­za­tions which oper­ate on large bud­gets with com­plex and com­pet­i­tive oper­at­ing mod­els. For exam­ple, a sym­phony may need to attract a top-rated con­duc­tor and artis­tic direc­tor. These orga­ni­za­tions must be allowed to attract strong and cre­ative man­age­r­ial tal­ent using appeal­ing com­pen­sa­tion pack­ages. As it stands, C-470 would impose yet another admin­is­tra­tive road­block within the arts sector.

4. Dig­i­tal Econ­omy

The gov­ern­ment is in the process of form­ing a national dig­i­tal econ­omy strat­egy. The gov­ern­ment has asked Cana­di­ans to par­tic­i­pate in an online pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, stat­ing, “Dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies are crit­i­cal to every aspect of our econ­omy and soci­ety. That is why a strat­egy for the dig­i­tal econ­omy is needed to ensure that Canada is posi­tioned to ben­e­fit from the oppor­tu­ni­ties that it presents. All Cana­di­ans have a role to play in help­ing shape Canada’s dig­i­tal future. Your per­spec­tives, sug­ges­tions, ideas and sub­mis­sions will be impor­tant inputs in the cre­ation of our dig­i­tal strat­egy.” Sub­mis­sions are due online by July 9, 2010.

There are five main idea forums, each a main com­po­nent of the con­sul­ta­tion paper:

Inno­va­tion Using Dig­i­tal Tech­nolo­gies

Dig­i­tal Infra­struc­ture

Grow­ing the ICT Indus­try

Canada’s Dig­i­tal Con­tent

Build­ing Dig­i­tal Skills

At the end of these con­sul­ta­tions, the gov­ern­ment will review the sub­mis­sions and input pro­vided by Cana­di­ans. All of this infor­ma­tion will be care­fully con­sid­ered by the gov­ern­ment and is sup­posed to help in the devel­op­ment of Canada’s dig­i­tal econ­omy strategy.

5. Pre-Budget Sub­mis­sion

For the past twenty years, the CCA has par­tic­i­pated in the fed­eral pre-budget con­sul­ta­tion process. The Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance invites inter­ested orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als to put for­ward rec­om­men­da­tions for poten­tial inclu­sion in the next fed­eral bud­get. At the end of the con­sul­ta­tive process, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee releases a report to the Min­is­ter of Finance and Par­lia­ment out­lin­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions based on the sub­mis­sions and pre­sen­ta­tions made by Canadians.

This year, inter­ested indi­vid­u­als and groups should sub­mit a writ­ten brief not exceed­ing five pages, in either Eng­lish or French, to the Com­mit­tee Clerk no later than August 13, 2010.These briefs will be trans­lated and dis­trib­uted to Finance Com­mit­tee mem­bers. Briefs can be sub­mit­ted elec­tron­i­cally to FINA@parl.gc.ca or mailed to:

Jean-François Pagé, Clerk
Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance
6–14 131 Queen Street
House of Com­mons Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Begin­ning in Sep­tem­ber, the Com­mit­tee will hold hear­ings in Ottawa and in des­ig­nated Cana­dian cities. For these hear­ings, an invi­ta­tion will be extended by the Com­mit­tee Clerk, on behalf of Com­mit­tee mem­bers, to selected indi­vid­u­als and groups. Those invited to make a pre­sen­ta­tion to the Com­mit­tee will be con­tacted by the Com­mit­tee Clerk no later than the last week of Sep­tem­ber.

The Com­mit­tee antic­i­pates the fol­low­ing schedule:

– Sur­rey, British Colum­bia: Sep­tem­ber 27, 2010
– Kam­loops, British Colum­bia: Sep­tem­ber 28, 2010
– Saska­toon, Saskatchewan: Sep­tem­ber 29 and 30, 2010
– Lon­don, Ontario: Octo­ber 18 and 19, 2010
– Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Québec: Octo­ber 20, 2010
– Saint John’s, New­found­land: Octo­ber 21, 2010

As usual, the CCA will sub­mit a brief after con­sult­ing with its mem­bers and main stake­hold­ers. Please send your pri­or­i­ties for the 2011 Fed­eral Bud­get to: Jessica.Litwin@ccarts.ca .

 

What can I do?

Take part in the var­i­ous con­sul­ta­tions iden­ti­fied in this bul­letin. Fur­ther­more, take advan­tage of your MP being back in your rid­ing. Bring up the issues per­tain­ing to for­eign own­er­ship and copy­right, and rein­force the impor­tance of main­tain­ing and increas­ing invest­ments in the cul­tural sec­tor, as it is a vital com­po­nent of the cre­ative economy.