Arts issues on table as election 2006 rolls along
There are many issues being discussed during the current federal election campaign–some are well covered by the media, some get no coverage.
Depending upon what your personal values are, where you work and how you approach life, some of these issues may seem more or less important. As someone who has spent all her working life in the arts, during an election I tend to focus on the issues that affect Canada’s arts community.
We have all heard concerns expressed about funding for the arts (pro and con). Did you know that several local arts organizations and several individual artists who live in the area receive grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and from Canadian Heritage?
The Festival of Sound, the West Parry Sound Museum, Spirit Magazine and the Reading Series presented by Parry Sound Books and the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts have all received federal support over the past five years.
Plus, Canadian Heritage supported the building of the Stockey Centre and the Bobby Orr Hall of Fame. Without this investment from the federal government, many of our arts organizations and this wonderful new facility would not be here and some of our individual artists would be struggling to find time to create.
So, funding for the arts does impact on our lives here in Parry Sound. I will be asking local candidates if they support increasing this investment in the arts.
Funding is not the only arts issue we are faced with today. Issues around copyright have been prominently featured in the news–both written materials and music are now being made available over the internet and the original creator (writer, composer or musician) is often not receiving any payment for this distribution. I will be asking candidates if they will support changes in our copyright law to protect creators’ rights to make a living through their art.
Other arts issues that seem a little further removed from our day-to-day lives relate to foreign policy. These include: putting the promotion of Canadian culture and values back into the Canadian International Policy (it was removed this past year); retaining cultural policies that allow distinctly Canadian cultural industries such as magazines, films, books, television shows and music recordings to survive in the face of increasing pressure from trade negotiators to globalize culture; and continuing to support UNESCO’s Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, which recognizes the importance of maintaining such distinct cultural voices around the world. I will be asking candidates if they will support Canada’s right to protect and sustain its own distinct cultural voices.
Tied to this last point is the whole question of the ownership of our airwaves. As new technologies are introduced into our lives such as satellite radio, iPod broadcasts (or podcasts), and television-enabled cellphones, how is Canada responding? Is our current Broadcast Act sufficient to ensure these new technologies respect our existing policies and laws? How do we retain the 53 per cent Canadian ownership rules for our broadcast and telecommunications media or our Canadian content regulations in the face of these changes? I will be asking candidates how they will ensure that Canadian content is still heard on our airwaves.
There are many other issues facing the arts today that are in the federal jurisdiction, but federal investment in the arts, copyright, foreign policy and control of our airwaves are four of the key issues identified by the Canadian Conference of the Arts (check out www.ccarts.ca/en/advocacy/bulletins/ for more details).
These four issues are of major importance because they relate to the survival of a distinct Canadian arts and cultural voice. As someone who has dedicated all her working life to building this voice, I will be voting for a candidate who will work towards maintaining and strengthening that distinct Canadian voice well into the future.
The All-Candidates Meeting at the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts on Thursday, January 19 will give me an opportunity to pose my questions. Come down and join me in asking the candidates these questions and any others you might have about how they plan to govern Canada.
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