CHER Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 23, 1999

• 1907

[English]

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte (Parkdale—High Park, Ontario, Lib.)): Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee is conducting a series of round tables on the government's evolving role in support of Canadian culture in a context of rapidly changing national and international environments.

[Translation]

I would like to welcome our guests and thank them for coming. It is an honour for us to be among you this evening.

[English]

Our usual practice is to listen to the presentations of our witnesses, but this time we decided to have round tables with members and invited speakers sitting together in order to encourage a more fruitful exchange.

Our committee is undertaking a study of the challenges facing culture on the eve of the next century, with the globalization of trade, the economy, emerging technologies, the Internet and others, and their impact on our culture and cultural institutions, along with the demographic change that will transform present-day Canada into a completely different country in the 21st century.

Our predecessor committee began this study before the last election, and fortunately this committee decided the work must and should continue.

We wish to examine first of all the types of support already in place by the federal government and how the support, such as the roles of governing ownership and cultural content, federal grants to federal institutions, and tax incentives, may enable us to face the challenges of the next millennium. Those are the issues we have to deal with.

[Translation]

As I said, the three main challenges facing us as far as this study goes are, first of all, the advent of new technologies, the evolution of the global economy and global trade, and the changing demographics in the country.

• 1910

First, as committee members, we want to inform ourselves thoroughly. One year ago, we held a parliamentary forum on cultural policy, international trade, and technology in the new millennium. At this forum, we organized round tables on various sectors: the arts, heritage, the publishing industry, film and video, and then broadcasting and sound recording.

The forum was very successful in identifying key themes which, I hope, we will have a chance to discuss with you this evening.

[English]

We have heard from representatives of the various cultural institutions and from officials of various departments. We have had briefings from experts on the evolution of technology, on international trade, and on demographics. In this last phase, through these round tables, we want to cover certain sectors specifically and get input from you, as people who practise culture on the front lines, to find out how you manage to survive in the cultural milieu and how you will face the challenges of the next century. Obviously in forums such as this there is very little time and it is not possible to cover a lot of ground, but we want to cover as much ground as possible.

At the back of your program, you will see that we have given you five questions we would like to see addressed. You may want to address one of them, some of them or five of them. We are interested in your views, and hopefully by the end of this week we will have some answers to questions such as “What is the role the federal government should perform in the future to support the art and cultural sector industries?” and “Should the government exercise its role as a legislator, a regulator, an owner/operator of national institutions, a funding partner, a patron of the arts, a business developer or a promoter?”

[Translation]

Naturally, both official languages are welcome here, so you can speak in either, as you choose. We hope we won't get speeches, only brief remarks, so that there's a free exchange of opinions all around the table.

[English]

To start off our work, I would like to ask all the participants sitting here at the table to introduce themselves very briefly. Tell us what you do at present and how you're associated with the arts and cultural industries. Once we have completed the introduction, I will invite you to make comments from the table. We have the mike set up as well at the back to allow for audience participation.

We have two hours, but I would ask that you keep your interventions to two the three minutes, so as questions are raised or statements made, you will have the opportunity to comment perhaps five or six times. We have found that to work extremely well.

I will begin immediately on my left with the introductions. Just go around and tell everybody who you are.

Mr. Chris Axworthy (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, NDP): Thanks. I'm Chris Axworthy. I'm the member of Parliament for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar.

You asked us to tell you what we do.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): A short bio.

Mr. Chris Axworthy: I think what we do is for other people to judge. In every community, of course, we are impacted by the cultural industries in many ways, in terms of employment and the things we do to enjoy ourselves and explain ourselves to each other and the rest of the world. So I'm interested in hearing the challenges the cultural industry here in Saskatchewan face, and I look forward to findings solutions for them.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): We're delighted you could join us, Mr. Axworthy. Thank you.

Mr. Hébert.

Mr. Gilles Hébert (Director, Mendel Art Gallery and Civic Conservatory): I'm Gilles Hébert, the director of the Mendel Art Gallery. I've been in Saskatoon for five months. I came from Winnipeg, where I was involved with a number of organizations, including the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the St. Norbert Arts and Cultural Centre, the National Film Board, etc. So I have a fairly broad background in visual arts and media arts.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you. Welcome.

Ms. Kate Davis (Director, MacKenzie Art Gallery): I'm Kate Davis, the director of the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. I've been there for two years. Prior to that I was deputy director at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. Prior to that I was director of programs at the Glenbow Museum, and prior to that I was chief curator at the Edmonton Art Gallery. So my input will hopefully be to arts, culture and heritage, not cultural industries.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

• 1915

Mr. R. Bruce Shepard (Director, Diefenbaker Canada Centre—Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan): My name is Bruce Shepard. I'm the director, curator, office manager, publicist, fund raiser, researcher and host at the Diefenbaker Canada Centre of the University of Saskatchewan.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Welcome.

Mr. Terry Fenton (President, Saskatchewan Arts Alliance): My name is Terry Fenton. I have been involved mostly in the visual arts as a museum director at the Edmonton Art Gallery, and at a place called the Leighton Art Foundation in Calgary, and most recently, until a couple of years ago, at the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon. I'm also a painter and an art writer, and presently I'm representing the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance. I'm the president of that organization, an inclusive, member-driven coalition of arts organizations in Saskatchewan.

Mr. Burt Wolfe (President, Saskatchewan Publishers Group): Hello, everyone. I'm Burt Wolfe. I work at the University of Saskatchewan's Extension Division, where I manage the University Extension Press, which is a small press that produces educational publications. As well, I have the privilege of representing the publishers of Saskatchewan as president of the Saskatchewan Publishers Group. I have with me today a description of the membership of our group, if people would like to look at it, as well as some of the publications that we produce at the university.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much, Mr. Wolfe.

[Translation]

Mr. Sauvageau.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau (Repentigny, BQ): Good evening. My name is Benoît Sauvageau. I am a member of the House of Commons in Ottawa and I represent the Bloc Québécois. I am very happy to be here to hear your comments on promoting culture and heritage. I am also the spokesperson for international trade. So my perspective may focus to a larger extent on international agreements and the protection of culture.

[English]

Mr. Jack Walton (Individual Presentation): Hello. My name is Jack Walton. Among other things, I drive a bus. It was a pleasure picking everyone up in the Canada bus at the airport today.

I'm an arts activist, and I'm involved in a lot of community organizations ranging from motion pictures and television, to the arts alliance, to Saskculture. I'm a producer of festivals, a composer and musician. Most recently, I have been the Saskatchewan representative to the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Walton, and on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for ensuring our safe transportation from the airport.

Mr. Jack Walton: It's my pleasure.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Pankiw.

Mr. Jim Pankiw (Saskatoon—Humboldt, Ref.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name's Jim Pankiw. I'm the member of Parliament for the Saskatoon—Humboldt constituency.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Welcome. It's wonderful to be in your riding, and in Saskatchewan.

Mr. Jim Pankiw: It's always wonderful to be in Saskatchewan. Welcome.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Boyko.

Mr. Lee Boyko (Executive Director, Museums Association of Saskatchewan): My name is Lee Boyko. I just moved to Saskatchewan from Lotus Land, from British Columbia, and I'm enjoying every second of it. I'm the new executive director of the Museums Association of Saskatchewan. I have a background in community museums, and have also worked for similar organizations in British Columbia. Our organization here represents a wide-ranging field of museums, galleries, and even zoos in Saskatchewan.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Welcome.

Mr. Steele.

Mr. Bruce Steele (Broadcast Project Coordinator, Saskatchewan Communications Network): I'm Bruce Steele. I'm a freelance broadcaster, radio/television host, producer, director, etc. I'm currently under contract with the Saskatchewan Communications Network, the educational broadcaster in Saskatchewan.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Patrick Close (Executive Director, Canadian Artists Representation Saskatchewan): I'm Patrick Close. I'm the executive director of CARFAC Saskatchewan. We are the Saskatchewan affiliate of CARFAC, Canadian Artists Representation/Front des artistes canadiens. We are a national arts service organization. We operate a national copyright collective and are designated as the visual and media arts organization under CAPPRT. We are also affiliated with RAAV in Quebec.

I'm an artist, and I'm also the past president of the Canadian Conference of the Arts. Tonight, I'm particularly interested in the role of the federal government in support of individual artists, and in social and economic equity for artists.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Close.

Mr. Bélanger.

[Translation]

Mr. Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier, Lib.): My name is Mauril Bélanger and I am the Member for Ottawa—Vanier, in the National Capital.

[English]

I want to say hello to Mr. Shepard. If ever you want to go and visit the centre that he directs, ask for the director's tour. He provides a fascinating look into the life of one of our prime ministers, Mr. Diefenbaker.

[Translation]

Before arriving here this evening, about a half an hour ago, I received a call from Ms. Lorraine Archambault, the president of the Association culturelle franco-canadienne de la Saskatchewan, who apologized for not being able to be here. She also apologized on behalf of her vice-president, Ms. Perreault, who has been detained at home due to the ice.

• 1920

So I am passing on their apologies to my colleagues, and especially to Mr. Sauvageau. They confirmed that they would submit a brief to the committee by the end of March.

[English]

I'd like to know if what I was told the last time I was here is true: that, per capita, Saskatoon leads the country when it comes to book purchasing. I found that very impressive.

