UPDATE ON TOMORROW STARTS TODAY DEBATE

Ottawa , Novem­ber 17, 2004 — Last evening, Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage Liza Frulla appeared before the Com­mit­tee of the Whole in the House of Com­mons to defend her Department’s spend­ing as part of the debate on the 2004-05 esti­mates.   Par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure dic­tates that when the gov­ern­ment tables its bud­getary esti­mates, the Leader of the Oppo­si­tion – in this case, Stephen Harper of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada – may select two sets of depart­ments’ esti­mates for scrutiny; Cana­dian Her­itage was selected as one of the two “lucky” choices.

In a gru­elling 4-hour, often heated, at times good-humoured debate, the Min­is­ter faced a series of direct ques­tions from the Oppo­si­tion par­ties and her own Lib­eral col­leagues about the Department’s finances and pro­grams.   CCA “took in all the action” from the gallery and brings you the fol­low­ing “high­lights report” from the House, which is also informed by the Hansards released ear­lier today.

It is inter­est­ing, though not sur­pris­ing, to note that the debate on both sides often veered away from the esti­mates them­selves, and into a broader dis­cus­sion of the cur­rent state of the Depart­ment and issues that affect Canada ‘s artists, cul­tural work­ers, and the pub­lic at large.   The debate touched on cur­rent “hot cul­tural top­ics”, such as: for­eign own­er­ship reg­u­la­tions in the media, cable, and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­tries; inter­na­tional nego­ti­a­tions on cul­tural diver­sity with UNESCO; Cana­dian con­tent poli­cies; the CRTC and, specif­i­cally, the recent CHOI FM, RAI, and FOX News deci­sions and ensu­ing con­tro­ver­sies; copy­right reform; Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion, includ­ing its dra­matic tele­vi­sion pro­duc­tion; and, of course, the renewal of the “Tomor­row Starts Today” ( TST ) fund­ing pro­gram.   It was also sur­pris­ing that some of the most sup­port­ive state­ments about the arts and cul­ture came from unusual sources!

A few notable excerpts from the debate are included at the bot­tom of this bul­letin.   The full tran­scripts can be found at:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/38/1/parlbus/chambus/house/debates/025_2004-11–16/HAN025-E.htm

Sup­port from the Yukon

CCA has learned that Yukon ‘s Min­is­ter of Tourism and Cul­ture, Elaine Tay­lor, put forth a notice of motion in the Yukon Leg­is­la­ture on Mon­day, Novem­ber 15 th on the renewal of TST .   Motion #361 reads as follows:

THAT this House urges the Gov­ern­ment of Canada to renew the Tomor­row Starts Today Ini­tia­tive and the His­toric Places Ini­tia­tive and to con­tinue these pro­grams for at least five years at the cur­rent or an increased level of investment.

Min­is­ter Tay­lor has also sent a let­ter to the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage out­lin­ing the Gov­ern­ment of Yukon’s sup­port for the Depart­ment of Heritage’s Tomor­row Starts Today pro­gram.   This news comes on the heels of the unan­i­mous dec­la­ra­tion in sup­port of renew­ing TST adopted at the recent meet­ing of the Provin­cial and Ter­ri­to­r­ial Min­is­ters of Cul­ture held in Hal­i­fax , Nova Sco­tia just a few weeks ago (see CCA Bul­letin 52/04).

PRE–BUDGET CONSULTATIONS 2004

For the first time in a few years, the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance will be hear­ing arts and cul­tural groups’ pre­sen­ta­tions together.   Three sep­a­rate pan­els on “Cul­ture” are sched­uled for next Mon­day, Novem­ber 22 nd and Tues­day, Novem­ber 23 rd in Ottawa .   Details are avail­able at:

http://www.parl.gc.ca/committee/CommitteeList.aspx?SelectedElementId=e21_&Lang=1&ParlSession=381&CommitteeId=8977

CCA’s own 2004 pre-budget sub­mis­sion The Artist is at the Cen­tre of Every­thing is avail­able at www.ccarts.ca .   Front and cen­tre is CCA’s #1 rec­om­men­da­tion that the gov­ern­ment renew the TST pro­gram, as well as six other crit­i­cal rec­om­men­da­tions, which include changes to Employ­ment Insur­ance and tax reg­u­la­tions.  

All these events are occur­ring within a very short period of time, adding to the momen­tum which is build­ing in mak­ing the case for sus­tain­able, per­ma­nent fed­eral fund­ing to the arts and cul­ture sec­tor across this coun­try.   Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are lis­ten­ing, so take the time to make your opin­ion known!

