Source : Globe & Mail

I found myself at a press conference this week, my view of the podium blocked by a phalanx of bodies with cameras. I counted them. There were 15, both television cameramen and press photographers. By rights, not one of them should have been there. Their editors and producers had surely made some mistake -- misunderstood the purpose of the gathering, or misjudged the nature of the news. After all, this was a press conference called by ACTRA, the actors' union, to ask campaigning politicians to address cultural issues and, as any Canadian politician could tell you if he wasn't too busy slagging his opponent or counting hospital beds and daycare spaces, culture simply isn't on the election agenda.

That can make finding out where the parties stand on key issues such as cultural sovereignty, the status of the CBC or the CRTC's recent decision on satellite radio rather difficult. ACTRA asked the parties three questions: Would you guarantee stable funding for the CBC and Telefilm? Would you force private broadcasters to meet both content and spending requirements to put more Canadian programming on the air? Would you keep foreign ownership of broadcasting to the current 47-per-cent limit?

Neither the Liberals nor the Tories deigned to reply. In 2004, everyone but the Tories replied. There were complaints then that cultural issues were getting short shrift, but in this election the situation is only worse.

And yet, paradoxically, there is also a notable degree of consensus on these issues. The parties may not care, or may think voters don't care. But if pressed into giving answers, they have little difficulty agreeing with arts groups and cultural industries about the problems and the solutions.

The NDP and the Bloc have both made commitments to maintain the $150-million increase to the Canada Council budget that the Liberals announced shortly before the election. The Conservative platform released yesterday makes a much more generic commitment to continuing support for the arts and public broadcasting, but when I asked Tory culture critic, Bev Oda, the question earlier this week, she said, "We will honour the money," while suggesting that some of the Council's programs need fine-tuning to make sure the money reaches the artists.

Similarly, the Liberals, the NDP and the Bloc all agree that the foreign-ownership limit should be maintained; Oda says the Tories would also maintain it, but stresses the issue is programming, not ownership.

"We will respect Canadian-content obligations," she said.

As for the CBC, the NDP wants to increase its budget, while Oda wants to see a mandate review followed by stable, multiyear funding. The Liberals, who often trumpet the extra $60-million they have given the CBC in recent years even if it doesn't begin to cover the cuts they made in the 1990s, avoid talking about the public broadcaster in their platform.

Speaking to the decline of Canadian TV drama, Oda says she disagrees with the 1999 CRTC decision that relaxed the definition of Canadian content, and thinks that building up the domestic industry will help fix the problem; the NDP would give clear direction to the CRTC that Canadian drama is to be increased; the Liberal platform makes no mention of the issue, but elsewhere Liberals have said they are counting on the CRTC's new advertising incentives to fix the problem, a problem that Liberal Culture Minister Liza Frulla has also been working on behind the scenes.

Frulla is not expected to be back in the next Parliament; she won her Montreal-area seat by 72 votes and is widely predicted to lose to the Bloc. On the other hand, Oda, a former CTV executive and CRTC commissioner, and a visible minority woman from Ontario to boot, stands a very good chance of being her replacement if the Tories win.

The vivacious Frulla, a former Quebec culture minister, is a passionate advocate of cultural nationalism; Oda is a more plodding character with perhaps more of a tendency to look to the private sector rather than the public for solutions, but she is no less clear about the need for cultural sovereignty. Both women supported the recent UNESCO convention on cultural diversity, a largely symbolic document that affirms every nation's right to protect its culture.

There are those in the arts community who want to believe the Tories have a hidden agenda, that the party is just itching to get into power so it can eviscerate cultural institutions, but I have to wonder why any government would bother spending political capital slashing institutions that aren't on its policy radar. Maybe it would be useful if Oda actually were a scary Tory, and the Conservatives were openly campaigning on a platform that included dismantling the CRTC, the CBC and the Canada Council.

At least then the country would be forced to debate the use of these institutions, and citizens asked to prove politicians wrong when they ignore cultural issues on the campaign trail. Instead, we are looking at a Tory government that is learning to talk the talk every bit as well as its Liberal predecessor, the party that promised stable funding for the CBC in 1993 and, 12 years later, still hasn't delivered. What is missing in Ottawa is not goodwill, but political will.

© The Globe and Mail