I wanted to say to Mr. Pankiw that it is a lovely town. The last time I was here, I spent two days on a combine just to get a sense of what it means to have these wild vistas. I can understand how it has an impact on the artistic expression of the people of this area, and I anticipate fondly your comments tonight.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Bélanger.

My name is Sarmite Bulte, but everybody calls me Sam. I'm the member of parliament for Parkdale—High Park in Toronto. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, and I have been given the privilege and the honour of chairing the western tour of our consultations. I'm also the chair of the Subcommittee on International Trade, Trade Disputes and Investment. In my former life, I was the chair of the Canadian Stage Company.

Welcome. Who would like to start our discussions? It's better to volunteer than it is to be chosen.

Mr. Steele, you have been chosen.

Mr. Bruce Steele: Well, it's an honour.

I think it's obvious to everyone here that question five is really the only question we're here to discuss. The rest support the obvious trend toward globalization in international trade in terms of technology, in terms of government programs over the years. Probably since the advent of intellectual property legislation in the early 1970s, the cultural sector has been pushed toward the global marketplace. I therefore won't get into bemoaning homogenization, Americanization, etc. We've all heard that song, and we can all sing it.

I think the question that arises for most of us—and I'm being presumptuous here, but I know many of the people around the table and we've talked of these things before—is not so much whether there is support for globalization in international trade and culture, but whether there will ever be any support for regional programs. In broadcasting over the past three years, we have witnessed the disappearance of every major Canadian broadcast network from Saskatchewan. The phrase, “the $2,000 cup of coffee”—it used to be $700, and before that, $300—refers to the price of a meeting in Toronto, Vancouver, or Montreal.

There's a joke in broadcasting. Once the broadcasters remove themselves from Saskatchewan, leaving the Saskatchewan Communications Network as the only place where producers could go to try to jimmy some access to various federal funding programs for program production...

[Editor's Note: Technical difficulty]

...to represent Saskatchewan, we all picked Halifax because it had the most in common.

There is a certain amount of despair in the production community in the province as we watch the advent of a theatrical fund cut largely out of the funding that, to some degree, managed to work its way down to this provincial level. With all due respect, certainly there is a marketplace evolving on the global level for broadcast programs, for computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web, etc.

• 1925

Out here in the boondocks—and I use that term advisedly, since I was born in Toronto—it's a very different and not very myopic view that we have. We see a horizon on a regular basis. On that horizon, I think we tend to see all sorts of possibilities that our friends in the centre of the universe sometimes don't see. Our problem is that there is no real sense of support to express what we see unless it's on the basis of a homogenization, globalization and the international marketplace.

I thought I'd go for the throat there.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): I think that's great. And thank you very much for opening for us.

This gives me an opportunity as well to let the members of the committee know that last week, on February 17, the Cultural Industry Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade, the SAGIT, brought down its report on new strategies for culture and trade. It's called Canadian Culture in a Global World: New Strategies for Culture and Trade, and it tries to address some of the concerns that you have raised. I would urge you to check it out; if you do not have a copy, we can give you the web site. This report will be tabled, and we'll give you an opportunity as well to make submissions and look at this in detail.

I thank you for your opening comments.

Who would like to pick up on what Mr. Steele said or move to another topic? Mr. Sauvageau.

[Translation]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: I'm going to throw out some questions. This afternoon and over the past couple of days we have heard some comments, and I would like to share them with you so that you can tell me what you think about them.

The first comment we heard, and I will pick up where Mr. Steele left off, dealt with restoring funding for regional assistance programs for culture or regional organizations. The same wish was expressed in both Winnipeg and Thunder Bay.

At this morning's meeting, a specific problem was brought to our attention. You receive funding for one year, and you are not in a position to know if you can establish a program because you may not obtain funding for the following year. So a request was made for funding for a minimum of three years. If the decision is made to grant $5,000 or $10,000, the amount should be provided for three years to enable the organization to take flight.

I would like to hear your comments on restoring the funding and then on the duration of it. Would funding for two or three years be enough?

I noticed that Mr. Wolfe is in publishing. This isn't a big discovery, because he is sitting next to me. I would like him to tell us what he would think about a 7% increase in subsidies through the elimination of the GST on books. I would also like to hear the other participants on the same topic. It could happen and it could be in the report.

My third comment deals with possible tax incentives. In small and medium-size communities, people talk to each other and sometimes come up with ideas. Now is the time to tell us about them. In your opinion, would tax incentives facilitate the setting up of foundations? Fund-raising campaigns are underway everywhere. Fund-raising campaigns are often organized and we know that it's difficult. Have you thought about concrete ways of making your life easier? The government could pick up the slack.

Those are my three comments. I'm going to listen to you closely and perhaps intervene a little later on. Thank you.

[English]

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): We have the five questions, but these are additional questions because we just want to get the dialogue rolling. If there's something else you'd like to address, please feel free to do so.

Mr. Steele.

Mr. Bruce Steele: Just quickly, in the sector that I'm representing at this table to some degree, the Broadcasting Act speaks very clearly about regional support. My question would therefore go back to the members of Parliament present. How do they propose to revisit the act to make sure that in the headlong rush for the global marketplace, one of the main tenets of the act is adhered to? I'm not really sure, unless we want to go back to the basic cultural principles of individual communities controlling these issues, obviating federal interference at any level...and I call them first principles, because they go back historically. If we're not going to do that, then I think the things that are written in legislation have to be enforced. I'm not sure it's really a question of fundraising at our level, local tax incentives or whatever, that will put a value on the regions of this country.

• 1930

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Fenton.

Mr. Terry Fenton: On the term “regions”, it always bothers me when I hear the federal government talk about the regions of Canada. Politically speaking, Canada is made up of provinces. Two or three of those provinces happen to be regions as well. Others aren't, and I think it marginalizes those provinces that don't happen to be regions in themselves when this kind of language is used. I would urge all of us to start speaking of federal-provincial relations in relation to culture, rather than about the federal government dealing with the regions. I think that dooms us in these remote regions.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Wolfe.

Mr. Burt Wolfe: Regarding the question about the GST, we certainly would like to see the GST removed from books. Our problem in Saskatchewan has more to do with the actual production of the books than it does the financial assistance that's available for that from the federal government, though. What we would like to see are more flexible criteria so that smaller publishers who don't produce enough books and enough quantities, and who don't have enough revenues coming in, qualify under the current structure of grants. We would like to see that structure made more flexible so that our smaller publishers—and in Saskatchewan, that describes most, if not all, of our publishers—can qualify.

At the same time, I think we have to be honest in acknowledging that the federal government, particularly in the grants it has provided for our Saskatchewan Publishers Group, has been very generous. That generosity has enabled us to carry out some important marketing initiatives that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do. We certainly hope that in the future we'll continue to qualify for those kinds of grants that help us financially in Saskatchewan.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Wolfe.

Mr. Close.

Mr. Patrick Close: To answer your question directly, yes, we believe the three-year funding would help. It's a measure of the insecurity within the arts community that people are asking for this and that it's being put into judgment every year. Their programs are tenuous. They don't know whether they'll carry forward. Of course we'd like three-year funding. Ten-year funding would be better. Fifty-year funding would be even better than that.

Visual artists do support the abolishment of the GST. We think removal of that tax would have a good effect on the art market, as well as an effect on our procurement of materials.

The tax incentives are an interesting issue. When we talk about cultural industries, we have to understand that cultural industries are simply a group of creators. If we do understand them as groupings of creative individuals, groupings that exist to facilitate the action of those creative individuals, then we understand cultural industries better.

There are a number of taxation initiatives that the federal government could undertake to make the lives of those individual creators better. They could remove the GST. They could recognize dual status for artists. They could bring back the income averaging provision. They could clarify and standardize the provisions of interpretation bulletin IT-504R2, which is as difficult to interpret as it is to say. They could make for easier evaluation and valuation of goods and services that artists donate as goods in kind. They could change the charitable registration regulations for arts service organizations. They could clarify that grants are not business income, and they could also make investment incentives for people to invest in the arts.

• 1935

But we have to remember that the very foundation of cultural industries is the individual creators themselves. This isn't difficult in Quebec, but you're in English Canada here. We always have to remember that in Quebec there are four necessities of life, and in English Canada there are only three. They are air, water and food in English Canada. In Quebec they are air, water, food and culture. In Quebec you would no more think of walking out onto the street without culture for a day than we would in English Canada without air, water or food. So there's a subtle difference between the two areas.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Ms. Davis.

Ms. Kate Davis: I would like to throw another complexity into the discussion of federal and provincial issues vis-à-vis globalization. Nothing is ever as easy as black and white or right or wrong. It's often not even a matter of and or both; it's more murky than that.

In terms of culture and heritage from an art museum and art gallery perspective, one of the things the community is very concerned about right now is the discussion through the museum assistance program on pan-nationalism, and the museum assistance program dollars being severely focused on interregional bridge building, very specific to Canadian content, Canadian culture and Canadian art practice.

There are two eye pokers. One is that visual artists and museum people may be very proud of their national characteristics, national profile and national accomplishments, but they feel compelled to be part of the larger world. It's part of their practice; it's what gives them passion; and it is what allows them to be the best they can be.

