Source : Ottawa Citizen

Election campaign ignores arts policies, observers say

by Chris Cobb

Canada's $22-billion culture industry, among the least-discussed topics in the federal election campaign, has its future at stake in Monday's vote.

From the future of the CBC, to international trade agreements and their profound impact on Canadian magazines, books, sport and movies, culture is a massive issue that none of the four national parties has addressed in any great detail. For the most part, political positions on culture are vague and short on specifics.

According to Statistics Canada, which is using four-year-old figures, culture directly employs about 650,000 Canadians and generates $22.5 billion in revenue. Those figures are likely higher in 2000. The national lobby group Canadian Conference of the Arts (CCA) says culture employs more than one million Canadians and contributes about $30 billion to the nation's coffers.

"Summing up the part culture has played in this election campaign doesn't take more than a few sentences," says David Taras of the University of Calgary department of communications and culture. "Unless I'm missing something, nobody has said a great deal about the Canada Council, libraries, cultural grants or Canadian magazines."

The Canadian Alliance seems to want to privatize CBC-TV and cut the federal Heritage Department, which is responsible for administering government funding of all cultural sectors from TV and movies to amateur sport and national parks. The party's general philosophy on culture seems to involve the gradual weaning from government funding to greater reliance on private-sector goodwill.

The Liberals have committed, in word at least, to doing the opposite and spending $600 million to impose the "Canadian brand" through Internet-related projects, such as virtual museums.

The New Democrats say they would spend $120 million over four years to rebuild the CBC, and promise unspecified funding for other cultural institutions. The Tories offer enhanced Canadian content on the Internet, but few specifics.

Aside from government spending on the likes of the Canada Council, amateur sports and the CBC, the new government will have to deal with the unfolding impact of international trade agreements on Canadian culture and the continued unhappiness of the United States over taxpayer subsidies of Canadian cultural industries.

The U.S. won an acrimonious fight at the World Trade Organization two years ago to get Canada to stop direct subsides to domestic magazines. The protracted fight underlines an essential difference in the philosophies on culture between the two countries.

The Liberal government has also appointed a steady stream of party faithful to various key patronage jobs in culture – many of which will become vacant during the government's next term. The makeup of the next Parliament will have a significant impact on all those future appointments.

Coping with the international threat is the biggest challenge for the new government, said Taras.

"Canadians take their cultural sovereignty for granted," he said, "but global forces are threatening to overwhelm Canadian culture – everything from Canadian magazines to our National Hockey League teams."

Ian Morrison, spokesman for the pro-CBC lobby group Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, said the ideal outcome of Monday's election will be a minority government dependent on the NDP or Tories for support.

"If the Liberals have to govern with tacit support from the NDP or Tories," said Morrison, "it would mean an end to patronage appointments to the likes of Telefilm, the CRTC, the National Arts Centre and CBC. Any party making a deal with the Liberals would watch those things like a hawk."

Morrison said he's more optimistic than most CBC supporters about the Canadian Alliance plans for the public broadcaster.

"We spent years making sure that the Reform party recognized that their CBC policies were not even popular with their own supporters," he said. "And they are very unpopular with other Canadians."

Anyway, added Morrison, the only place the Canadian Alliance mentioned privatizing the CBC was "in a document they didn't want to get out."

CCA deputy director Philippa Borgal, said the lack of detail in any of the party's platforms is disappointing.

"It's not a lot different from previous campaigns," she said.

CCA doesn't endorse political parties but issued an analysis this week of the various cultural platforms:

The Liberals have promised more than in past campaigns, said Borgal, but isn't promising a great deal to specific art groups. "We would have like to have seen some specific support for the CBC.

"But the Alliance usually mentions culture only in derogatory terms," she added, "such as wanting to cut Canadian Heritage or referring to money down the drain or wasteful spending. We find that very worrying because there is absolutely a role for government in the arts."

If the Liberals do win another majority, Heritage Minister Sheila Copps may get shuffled out of the job she has held since 1996. The Heritage portfolio is one of the most attractive cabinet jobs and Copps has held it longer than any postwar culture minister.

Copps is the leader of an international club of culture ministers whose stated aim is the preservation of cultural sovereignty.

Party Platforms on the Arts

Liberal Party

Pledge of $600 million over four years, to be spent on:
- Stimulating creation of Canadian cultural content, both French and English, for the Internet.
- Digitize cultural content of CBC and National Film Board, as well as those works in museums, libraries and galleries.
- Expanding international markets through campaign using cultural products to brand Canada abroad.
- Supporting book publishers and the sound-recording sector as they adopt new technologies.
- Helping more creators and artists launch their careers.

New Democratic Party

- Negotiate a complete "carve out" of culture from international trade agreements.
- Spend $1 billion per year to rebuild the CBC.
- Review takeovers in news media and book publishing that concentrate ownership.
- Tax incentives to assist community groups, co-operatives or entrepreneurs to invest in community media.
- Remove GST on books and magazines.
- Remove federal tax for individuals earning less than $15,000 per year.

Canadian Alliance

- Allow the CBC to raise private capital.

Progressive Conservative Party

- Revise copyright legislation to serve creator and user.
- Streamline film and TV production funds for new Canadian works.
- Make the CBC relevant to all regions.
- Adjust the CRTC to meet new realities in communications and broadcasting.
- Support cultural exemptions in trade agreements.

© Ottawa Citizen