*** Here is a taste of what was said in the House debate yes­ter­day evening:

Tomor­row Starts Today

Bev Oda, MP for Durham , and cul­ture critic for the Con­ser­v­a­tive Party:

“This side of the House has never indi­cated it does not sup­port the pro­gram [TST].   In fact, what we want is to ensure that the max­i­mum dol­lars are going to those it was intended to sup­port.…   May I then ask the min­is­ter for her assur­ance that no pro­gram will be cut and no fund­ing agency will be cut, and that the lev­els of sup­port will be guar­an­teed this year and into the next year?”

Hon. Liza Frulla, Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Heritage:

“… this is my firm inten­tion – that our cre­ators, our pro­duc­ers, our peo­ple in the film indus­try and our muse­ums, in terms of col­lec­tions, would not be affected….   It is the goal of Cana­dian Her­itage, and I think it is also the goal of my col­leagues, to have the Tomor­row Starts Today pro­gram renewed.   How­ever, such a renewal requires the agree­ment of all my col­leagues and of the Min­is­ter of Finance who looks at the over­all pic­ture and decides if we can afford it or not ”

Canada Council

Hon. Liza Frulla:

“When we asked our major national muse­ums to see whether they could cut 5%, we did not ask the Canada Coun­cil because we felt that, as part of its role, fund­ing goes through the Canada Coun­cil directly to artists.”

Cul­tural Policy

Maka Kotto (MP for Saint-Lambert, and cul­ture critic for the Bloc Québécois):

“Since last August, the Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage has been talk­ing about a pos­si­ble Cana­dian cul­tural pol­icy, which is an issue that we dis­cussed recently….   What is this cul­tural pol­icy the Min­is­ter… is talk­ing about?”

Hon. Liza Frulla:

“The cul­tural pol­icy… has three objec­tives.   The first and most impor­tant one is to put the cre­ator at the core of our con­cerns.   The sec­ond one is to strengthen our Cana­dian iden­tity.   Finally, the third one is to pro­mote acces­si­bil­ity…. when we have an inte­grated cul­tural pol­icy and put cre­ators at the core of our con­cerns, it is very easy for me to tell my col­league, the rev­enue min­is­ter that we made a gov­ern­ment deci­sion and that we have this cul­tural pol­icy which pro­vides, in the first of its three objec­tives, that cre­ators are important.”

Sta­tus of the Artist

Char­lie Angus (MP for Timmins-James Bay , NDP cul­ture critic):

“[On] sta­tus of the artist … we must real­ize that our artists, despite their high edu­ca­tion, make an aver­age of $23,500, which comes down to 26% less than the aver­age Cana­dian.   There is no deny­ing this.   Those who say we need to increase and sup­port mea­sures aimed at sup­port­ing our artists are absolutely right.   We need to keep on doing it together.”

Hon. Liza Frulla:

“I would then ask the Min­is­ter [of Rev­enue] how to improve the sta­tus of the artist, which is so impor­tant to us, know­ing that labour laws come under the juris­dic­tion of the provinces.”

CBC

Hon. Liza Frulla:

“[We] spoke last week about the pos­si­bil­ity of review­ing regional pro­gram­ming in order to bring back Radio-Canada and the CBC closer to the com­mu­ni­ties across Canada, since it is in their man­date to do so.   Mr Rabi­novitch is sup­posed to sub­mit his strate­gic plan for the Cana­dian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion.   We will use this plan as a frame­work to see what we can do and how much flex­i­bil­ity we have.”

Monte Sol­bert ( CPC MP for Med­i­cine Hat ):

“We want to con­serve the best of Cana­dian cul­ture and find ways to do that….   I am con­cerned that we are not get­ting value for money when it comes to Eng­lish lan­guage TV…   I am talk­ing about Eng­lish lan­guage TV.”

Copy­right

Hon. Liza Frulla:

“New dis­tri­b­u­tion tech­nolo­gies have emerged, and it is even eas­ier to copy or obtain works with­out pay­ing for them.   This is the case, for exam­ple, in the music field.   And it is our artists who ulti­mately pay the price.   We must give our artists the means to receive remu­ner­a­tion for their work.   It is exactly for this pur­pose that the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage is work­ing with the Depart­ment of Indus­try to mod­ern­ize the Copy­right Act.”

Cul­tural Diversity/International Convention

Hon. Liza Frulla:

“I firmly believe that each coun­try must be able to adopt its own cul­tural poli­cies and to have the tools for pro­tect­ing its own forms of expres­sion.   This is why I am com­mit­ted to work­ing for the adop­tion of the Inter­na­tional Con­ven­tion on the Pro­tec­tion of the Diver­sity of Cul­tural Con­tent and Artis­tic Expres­sion within the frame­work of UNESCO….   [Cul­tural diver­sity] is an engine for cul­tural, eco­nomic and social devel­op­ment.   It is an asset that will enable Canada to become a leader in the 21 st century.”