On the heritage side, we have seen a decrease in support that would enable museological practice to be shared throughout the world. There are many points in which Canada has shown extraordinary leadership because of federal policy, commitment and investment. CHIN is one example. Just to give you an example, the Swedish International Development Agency allows $200,000 a year for Swedish museums to twin with African museums. Does that even show up as a line item in a federal budget? It's so tiny you wouldn't even write it down. That twinning initiative, at $200,000 per year, fertilizes, develops, grows and is an opportunity for the development of leadership and international exchange.

So as much as I support the fact we want Ottawa and Toronto to recognize Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert and our extraordinary accomplishments, I also want us to be able to get out into the world and have some support, to really show the evidence of our leadership.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

One thing that's come up a few times is that culture was supposed to be the third pillar of our foreign policy.

Ms. Kate Davis: We don't see that in terms of budget numbers.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Boyko and then Mr. Fenton.

Mr. Lee Boyko: I just want to follow up a bit on the museum assistance program that was mentioned. It certainly is a very large concern of museums. We're seeing a fund that at one point was very much focused on the museological needs of the museum community being changed to one that is more focused on political needs. Quite frankly, that's the only way to describe it.

• 1940

I find it interesting that museums that have creative people developing exhibits, who are creators just like writers or anyone else, for some reason are being told the nature of the exhibits they need to develop and the type of relationship they have to develop. I don't know of any other cultural area or any other areas of endeavours the government provides financial support for where they attempt to do that.

Do they tell hospitals they have to do operations with hospitals in other provinces? But we're being told in museums we can only get money if we have relationships with museums in other provinces. It wipes out the access to many museums in this province. Their focus, their mandate, their mission is to talk about their local communities in some cases. So that is really difficult.

It is now February 23 and the MAP deadline was February 1. The new guidelines still aren't out yet. We're being told now the guidelines will be out April 15, and who knows when we will hear when the money will come through. I know museums that have had to cancel exhibits because it's taken so long for decisions to be made. I know of people who are willing to give money to join museums who have withdrawn because they became so frustrated waiting to find out whether the thing's going to happen again.

At one level the Department of Canadian Heritage has done some good work in some of the examples we talked about, such as CHIN and some other things over the years. But frankly I think we're really tired of waiting, and that's a real problem. It's not just the Department of Canadian Heritage. We still haven't heard about what the summer student programs will be for this year. Those guidelines haven't come out. Sure, university students aren't out until April, but they're looking for work already, trying to figure it out. It takes a while to write a grant application.

So if there's any message I'd like to give, it's to think about the clients in terms of their needs and how they're going to operate. I realize you have to wait for the budget, but there's no reason why you can't have programming plans in place ahead of time. I think that's been a concern. In the 20-odd years I've been involved in this game, it's been a concern. It's nothing new, so why can't it be solved? I don't know. As I said, other than that first part about how the criteria are being changed—that's a real concern.

Thank you.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Boyko. I believe that concern was also raised in Thunder Bay.

Mr. Fenton and Mr. Close.

Mr. Terry Fenton: I don't want to steal Mr. Boyko's thunder, but I've been in the business for 30 years so I have a small advantage over him. I was around in 1973 when the National Museums Corporation was founded and the national museums policy was declared by Gérard Pelletier. It was a very forward-looking plan. The forward-looking part of it lasted three or four years. It's just been chipped away ever since. The policy changed from a forward-looking policy to a policy of what can only be described as callous indifference.

I think the Department of Canadian Heritage's actions with regard to museum support, funding and policy have been absolutely shameful over a series of governments. It's not the fault of any one government that this neglect has continued for 20 years. It has eroded the ability of museums to provide meaningful services to the Canadian community.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Close.

Mr. Patrick Close: I think some of the frustrations Lee and Terry have voiced here can be addressed. I'd like to suggest that one of our recommendations tonight be the adoption of a comprehensive cultural policy for the country. If we had a cultural policy, we would be able to coordinate some of the differences.

We have a dazzling array of federal programs, deadlines and departments, all handling different aspects of something we work in all the time. We are an enormous sector economically, socially and physically. We represent a large number of workers and a great part of our gross national product. I think we deserve a cultural policy to help coordinate some of these things, to take some leadership and ownership in these areas, and to consolidate and rationalize some of the programs.

We have programs and initiatives of Revenue Canada that go completely against some of the other initiatives. We have difficulties coordinating—we used to have difficulties with federal training, now they're ours at the provincial level—with all kinds of programs. I think the coordinated policy might be able to get these things working together, because they're working at odds right now and it isn't working to our benefit in any way.

• 1945

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Close.

To follow up on what you just stated there, the Canadian Conference of the Arts has released its working paper on cultural policy for the 21st century. You say we need to come up with a comprehensive cultural policy. The CCA report talks about the cultural policy of successive governments based on two principles: the focus on the artist, the creative process; and secondly, to share the infrastructure there to showcase the artist in the creative process. I'll have you think about this before I go to Mr. Steele. Is that enough, or is that same policy still relevant today? If not, what needs to be added to it?

Mr. Steele.

Mr. Bruce Steele: It's encouraging to hear that other sectors, other parts of the cultural industry, are also dealing with deadlines that pass without definitions, present and...etc. Currently SCN is borrowing against a future budget it doesn't have in order to support proposals from producers and artists for funds that chances are very good they will never get access to. The reason we have to borrow against the future and support as many horses as we can is that if we don't, we won't have anything to broadcast.

The problem is... I mentioned earlier the networks were running away from the provinces, other than two or three, and that has meant this for SCN: In 1995 we supported 42 projects in Saskatchewan—Saskatchewan producer projects. It amounted to 20% of our acquisition pre-licence budget. In 1998-99 the number had risen to 123, or 52% of our budget, and we'd taken a budget cut of 10% in the meantime. We're supporting horses in the field that may never cross the finish line. They may never get out of the gate.

Things are changing so quickly in all the sectors, in all the industries. A report in the Globe and Mail, yesterday I believe, quoted CBC research as saying that in the mid-eighties, for every hour of television you watched there were 15 hours available. Now there are 48. The strange thing is none of us are watching any more television. There's just more out there. There's more cultural product. We have increased productivity, but we haven't increased consumption. So the margins get lower. There are more sharks in the cultural pool. And in the end, the people who actually have the stories, have the visions, have the things to express, whether they are geographically based or whether they speak to the universe...I despair that we do them any good at all. We just stand in the way of their progress toward expression.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Steele.

Ms. Davis, and maybe Mr. Boyko, I would welcome your comments on the cultural policy the CCA has enunciated as it relates to heritage, museums, and preservation.

Ms. Kate Davis: I would like to say I think one of the things I found most useful about this document was the listing in the back of all the ways the federal government has supported our practices through the years. It's quite staggering, and we should all be very proud of this. I know in my professional practice I have benefited, my communities have benefited—my institutions were built because of that kind of support. I do think there has been an extraordinary investment made through the federal government toward culture.

What I'm concerned about is that as the governmental infrastructure expands, the dollars shrink and the client needs increase. We have a pretty dysfunctional environment. And I do find I'm spending a lot more time writing grant applications and re-rationalizing my institution's essential public services over and over again, trying to give performance indicators of efficiency and effectiveness. And I don't see those same performance indicators being used in the bureaucracy's reflection of their own work.

• 1950

The other point I would like to make is that I have also seen how our program has evolved—that's the gentler word—or perhaps shifted, using Lee's suggestion. A good example is that in the olden days of DCH and the associate museum, there was an extraordinary program of travelling exhibits across this country. It was staggering—research, development, exchange of information, exchange of artists, exchanges of ideas. Those dollars evaporated, were redistributed someplace else. Those programs evaporated because there wasn't the support, and a tax credit wasn't going to give us what we needed to continue them. What's interesting is that the same department that cut those dollars now want us to do that again, and they're giving us a year to readjust our programs.

So I'm a bit concerned. I love the simplicity, flexibility, and stability that come from these two commitments of the artists and the infrastructures they need. I also love the simplicity, flexibility, and stability that come from recognizing it's about community need and client need, not about political agenda.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

Mr. Boyko and then Mr. Fenton.

Mr. Lee Boyko: I think initially, on the two principles, I would have no difficulty with those, and I think our membership would support those two basic principles. There are a couple of things I've heard a number of times, and one that's always concerned me is that the federal government's cultural policy focuses so much on the department, not realizing there are a lot of other areas, a lot of other activities the government does that have an impact on the cultural community.

I've seen so many times...in this province for example, Human Resources Development provides more support to more museums than does the museum assistance program—not more dollars, but to more museums. The museum assistance program doesn't support what they consider non-professional museums, which I have some difficulty with. Their definition of “professional” involves having paid staff, and there are a lot of professional museum developments that are volunteer run.

I think you also have to look at all the other departments that are involved in this game. Industry Canada has done some great work over the past number of years, and I think they should be very proud of some of the stuff, some of the SchoolNet projects they've done. Somebody there was thinking when they realized you have to have content, and it would be nice to have Canadian content available that's locally based material coming out of local museums around this country. I think that's a really good example of what can be done.

There is one other thing I want to talk about in terms of the CCA policy that's been pointed out. On the whole, I'm supportive of it. I have some concerns about some of the ways it's phrased and some of the terminology, but I think having some sort of overriding policy would be useful as long as they're willing to look at it.

