Arts Day on Parliament Hill 2012

Arts Day on Par­lia­ment Hill, Oct. 23, 2012: Louise Camp­bell (left), MP Denis Blanchette (cen­tre), Tam-Ca Vo Van (right), rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Asso­ci­a­tion des groupes en arts visuels fran­coph­o­nes. “The three of us shared an inter­est­ing and stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion,” says Camp­bell. “I came away with a much bet­ter under­stand­ing and faith in Canada’s demo­c­ra­t­ic sys­tem — those MPs are real, live peo­ple, ready to talk about the arts and do what they can.”

Arts Day on Parliament Hill 2012

Arts sup­port­ers from coast to coast to coast – includ­ing the CNMN – gath­ered in Ottawa on Tues­day 23 Octo­ber 2012 to meet with their Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to dis­cuss the key role that fed­er­al arts invest­ment plays in the eco­nom­ic and social health of Cana­da. Build­ing on four years of pos­i­tive momen­tum, Arts Day 2012 saw 130 arts sup­port­ers meet with over 110 Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, Min­is­ters, Sen­a­tors and senior offi­cials from all parties.

Par­tic­i­pants thanked the gov­ern­ment for pre­serv­ing invest­ment in the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts in Bud­get 2012 and pre­sent­ed two key pol­i­cy pri­or­i­ties for the upcom­ing year, as out­lined in the coalition’s brief to the stand­ing com­mit­tee on finance:

  1. (1) That the gov­ern­ment renew invest­ments in the Cana­da Funds that it announced in 2009 (Cana­da Cul­tur­al Spaces Fund, Cana­da Arts Pre­sen­ta­tion Fund, Cana­da Strate­gic Invest­ment Fund and Cana­da Arts Train­ing Fund). Of the $120 mil­lion or so that the gov­ern­ment invests in these pro­grams annu­al­ly, near­ly $80 mil­lion (or 2/3 of the total) is com­ing up for renew­al and it is crit­i­cal that this lev­el of fund­ing be renewed.
  2. (2) That the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da main­tain fund­ing lev­els to the arts through the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts at $181 mil­lion in fis­cal year 2013–2014.

Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment across all par­ties sig­nalled their sup­port for the Cana­di­an Arts Coalition’s rec­om­men­da­tions. The CNMN is part of the Cana­di­an Arts Coali­tion, a col­lab­o­ra­tive non-par­ti­san move­ment spear­head­ed by a group of nation­al arts ser­vice, who orga­nizes the event.

“We are delight­ed that Cana­di­an New Music Net­work rep­re­sen­ta­tive Louise Camp­bell was able to make the trip to Ottawa in order to explain the impor­tance of fed­er­al invest­ment in the arts from the ini­tial moment of cre­ation until it is shared with an audi­ence,” said coali­tion co-chair Kather­ine Car­leton. “At just over $5 per capi­ta, the fed­er­al government’s invest­ment sup­ports an indus­try that is big­ger than forestry or bank­ing, pro­vid­ing jobs to well over half a mil­lion Canadians.”

Camp­bell, too was encour­aged by the event, espe­cial­ly with the results the day brought, stat­ing: “The Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da imple­ment­ed a clear change in pol­i­cy as a result of our Day on the Hill efforts, act­ing to main­tain the Cana­da Council’s bud­get over 3 years, when almost every GOC orga­ni­za­tion received sig­nif­i­cant cuts. Take-home mes­sage: engag­ing in con­ver­sa­tion works!”

Further Resources

For more infor­ma­tion about the Cana­di­an Arts Coali­tion, please vis­it canadianartscoalition.com.

A Short Film from that day, where MPs share their per­spec­tive on the arts in the com­mu­ni­ty, and their own per­son­al arts expe­ri­ences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxywHTtU9Pg

Arts Day Ral­lies All-Par­ty Sup­port for Key Pol­i­cy Pri­or­i­ties – by Shan­non Litzen­berg­er — http://www.shannonlitzenberger.com/arts-policy/archives/872

The coalition’s most recent details about Day on the Hill 2013 (from 20 Dec 2012): http://www.canadianartscoalition.com/2012/12/20/canadian-arts-coalition-plan-for-2013–2014/

From Kather­ine Car­leton, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Orches­tras Canada:

Direct arti­cle link: Arts Day on Par­lia­ment Hill 2012
15th edi­tion CNMN Bul­letin — Win­ter 2013