About a year and a half ago I was cleaning out an office and started piling up federal government reports from the 1980s dealing with museums, culture, etc. When I got four feet high—these are individual copies—I realized there's been a lot of paper written over the years. Maybe you need to look a bit at some of those. So if we're going to have a cultural policy, make sure it's something that's a working document and not just another piece of paper that's going to add to that pile. Four feet is enough.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Fenton.

Mr. Terry Fenton: I'll add a little bit more to what Mr. Boyko and Ms. Davis have said.

Going on to one of the other areas, which has to do with technology, I think one of the curses in terms of grant applications and meeting government, not just federal, funding source criteria is the computer. It allows the government to ask for more and more detailed information and bigger and bigger grant applications with more and more complex breakdowns.

• 1955

Thirty years ago, that was impossible. We had typewriters and secretaries, and so forth. Now with computers, grant applications are the thickness of books.

Once, some fifteen years ago, my gallery applied for a series of Canada Council grant applications, and I took a photograph of them with a ruler beside them because they stacked that high.

One of the things you have to remember is that when this kind of insanity goes on, what it does is reduce the amount of dollars that goes towards the programs of the gallery, and on top of that, it creates an enormous burden upon the professional staff of the gallery, who have to spend more and more of their time justifying actions that they won't get any money for anyway. I'm getting the feeling that this isn't just in the museum sector; it cuts across the entire cultural spectrum. It makes one almost despair, but I think we're at a critical situation here. Our professionals' time is being wasted.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Bélanger.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: When you talk about grant applications, to which body, may I ask?

Mr. Terry Fenton: It can be any body.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: All of them, or...

Mr. Terry Fenton: Just about all of them, all the cultural grants.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: If I may, sir—

Mr. Terry Fenton: In my experience, may I—

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: I want to clarify here. Generalizations may help people feel good, but they're not going to help us try to straighten things out.

Mr. Terry Fenton: Okay. Museum assistance program applications, Canada Council applications—those are the federal government ones I'm particularly concerned with. I can't speak for the rest of the community here. They can tell you which ones they've had experience with.

Mr. Gilles Hébert: There's perhaps a shift at the Canada Council, at least. It's a much more succinct and brief and concise application process, but it does draw into question what the focus of their program is.

My question is whether or not the Canada Council and the people devising the museum assistance program are talking to each other. I would love to talk about the museum assistance program, because I've been trying to get some definition on it for five months now, waiting for the criteria and application form to come out, but I think I would probably be repeating some of the things that have already been said here tonight.

There does seem to be an overriding political agenda to the program in terms of building bridges between provinces and regions with exhibitions and really what that can do. It doesn't have to, but it can have an impact in terms of content and the design and the research that goes into those exhibitions, because if you're looking at touring an exhibition, you have to make sure it would be palatable to general audiences in three provinces, which means at times compromising the integrity of exhibitions.

That's basically all I have to say. I agree with you. The Saskatchewan Arts Board application is horrendous. In terms of the amount of time it takes, it actually becomes a planning document for an institution.

The Canada Council has changed their program quite significantly. I think it's a stronger program now, although there is some debate as to what the focus is for that funding.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

One of the things that came up today in Winnipeg, and it's coming up again here, is the fact that cultural policy cannot be defined by just one department, and that this cross-departmentalization is almost a barrier to coming up with a cultural policy.

I've heard that again about Revenue Canada being at odds with cultural policy. We heard that also in Thunder Bay, where the way the orchestra members were treated was reversed by Revenue Canada after 36 years.

A suggestion came up that we incorporate cultural policy, almost do a cultural policy analysis in each department before a program is put into place. Would that help? How could we help to coordinate?

Mr. Shepard and Mr. Close.

• 2000

Mr. Bruce Shepard: I have felt for a long time that something like that is absolutely necessary. It has been stated before, and I agree wholeheartedly, that what we're talking about as culture is a very diffuse process. But I think it goes beyond coordination—and as to the comment that Lee was making, mine was closer to five feet tall when I cleaned out an office.

I think we need to take a lesson from our cousins in Quebec. We need to make culture a priority. It's not just a matter of bringing disparate programs together. Patrick eloquently outlined it. It's the fourth element, and in this part of Canada, in what is so-called English Canada, which is a misnomer of huge proportions, we do not take it seriously, and there is a whole range of historical and other reasons for that.

What we need at the federal level is a decision that this is critical, because we are in a state of crisis. I do not use the term reluctantly; this is a crisis.

If I remember my Greek correctly, the word “crisis” means choice, and we have a choice to make. I am not one who believes there is such a thing as a Canadian culture—yet. So the choice we have to make is, do we want one?

We have aboriginal cultures in this country. The Québécois have clearly a culture. The question we have before us is do we want a Canadian culture? We can argue about what form and shape that can take, but I honestly believe that is the question we have to ask at a national level. If we don't, then not only are we subject to the forces of internationalization...which, by the way, I do not fear; my own book is selling as well in the United States as it is in Canada, which is a source of some pride and small income to me.

So there are real opportunities in globalization as well, and I think that's the other danger. If we don't make this a priority at a national level, we not only will be subject to the pouring in, but we will not be able to take advantage of very real opportunities.

There are many, many people around the world—and I can certainly speak for the United States because I'm invited to speak down there regularly—who want to hear about us and want to hear our story, and there are real opportunities there. But we can't do it if we're not producing films; we can't do it if our writers can't get published; we can't do it if our exhibits aren't being developed in order to travel. I think there has to be not only a coordination but a commitment.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Shepard.

Mr. Close, Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Fenton.

Mr. Patrick Close: I just had an interesting experience. I recently got bifocals, and when I went to pour myself a glass of water, I poured it all over the table.

Then I thought to myself, that's kind of interesting. It's kind of like the federal civil service. They're looking out of this part of the glasses while the government is looking out of this part, and we're missing the target—with no offence to any civil servants who may be present.

This province went through a couple of years of study on the status of the artist, and in September 1993 they issued a report. In that report there was a number of recommendations, and it went immediately to an interdepartmental committee that began to examine whether or not these things were feasible, and it stopped. It stopped absolutely and completely, because people would say, on my side of the fence you can't do this, and you can do this over here and you can't do it over there. It ground down into a bureaucratic nonsense about turf wars.

Nobody asked the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of National Defence whether or not housing regulations or transportation regulations applied to them; they're made to fit. It's simply a priority. Fisheries has jurisdiction over a certain thing, and they take that jurisdiction.

• 2005

Now, we have some sensibilities about culture that are different, and in the regions of Canada—sorry, Bruce—there are different sensibilities as to who should define what the culture is. But in those areas that are clearly those of the federal government, I feel strongly that if an interdepartmental committee is struck it should simply report back to another body, that it should not be charged with the development of the policy or the procedures but instead be giving you information about that. I feel very strongly that a standing committee has to be struck that will monitor and keep things moving. Otherwise inertia will set in and nothing will happen. There will just be a complex game of chess between the bureaucracies involved, which is exactly what we have now, and we're unable to make any headway or make any sense out of what's happening because of that game.

So as long as there is an overriding authority and these people are doing research for you and providing information back to you, and there is somewhere a person with vision who can hold the thing together and keep it moving, then I would support it. Otherwise no.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Bruce Shepard: If I may briefly follow that up, it needs to be made a priority. I would add to this that it needs to be a political will, because the only way you're going to override that bureaucratization you're referring to, and I agree entirely, is with the political will. That's what we need. We need to make it a priority.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Wolfe.

Mr. Burt Wolfe: As an educational publisher, I dream of the day when Parks Canada would call me up and say, Burt, would you publish or help me find a publisher in Saskatchewan who would produce a book, say, on the wildlife of the province? We have a chunk of money devoted to educational publishing that we want to spend in a worthwhile way in order to create books that would be relevant to the young people, old people, whatever, of Saskatchewan.

For this book we produced last year, Mushrooms of the Boreal Forest, we did get some grants from the federal government. We got grants from Parks Canada, we got grants from Industry Canada, and we got grants from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. We went to those sources, among others. But they don't really have a structure that would allow us to access money in any kind of consistent way. Nor do they come to us with requests for publication, which I think many people in those departments of government would see as being worth while to produce and which would be non-controversial in the sense that some other cultural product might be. I'm thinking of educational publications.

Right now there doesn't seem to be that, and if there were some sort of cultural policy—let's put it just crassly—if there were to be a bunch of money available in each government department that we could access or that the departments would take the initiative to use to create publications, then I think it would be a very worthwhile pursuit.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Fenton, Mr. Boyko then Mr. Steele.

Mr. Terry Fenton: I have a comment about Canadian culture. I think we do have a culture. I think Canadian culture is the culture produced by Canadians. I used to think, and I still do in many ways, that the great thing about Canada is that it has probably the weakest sense of national identity of any industrialized nation. And I think that's a positive thing. To tell the truth, I think we have a great deal of culture.

What worries me is the sense of governments trying to determine what the content of that culture would be, and I think that's a very great danger and I think it's something we all face. I think it's a needless danger too, because we have many creative people in this country and we've spent too much time trying to regulate what the content of their production is going to be and too little time giving them the resources to express themselves or to provide creative programs for Canadians. After all, they're living in Canada, they're Canadian, they're providing programs for Canadians. I think that's all we need ask of them.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Boyko.

Mr. Lee Boyko: To briefly touch on some of the specific questions you list here, starting with the issue of technology, I guess the museum community in Saskatchewan was one of the leaders in attempting to develop standards for collections management, with the guidance by the Canadian Heritage Information Network in Ottawa, which has undergone many changes over the past number of years. And frankly, I think a lot of people are concerned as to what the future direction of that department is.

• 2010

But I think the big challenge is not so much funding the technology, whether it's software or hardware—although, mind you, for probably the most of my museums one computer is the equivalent of their annual budget. It may seem really easy to go out and get technology, but it's still very difficult for many of them. It's not so much the technology, but it's literally the manpower of putting the information into the system.

If we're going to try to have a province-wide database or a national database, it's very difficult. Somebody was asking me a little earlier about whether there was an easily accessible database of first nations and Métis material in museums in the province. There have been some surveys and things done, and certainly the information may be sitting there, but it's sitting there on card catalogues. That's if we're lucky. And it's not going to take a year or two years or five years, it's going to take 10 to 15 years to get that information in a form that's accessible. Unfortunately that's a reality.

Technology is great and it's done wonders in our field, but there are still some real limitations to what it can do. I think people are discovering that it's one thing to build a web site, for example, but it's another thing to keep it maintained. That's a real problem.

Trade liberalization: It's had a certain amount of impact, especially in the whole area of what's happening to the overall economy of Saskatchewan. And in terms of the demographics, it's fairly obvious that a lot of small town Saskatchewan is drying up. We have an aging population that has both a benefit and a detriment.

In terms of benefit, as our baby boomers become a little older they're traditionally probably more interested in the museums and maybe they'll have some time to volunteer. They certainly don't have it right now. But we have many museums that are dying on the vine because their volunteers who have run them for 20 years, who perhaps got them going, are no longer available or capable of keeping them going. We have a real question about what we're going to do with those resources and museums.

The other crucial factor in this province, of course, is the demographic change of the growing first nations and Métis population. We're going to see new museums opening up. Thank goodness, we're going to see a lot of them developed by first nations and Métis in this province. But there's the whole issue of who is there to pick up and support the infrastructure.

Those community museums I've talked about that do exist here, and many of them are very good, took a lot of time and effort and the support of things like the museum assistance program. National museums programs and also Canadian conservationists have supported museums over the years. If those infrastructures aren't there for these new museums that are being developed—and I think with some support, at least that's what we hear, some support by the federal government—where is the support infrastructure going to be? I'm having real concerns about that, where that's going to be at this point.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Steele.

Mr. Bruce Steele: I'd like to backtrack on a few comments I've made and do it by saying that there's no question there's an enormous amount of goodwill in the government, in all sectors, in Canada. There's an attempt to make something of who we are and what we are, and that goes without question. Sometimes we succeed because of what we do, sometimes despite it, and sometimes it was going to happen anyway.

In our portion of the cultural sector, the announcement recently of a new aboriginal television network answers the question of who will serve the 40% of the Saskatchewan population that will be first nations by the year 2020. The demographics of this province are such that there hasn't been an English-French combined majority in this province since the 1970s.

The whole mosaic is constantly changing in this place. The aging population you mentioned is the major factor. Things shift back and forth. I used to call the CBC a corporation run by wave form management. First you send everything out to the regions, and seven years later you pull it back. Then you build a big building in Toronto, then you send it out again, then you bring it back.

There is so much goodwill here among the CBC's new management to support and to create broadcast enterprises, but just as the new management—and the details of the newness are irrelevant—come into place with energy and enthusiasm, bang, theatrical fund announced, money gone.

So we form these liaisons under the table—and all of us do this. We work with each other, while we're not filling in forms, to create partnerships that will allow things to happen. To quote Kafka, it loves to happen. Sometimes I think we spend too much time worrying about what it is that should happen, and not enough time just letting it happen and see what it becomes.

• 2015

How do we encourage that becoming? That is perhaps a relevant question. In the particular sector I represent here, Telefilm Canada nurtured an industry. Back in the 1980s and into the early 1990s, there was something called the Department of Supply and Services non-theatrical fund, which funded documentaries, semi-industrials, nice little provincial/regional/local projects. It was one-stop shopping. You presented your idea, you got constituency support from other government agencies on the ground and the grassroots. There was a fund.

Well, that became the Canadian independent film and video fund, which is now pretty well the realm of the commercial sector—the dramatic, theatrical, “let's get out in the global marketplace” sector. I'm all for it. We'd all like to be out there. That's where the bread and butter is, etc.

The industry that grew because of Telefilm, and because of theatrical funding, is now choking to death because it can't get access to the funds to put it in the global marketplace.

The film and video industry in this province five years ago was about $4 million or $5 million. Last year it was $47 million. This year it's expected to be $60 million, maybe. All of a sudden there's great concern. Have we reached the limit? This at a time when one of the local initiatives is to put a film and video course in a high school in Regina. We're creating more and more media-literate people, to produce what for whom?

One thing that does strike me in my work is how—and it speaks perhaps more to broadcasting's sorry lack of involvement in the broad cultural sector other than its own—when I approach libraries or museums or whatever, to put art or literature or the stories of Saskatchewan on television, there is incredible shock, first, that I would appear; second, with the idea; and third, that there would be some kind of handshake between agencies and different parts of the sector.

So I guess one thing that would be most helpful, again, is not so much funding how different regions or sections of the country can relate with each other, but how different aspects of the cultural sector—I'm getting confused in sectors and industries and aspects, but I think you know what I'm getting at—can begin to work together to share the resource, which is at some stage, yet to be announced, defined as Canadian culture.

Thank you. I feel much better now.

The Acting-Chairman (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Steele.

I'd like to take this opportunity to invite the audience to participate, and if you have any questions, or would like to make a brief intervention, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Ms. Catherine McKeehan (Individual Presentation): I'm Catherine McKay, the general manager of the Saskatoon Symphony Society. I have two points to make.

One, I don't mean to pick on Bruce, but there's just no way, along with Terry, that I can let the minutes of this meeting stand that say there's no such thing as Canadian culture.

The second thing is that I feel a little bit disoriented here, because I sort of wandered into this room. I've worked for many years in Ottawa, I work now in this building, and I feel as if I've walked into Ottawa here tonight.

I came because I got a fax on my desk yesterday from Orchestras Canada telling me there's this meeting happening tomorrow night and I should be there. I noticed that I'm the only representative of performing arts here, and not even at the table, and I have a question about that, although I well understand the difference between cultural industries and all the rest of it.

• 2020

I would like to say a couple of things, though. The first is that the Canada Council doesn't seem to have a large place at this discussion, and I really think it ought to. The Canada Council really could support the cultural sector in this country if it only had adequate resources to do so. It has, or at least had, in any case, a battalion of specialists, and that's something that various other government departments dealing in the cultural world don't necessarily have. Cutbacks at the Canada Council have unfortunately reduced the specialist nature of the Canada Council to the point where what was once a secretary in one department is now the head of another department. But one hopes that with enough resources, the specialized nature of the support the Canada Council can give can be reinstated.

The second thing is that 15 years ago I was the general manager of a performing arts organization in this city and I have recently come back to be the general manager of another one. The major difference in that 15 years has been the predominance of fundraising that's required. Fully a third of my budget needs to be raised from the private sector, and without specialized staff to do it, I might add. I literally have to have two wardrobes in order to do this, and I need to have two vocabularies and I need to duplicate myself, because it's an incredibly difficult job, made more difficult because in that time, not only am I required to do much more fundraising, but there are way more people out there fundraising, for all different kinds of activities, than there ever were before.

What would really help is if there were some kind of incentive for those people who are giving money to arts organizations, to give it to us in the same way as, for instance, these funds are given to political organizations.

The third point I'd like to make, following up on your point, Sam—if I can call you Sam; we have friends in common, so I will—is that the Thunder Bay Symphony is a real sore point in the orchestra world. Everybody is really on tenterhooks at the moment. I can't begin to tell you the level of anxiety that has created in the orchestral community, where we are all faced with the possibility of our employees...and while we have four people who work in the office, we have 60-plus who regularly work on stage, who are primarily freelance artists whose tax status is in the process of being reviewed in a very fickle and arbitrary way at the moment. We don't seem to have a mechanism for addressing that, and we would really like to think there might be someone at a higher level arguing on behalf of the artists who work in the orchestras and the management who support the directors who work on behalf of other artists.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

I'd just like to reply. When the Thunder Bay Symphony came, we did ask to get a full detailed briefing as to the status of negotiations or discussions with Revenue Canada. So we are taking them very, very seriously. And we asked to have a submission made on that.

I'm delighted to hear that the entire orchestra community is very concerned about this. It was a surprise to us, and we will definitely follow that up.

With respect to incentives for people giving funding, that is again something that has come up time and time again, from 100% deductions to also listing the capital gains tax exemption on the gifts to charities of publicly traded companies. The unfortunate thing is that whenever we speak about capital gains, people tend to say we're helping the rich, and it's the so-called sexy organizations that are getting the money. If you can help us as to how that can feed down to the local or to the smaller theatre performing arts...

With respect to your other comments about cross-representation today, we have had a mix, but I can find out further details.

Thank you very much for your comments.

• 2025

Mr. Walton, is this a direct response?

Mr. Jack Walton: It's a very direct response to what you're saying. I know it was kicked around in a discussion a couple of weeks ago.

The answer to how we do it without presenting the view that its supporting the rich in our society... If those deductions and credits were only available for putting money into the Canada Council and that Canada Council money was adjudicated by a peer jury process, then I think our community would be very happy with that—one-stop shopping.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Mr. Close.

Mr. Patrick Close: In response, I'd have to say that the Government of Canada, in our view, has almost completely failed the self-employed worker, especially the self-employed cultural worker. In the arts we have for years had a model of working for ourselves as entrepreneurs, and we have much to share. Instead we're faced with punitive regulations, and regulations that confuse us and confound us and make it harder for us to do our jobs. If the Government of Canada is going to get with it before all of us become self-employed workers, which is a trend demographically, it has to happen soon. We're not getting any good indications that it is happening within the government. The various labour organizations are just collapsing down and getting smaller and smaller, and smaller and smaller in their input as well.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much, Mr. Close.

We'll now have audience participation. Please go ahead.

Mr. Robert G. Doucette (Individual Presentation): Good evening. I'm very honoured to be allowed to speak at this forum tonight. But some of the statements I've heard kind of trouble me. It's not English Canada and it's not French Canada; it's our country. Talk about regionalism. It's our country.

As far as Canadian culture goes, Canadian culture is like the Jerry Seinfeld show; it's not really nothing, but it's everything. At the end of the night it always leaves you with a smile on your face, and it always wants you to come back and see more. That's the way I feel about it. That's why you can't define it.

Just speaking specifically about who I represent, I'm a Métis person of Cree-Dene ancestry from the Treaty 10 area in northern Saskatchewan, Buffalo Narrows. My name is Robert G. Doucette.

I look around and I'm so overwhelmed by all of the intelligence around the table that I feel very good about where Canadian culture is going. However, I don't see any aboriginal people, other than myself. I want to thank one of my colleagues here, who will remain nameless. I just came here on the spur of the moment.

Maybe the committee can answer why there are no aboriginal people here. Maybe we're not on the list. Other than RCAP...life after RCAP goes on. Aboriginal people are here just to talk about the demographics. We've already had one of my colleagues speak to the demographics.

I have four children and I have five sisters and a brother, and they have about another 16 kids. So that talks about demographics right there.

This is going to have an impact on the industry in the cultural sector, because with the demographics of the industry changing, you see a lot more Métis and Indian first nation and Inuit people wanting to see more of their cultural icons and their symbols in the community. Right now, I see a lot of English, minority Ukrainian...but I don't see a whole lot of Métis.

When I went to Batoche, just as an example—and I'm not criticizing Parks Canada, because they signed an agreement with the Métis Nation in Saskatchewan for co-management—and watched that film about the Métis, I felt like we were an extinct race, an extinct culture, and I felt... Well, I didn't know I was extinct; here I am.

On the technologies in the cultural sector, again, the aboriginal people, because of their limited education and the rising levels of the population... Just as an example, we did a survey of Métis people in the three major city centres, and 60% of those people surveyed said they had less than a grade eight education. So they have a lot of catching up to do, just to even take advantage of the technology that will be available to all of the cultural industries.

• 2030

On the cultural support measures currently in place, pardon my ignorance, but I don't even know what's out there. I like to think I'm pretty well informed about things. But when it comes to money—and I said this at another forum—there seems to be a lot of egotism out there and a lot of protectionism. I don't blame people for that, because they want to protect their turf because the range of money is so limited out there.

In Saskatchewan we have the Western Development Museum of the colonial past and agriculture. The Ukrainian Museum of Canada is just down the street. There's the Saskatchewan Indian Cultural Centre. There are great museums and every kind of museum, but there's one museum and cultural centre that's not part of it, and yet they formed a very integral part of opening up Canada, and that's on the Métis. Maybe it's because we haven't knocked on the right doors.

I'm not putting down my first nation cousins, because my great-great-grandmother was a treaty Indian in 1906, but they get $500 million at Indian Affairs, and that doesn't include Human Resources Development, Western Economic Diversification, all these other moneys they can access, the cultural industries in Quebec and all these other industries. Maybe we are going to be an extinct race. Maybe we're just going to be an epitaph. I hope not, because we have played a very vital role in all of this.

I just think—not to put you down—the federal government has failed to really help promote a lot of the important cultural identities of this country.

I hope I didn't offend anybody by saying it's our country, because it is our country.

Thanks.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Absolutely not. Thank you very much for your comments. Your comments will be duly noted.

With respect to your questions, I don't have the answer; however, I will undertake to get that information to you.

I encourage everyone here this evening to please feel free, if there are points you wish to submit to the committee in writing, to bring this back by word of mouth to the other organizations, be it to Orchestras Canada or the friends who advised you of this meeting. We would appreciate it. The purpose of coming across Canada is to try to listen to the concerns everyone has and to find the voids and the gaps we are missing.

Mr. Robert Doucette: So if I give you my address, I can get the document everybody seems to have read around here?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Yes.

Mr. Robert Doucette: I'd appreciate that. I've talked with Lee and told him a bunch of Métis academics and community-based people are trying to form what is called Howard Adams Métis Cultural Centre Inc. It's not to compete with other agencies; we want to work with Saskatchewan museums and the Diefenbaker Canada Centre, because they have a marvellous collection of aboriginal sources.

Dief the Chief—you know, he was always wearing a headdress someplace, which is okay. From the looks of it he had a lot of bannock. I just feel good about that.

However, for anybody to have a meaningful dialogue, we all have to be on a level playing field. That means we all need to have the same access to the information, and that's where it all begins.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much. The clerk will see you immediately after the meeting.

Mr. Shepard.

Mr. Bruce Shepard: I believe it was Peter Ustinov who observed that the only way he could tell the difference between a Canadian and an American was to say there was no difference and wait for the Canadian to howl in outrage that of course there was. I'm glad to see his observation still holds some truth.

When I said we don't have a culture, I didn't mean we don't have elements of one. This goes right to the first question of what has worked. We have a literature. If anything has worked, it's publications, especially in fiction. It has worked tremendously.

• 2035

I have been invited to a number of conferences in the United States, and I very rapidly discovered that my role was to explain the historical context of our writers—how they had come up and how they had evolved.

Canadian literature is international and is recognized as such, but not music, film or drama. History is partially recognized. The problem we have with our past is that while we have created—and this is one of the successes—a phenomenal infrastructure in this country, all you have to do, as I do, is watch the school groups as they come in and ask them if they know who Mr. Diefenbaker was. They answer “He's the dog on television.” There's a show that has a dog, Mr. Diefenbaker. They ask in all honesty, “Was he a Conservative or a Liberal?” I wait to hear him roll over in his grave, because that's right beside our building. We ask them if they know what you call the leader of Canada and they say “President” 90% of the time.

So even though we've made strenuous efforts to preserve and protect our heritage, it's not being learned, and there is a whole raft of reasons for that.

The infrastructure development, though, has been one of the great successes. We have auditoriums, museums and galleries. I'll speak to the museums, however. I think the analogy is to the health care industry, where we built these wonderful hospitals all over this province and now we're closing them down. Our museums are perilously close to that same situation. At one point we had more museums in Saskatchewan per capita than any other province in the country. Unfortunately they're not all going to survive, and Lee has explained some of the reasons for that.

There is a very real need to address the institutional support issue. We lost our federal funding in 1990 in a budget cutback. Fortunately a group of concerned citizens stepped forward and organized a national non-profit charity. They came to us last year and said “After seven years, we're exhausted. Here's the money. You're on your own.” My job changed that very day. I can certainly identify with those people who are saying their jobs are now much more fundraising, etc. That's very much what's happened to us. We have had some successes, though, and the institution was one.

Technology, as we all know, is a double-edged sword. A comment was made earlier about investments in technology and then you discover you need staff or assign someone to keep it up. There's also the training issue that goes with it. We need help in that training area.

I spoke to trade liberalization earlier. It's a double-edged sword also. The danger is being swamped by the prolific elephant to the south. However, it is a huge market and I can testify they are interested in us and will buy our products. There is a real opportunity there.

Changing demographics has already been mentioned, although the key is that Saskatchewan's population hasn't changed since 1929. It has always hovered around one million people. That was when the agricultural society matured. The major change, of course, is in the rapidly growing aboriginal sector of our population and the aging sector.

My friend Robert has already indicated that the Métis people want their own institutions. We already have the example of Wanuskewin Heritage Park, where the aboriginal peoples want their own institutions. We are negotiating and discussing a number of programs with them. A very real level of cooperation is already taking place, within the traditional Saskatchewan spirit of getting together and solving problems.

On the role of the federal government, as Mr. Steele eloquently put it, this is the core one. I've already spoken about the need for political will and the coordination role. I think the CCA proposal contains within it the seeds of a very effective federal policy with the two-pronged thrust of support for artists and institutional support.

• 2040

I know in our case it's a struggle. I joke with people. They ask me how it's going and I say I'm developing a physique like Popeye; my arms and legs are getting very thick from hanging in there.

I know we're not alone. There are institutions across this country in all sectors that are in very much the same situation. Mr. Sauvageau has raised some very interesting questions—yes, a multi-year funding would be a tremendous help. Any funding in our case would be a tremendous help. GST abolished for books—why not for all cultural industries? Why just literature? GST is an intellectual tax, and I think we can take a leaf from the Irish, who I believe several years ago abolished taxes, income taxes even, for writers living in Ireland. There was an influx of writers who now make their home there.

I think we need to look very seriously at extending that very principle. Why should there be any GST on any cultural development? Tax incentives, yes. I think we need to boost the income tax write-off from 75% to 100% and maybe even consider going higher. The United States has had a 100% write-off for as long as I can remember. We only recently boosted ours to 75%. That's progress, but it needs to go a lot further. Again, I think the political leadership, the political will, that this is a major area for this country and the coordination are the two key areas.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

Mr. Axworthy.

Mr. Chris Axworthy: I'll be brief. I have a point and a question arising from some of the earlier discussion about both political will and a kind of national vision.

The first is the sobering notion for anybody in the cultural sector that when Canadians are asked about their lists of priorities, arts and culture come right down near the bottom. In order to expect a government to have the political will to make it a priority, obviously something has to be done to drag that issue up the priority list, because nobody could reasonably expect the government to make something a priority when people at large don't see it as a priority.

I understand all the problems about popular culture and we have the government supporting Jerry Seinfield and lots of other things. It is a difficulty that I think has to be recognized by all who wish to raise the profile and the political seriousness of culture. Without raising ordinary people's commitment, it's not going to happen. My question really is, does anybody have any ideas on how to do that?

My point is with regard to the notion of vision. It seems to me, both in my years before being in Parliament and since, that it's almost part of Canada's culture not to have vision. We have no national education strategy. We have no national industrial strategy. Why should we be surprised if we have no national cultural strategy? We just don't seem to believe in having strategies in the nature of a vision, not certainly in the nature of events but in the nature of a vision.

So I don't think we should hold our breath for that kind of vision, because it just doesn't seem to be in our culture to do it. It is unfortunate because it seems to me that's very absurd. To quote an American—it's hard to find a Canadian cultural hero—Yogi Berra used to say if you don't know where you're going you might end up somewhere else. That of course is what happens when we don't have a vision; we don't really go where we would want to go. We don't know where we want to go.

That of course is in the context of all those reservations about who should set the content of that culture. That's something that seems to me should bubble up from the bottom. We certainly couldn't expect or want the government to have any role in that. I basically throw out that question about how you really arm those of us in the political sphere who would want culture to have a higher priority, how you arm us with what it takes in order to push that forward. I don't expect a definitive answer to that question; I just throw it out.

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The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Axworthy.

Again, please remember that we're welcoming written submissions by the end of March.

We have 15 minutes left, so you will have an opportunity to address the issues raised by Mr. Axworthy. Because we have 15 minutes left, I'd like to try to hear from everybody. We'll go to our audience.

Ms. Cline has been so patient. Perhaps you could introduce yourself and also tell the committee members about your organization.

Ms. Heather M. Cline (Individual Presentation): My name is Heather Cline, and I'm presently the chair of CARFAC Saskatchewan.

I have a very simple comment for you, and that is that culture is jobs. One of the big problems I've heard talked about this evening is human resources for culture. I think in our society we have this view as to what we value as labour. For some reason, working in museums and galleries is appropriate work for volunteers. I'm not saying we don't value our volunteers—they're very important people—but why aren't we paying them? We're looking to create jobs in our country, and yet we don't bother looking at the jobs that are there that should be paid for.

That's all I have to say.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Next on my list I have Ms. Davis, then Mr. Boyko and Mr. Steele.

Ms. Kate Davis: Often when cultural fora take place, there's a sad combination of whining and complaining, we're special interest, we don't get enough, we're not served. We sound as if we feel we're entitled, and we certainly are accused of being frivolous and unaccountable. I really appreciate the concern of those who care about cultural life that we have a difficult place. How do you arm those who want to provide help towards the cultural vision is the key question.

My suggestion is that we manage this by fact. That's my new mantra. It used to be what the Spice Girls say, which is “Tell me what you want, what you really, really want”, but now my new mantra is “manage by fact”.

Mr. Chris Axworthy: Who sings that?

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Ms. Kate Davis: I think part of that is making sure we're asking the right questions and not the wrong questions. The wrong question is, would you rather have a hospital or an art gallery? I would rather have a hospital, and I have been a director of art galleries. Those are the wrong questions.

The other “manage by fact” is that we look at the bottom line, and the percentage of dollars going into cultural activity is—excuse me for being crass—a piss in the ocean. I think we really have to make sure we understand that.

Finally, there's the old biblical statement that you reap what you sow. I was talking earlier to Bruce about finding some agricultural final words, since we're in Saskatchewan. I think you reap what you sow. I'll leave it at that.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

We'll now turn to Mr. Boyko, followed by Mr. Steele.

Mr. Lee Boyko: Part of the job of government is to recognize what needs to be done, take a leadership role, and at times take some chances. I think we in the cultural community have our own level of blame to take. I think one of the mistakes we made in the early 1970s was to try to quantify our experiences beyond what they were. Yes, we provide jobs. That's an important part of things. Yes, we're economic engines.

I come from B.C., and I would like to tell a story about a Social Credit cabinet minister by the name of Evan Wolfe, who was a car salesman by trade. He came to a number of cultural people after a meeting and said, “You've blown it. You're now talking about how many jobs you create, how much money you bring into the economy, and this type of thing.” He said, “I'm a used car salesman, and I can understand that. I can balance a balance sheet. As soon as you start talking about it in those terms, I can then take my slide rule out and decide whether or not it's going to work.” Before, when most of the Social Credit cabinet ministers hadn't finished high school, they felt they had to take the expertise of the experts in the cultural fields.

We have a lot to blame for that, that the culture was good. We stopped talking about culture being good because culture is good, and that type of thing.

• 2050

I've noticed that change is occurring. I think more and more people are going back to that message. Maybe partly what we have to do is talk about there being some inherent good. Yes, in some areas it can help the economy, and it can do many other types of things. But getting back to that raising-of-the-air talk at the beginning of the session, that's what is here for us. If we don't have that, we don't have our identity. What's the point?

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

We'll now hear from Mr. Steele, followed by Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Close.

Mr. Bruce Steele: I remember in 1969 walking up to the PMO's office with Graham Spry, the last of the great pamphleteers in this country, who was carrying a copy of his latest pamphlet, The Need for a National Cultural Policy. We laid it on Trudeau's secretary's desk and bowed our way out appropriately. It was a moment that will stay with me, for a number of reasons I won't go into.

I had this wonderful relationship with the person I considered to be my mentor, because I was able to engage in these sorts of Socratic dialogues. One of the things we concluded was that culture was promotion. Culture promoted a society to the world and to itself. Whether it was promotion of growth as in agriculture or promotion of spirit, of intelligence, of values, of virtues, whatever, that's what culture did. It is a known fact that in industry 10% to 20% of the budget must go to promotion. So there was that thought.

The second thought is that economists are now talking about the third wave, the marriage between the public and private sectors, the final common sense realization that one or the other alone cannot make things happen. So the answer to the fifth question, should the government be any or all of these things, is, yes, when it needs to be, and that is dynamic, as in tax law. It changes from time to time.

What is needed in Saskatchewan is different from what is needed in Metropolitan Toronto. There is no way to reach vast generalities. The genius of a federation, if it is to exist, is in responding to those differences, to being acutely aware of how to adjust itself to the needs of the different places that form this incredibly huge, incredibly small nation.

This brings me to the third point. There can never be a level playing field. It simply cannot exist. We talk of a level playing field in trade with our friends to the south. If we didn't have winter and the costs associated with it, if we didn't have a population one-tenth the size spread out over the world's second largest geographical entity, if our ports didn't freeze up six months of the year, if all of these things weren't in place, we could have a level playing field, and we could be just like them. But we're not.

Sometimes we've looked to Reagan or Thatcher or, for that matter, John Kenneth Galbraith for the answers to these puzzling questions, but all of them are dynamic and ongoing and will never be resolved. As was pointed out earlier, that is the nature of our federation. Whether it's the issue between French and English or first nations and Caucasians or with new immigrants from wherever, it's a work in progress. If we can be diverse and dynamic and respond, we will have done all we can.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much, Mr. Steele.

Mr. Walton.

Mr. Jack Walton: I'd like to make just a couple of brief points.

One, I wanted to respond to Mr. Axworthy's query about trying to get to the general public and change attitudes and understandings and create a political push, if you will. I think the political system we have in place works in many ways. It's incumbent upon us to find visionaries in the people we elect who share those values. We can't expect those values to be shared universally within the population.

• 2055

So how do we change that? How do we enact change? Well, I think we never forget that the arts are a very political entity and must be, from time to time, approached that way. As we look at many of the recommendations that come out of the CCA, the working group, in particular the need for a cultural policy and our ability to lobby and be active in ensuring that those who can make decisions ultimately understand, I think that's a reasonable task for us as a community to undertake. We don't have the resources, certainly, to do some of the basic things we're trying to do. To undertake a humongous public campaign on top of that would be very difficult. So I think the question is being strategic in the politics of the arts.

Secondly, with respect to international trade and the global market, I'm reminded of a quote that's just come out of the Sectoral Advisory Group for International Trade. I've read it a couple of times now and it's very telling. It gives me a bit of a package look at how we can deal with a lot of these issues. It says, quite simply, that the ability of cultural industries to rise to the challenge of competition from foreign cultural producers is “dependent on the creativity and talent of Canada's artists, creators and producers. It also depends, in part, on government policies and programs that aim to promote Canadian culture.”

I think that capsulizes both our domestic challenge, if you will, and our global challenge. And if the Saskatoon Symphony is spending that amount of time fundraising, then we're doing something drastically wrong in this country when it comes to supporting our culture.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Walton.

Mr. Close.

Mr. Patrick Close: We're a $22 billion industry. We have 4% of Canada's gross domestic product. Our labour force has grown at twice the rate of the normal labour force since 1971. You're just not listening, Mr. Axworthy. I take your comments as an affront. I feel there have been visionaries in our community—absolutely. And I think you do them a great disservice by making your comments in the proceedings of this committee. If there's any lack of vision, I feel it's on the floor of Parliament, sir.

There have been people within the structure who have recognized what we have done. Gérard Pelletier was one of them. We remain democratized and decentralized. We have continued to remain democratized and decentralized despite the attempts of the federal government to knock all of that down, to put it together and then knock it apart. It's a bitter irony to me that what we have achieved we have achieved largely in spite of the federal government, not with them. If we are invisible, it's because we don't have a cultural policy.

In Saskatchewan the mining industry is smaller than the cultural industry, yet we have a minister responsible for mines. Mining is at the table. They're at the labour table, the economic table, at all of the fiscal tables. And they sit there as a presence, as an economic force in our lives.

Culture—bigger, stronger, more flexible, more adaptable, higher growth rates, more GDP—is invisible. Why? I think it starts with the federal cultural policy. It has to start there. It has to start somewhere. But for years we have been bringing these committee reports to you. We've been bringing our vision and our dreams to these tables year after year, and so have all kinds of organizations and minorities throughout Canada. The test of a democracy is in how it treats its minorities. We're failing. We're failing our native people. We're failing our cultural industries. We don't have to do that. We can turn it around. That's why we're here tonight. We're here again to say, let's get it together and let's get it going.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Close.

Mr. Pankiw.

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Mr. Jim Pankiw: It's interesting that Mr. Axworthy's comments can become the focal point at the close of our meeting, because what I have to say dovetails into that. I respect Mr. Close's opinion, but what I have to say is somewhat critical, so I'd like to preface it by saying that it's absolutely nothing personal.

It's not that I do not value the contributions and work of many of the people at this table and in the audience, and in fact even some suggestions, such as those of the general manager of the Saskatoon Symphony on improving charitable contributions, and so on. But as members of the cultural community gather here in the Bessborough Hotel at a cost to taxpayers, seeking long-term stable government funding at a cost to taxpayers, where are the taxpayers? Where are the families struggling to make ends meet because of the tax burden they're under, which takes such a large chunk of their paycheque every day? Where are the patients on surgery waiting lists in the hospital just a short walk from here? Where is there input into the legitimate role of government with respect to Canadian culture? I think that's something this committee should take quite seriously.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you, Mr. Pankiw.

Mr. Bélanger.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: All right, I've kept quiet, but allow me to ramble for a couple of minutes.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): We're running out of time, so I am going to watch the clock. We had two hours scheduled.

[Translation]

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: First of all, allow me to make a comment, Mr. Close. I am not being hateful. You were the first person this evening to use an expression... I apologize to my colleagues who have already heard me harping about this and to Mr. Sauvageau in particular.

[Editor's note: Inaudible]

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: —

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Okay. I acknowledge it.

Mr. Benoît Sauvageau: Thank you.

Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Mr. Close, you used an expression that distorts Canadian reality. You talked about English Canada and Quebec. That distorts reality in that there are some French- speaking Canadians who are born in provinces other than Quebec. For my part, I was born in Ontario. I'm a member of the Canadian Parliament and I represent a riding where 40% of the people are francophone. There are 700,000 francophones in Ontario. There are francophones in Saskatchewan, whom we saw this morning, and so on. There is even a province that is officially bilingual, and it is not Quebec; it is New Brunswick. With this vision of Quebec and English Canada, the French Canadian community does not feel like it fits in and the anglophone community in Quebec feels neglected.

That is all I wanted to say on that topic. We must be aware of that, because it is part of our reality in Canada.

[English]

So far we've managed to avoid partisanship and I've tried not to go down that road too much, but I think some of the last comments I heard have to be responded to.

Part of any nation, of any people, involves the respect, the enhancement and the support, and in some cases the protection, of their cultural manifestations—artistic, historical, and any other way—and whether we like it or not, that involves expenditure of public money. To juxtapose that over others as a way of not attributing some resources, something for the public good, from the public till, I think does great injustice in this area, in this field of human endeavour.

We talk about jobs and so forth, but let's not forget art, and not even art for art's sake but art for the sake of our collective soul. Art here is as general an expression as I can possibly envisage, so for me to hear this juxtaposition just grates, and I would hope we would avoid such things in the future, because we have managed to avoid it in the past two years, and I would hope that this is not a direction into which we're going to slip. That's number one.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thanks.

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Mr. Mauril Bélanger: Mr. Shepard, the next time you go to Prince Albert, I would encourage you to go to see Mr. Diefenbaker's home. I met the man in Charlottetown in the seventies. On a wall in his home, there is a photo that was pivotal to my understanding of the history of our country. I saw a photo of John Diefenbaker and Gabriel Dumont. Diefenbaker was a kid at the time of the photo; I guess he would have been about 8 years old. That photo impressed upon me how young our country is. The fact that Gabriel Dumont—and Dumont is history; I mean, I was taught about him and Louis Riel in school—had met the man that I'd met, John Diefenbaker... Anyway, we have a very young country.

On some of the comments that you've made about not having a culture, I happen to disagree there as well. I'm not going to fall into your Peter Ustinov trap, but that's okay. Canadian culture is evolving, and I want to connect that fact to some comments that Mr. Boyko has made about demographics and the four- and five-foot pile of studies.

At the very least, there is an area that's being talked about. That's better than it not being talked about at all, because there are other areas of human endeavour in this country that are almost totally neglected. On this one, we may not translate the thoughts, the exercises and the speeches into as much of a tangible end product as we want to, but perhaps the time is coming.

One of the exercises this committee undertook was to look at the demographics. We asked the demographers, or whatever the heck those people are called, for their thoughts. Their thoughts are that, indeed, for many of the artistic forms of expression or cultural forms of expression, the day is coming. The aging population will want those things more and will drive them even more in terms of political pressure, absolutely, and also in terms of the commercial demand. Don't despair. Maybe you've heard that before, too, and so be it.

I suspect that in the next decade—we're not talking about next month, we're talking about horizons of years here—we should be able to see in this country, with l'assainissement des finances, a rather significant shift towards what you're hoping for. I would hope the exercise that we've been lending ourselves to, and that our other colleagues are lending themselves to in either Moncton or Halifax tonight, would lead to that. Don't let up the pressure.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you.

I have an audience participant who has been very patient. I know we're over our two hours. Unfortunately we've run out of time, but I would like you to make your comments. I'll allow you to address this committee in order to get those comments on the record, but I would ask you to be brief, please.

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Ms. Ann Kipling Brown (Individual Presentation): ...for you if you wish, but I won't. I could do it really briefly, and I will.

I am representing Saskculture, which is an umbrella organization—many people know of it—and I'd like to make just a couple of points. One is about the CCA's initiative to develop a federal cultural policy. I would like to congratulate them on that. I would like to see the government embrace that cultural policy—not write it, but embrace it and take it on board.

We have a cultural policy for Saskculture, and we're encouraging the Saskatchewan government to also have a cultural policy in order that the government can address certain regulations and inequities that exist. There's a cultural policy that is there for reference and guidance, and I think the CCA has provided that. I have one comment to make about it, though. I would suggest that “arts” and “culture” in that policy seem to be interchangeable and not clear. I'd like to see more clarification of what exactly is meant by “arts” and then by “culture”. Sometimes the two terms are used backwards and forwards.

I'd like to say something to my colleague over here about whether or not dollars are well spent on culture. I think dollars are well spent when most of those people who are also having health problems, etc., are the very people who are embracing, developing and encouraging culture in Saskatchewan—and I'll just talk about this province. We can't divide those people. Every single person is involved in culture in some way.

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So I hasten my colleague to look at the fact that we're all involved in it, we're all involved in health, and that this voice should be at the government table too to hear what is happening. It's not one or the other. It's both.

The Acting Chair (Ms. Sarmite Bulte): Thank you very much.

I regret that we have run out of time. I'm glad we've started this dialogue, because I believe again it's the start of a dialogue, it's not the end of the dialogue. The committee has come here to listen, to learn, to look at the gaps that are missing. I encourage you to keep up communication with our committee. If there are issues that have been raised at the end of the evening that have not been dealt with, please submit them in writing. Again, you have the committee to come to. You don't need to wait for hearings. I'm happy to stay behind if there are some additional comments you'd like to make off the record.

On behalf of my colleagues from Saskatchewan, and all members of the committee and staff, I'd like to thank you all for taking the time from your very busy schedules, and from your professional and private lives, to come here and share your concerns and issues with us. Many comments have been duly noted.

Again, please remember this is the beginning of working together in partnership, in tandem, to develop a cultural policy. This is not the end. I urge you to continue to communicate not only with the federal government but other levels of government so that we can work together in partnership.

Thank you all very much.

The meeting is adjourned.