Section 3: Developing and Sustaining Cultural Expression and Shelf Space

Table of Contents

Section 1: Canadian Cultural Policy 101: An Overview of the Federal Role in the Cultural Ecosystem

Fundamental Values and Ideals

Section 2: The Evolution of Federal Cultural Support

Section 3: Developing and Sustaining Cultural Expression and Shelf Space

Benchmarking Cultural Policy
Strengthening the Sector
Partners

Section 4: On the Horizon

Section 5: All Resources

Section 3: Developing and Sustaining Cultural Expression and Shelf Space

Canada’s founding documents specifically provided jurisdiction over communications to the federal government and thus some of the earliest federal guidelines pertaining to culture were set by the Radiotelegraph Act which was amended in 1923 to limit ownership of radio and telegraph communications to British subjects, a term which included the majority of Canadian residents at that time, and the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Act (1932), which created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) as both public broadcaster and regulator. The role of the CBC demonstrates the belief that there was a need for a public service vehicle to create and disseminate Canadian culture, although the development of cultural industries would ultimately be managed through public-private partnerships to maintain an arm’s length approach.

This legislative framework, which supported the developing broadcasting industry, has been updated several times to reflect the advent of television, cable, and other distribution technologies. However, even as the legislation was rewritten, a consistent thread runs through all subsequent measures: private broadcasters who make use of the publicly owned broadcasting spectrum must make financial commitments to the development of Canadian content as well as highlight Canadian productions. The most recent amendment to the broadcasting legislation in 1991 reflects both technology and societal changes and rearticulates industry support of Canadian cultural aspirations.

Public policy objectives to promote Canadian cultural content, as articulated through the measures designed to support the Canadian broadcasting system, served as a model in the design of policies applying to the “cultural industries,” namely book and magazine publishing, sound recording, and film and video production. While acknowledging the private ownership of these enterprises, policy makers as early as the 1958 Broadcasting Act (which established the first Canadian content quotas, and which was subsequently followed by similar initiatives for each of the creative industries in the 1970’s) have created guidelines to ensure effective Canadian ownership and control of the cultural industries, and have implemented initiatives to encourage and reward commitments for Canadian content.

An ongoing challenge in providing maximum choice and access within domestic markets for Canadian content has been the country’s close proximity to United States, the largest exporter of cultural products and services worldwide, with whom it shares a common majority language. These factors, combined with new digital and satellite technology, contributed to increased saturation of Canadian markets with U.S. content in the 1980s and 1990s. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA,) signed in 1992, established Canada and the US as each other’s largest trading partners and contained a cultural exemption clause that allowed for special treatment of cultural goods. However, cultural trade disputes at the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding split-run magazines demonstrated that Canada would need to take further action to not only increase cultural exports but to reserve shelf space within its domestic markets for Canadian cultural content.

In response, two programs were created to support the export of Canadian culture. The Cultural Trade Routes Program provides international business development advice and support through market entry strategies, in-market assistance, financial aid and market intelligence. A business development program for the creative industries is administered through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Furthermore, these trade disputes provided the motivation for Canada to spearhead international efforts towards creating an international instrument on cultural diversity that recognized the dual cultural and economic nature of creative industry products. (For further information, see the Observatory's In Focus on Culture and Trade.)

In 1999, the Cultural Industries Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade (SAGIT) defined a Canadian cultural policy toolkit which reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to supporting the creative industries and Canadian content through: financial and program incentives, Canadian content requirements and other regulatory support mechanisms, tax measures, limits on foreign investment and ownership, and measures to protect intellectual property. This toolkit was, and remains, the core policy strategy for Canada as it provided leadership on the international stage, in the face of liberalized trade, to protect Canadian culture and promote cultural diversity.

Benchmarking Cultural Policy

The evolution of the elements of cultural policy has often been the result of deliberate efforts by the Government of Canada to ensure that its measures were effective and consistent with the current realities. In fact, there have been a host of Royal Commissions, Task Forces and Parliamentary Committee studies that have sought the views and advice of artists, creators, arts professionals and Canadians of all stripes.

Some consider the first and most profound of these exercises to be the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Sciences and Humanities, also known as the Massey-Lévesque Commission (1949-1951). The Massey-Lévesque Report forms an important benchmark from which one can measure progress and the efficacy of subsequent policies and cultural institutions. Perhaps its most telling statement was the fact that very few Canadian artists of any discipline could earn their livelihood from the pursuit of their craft. Through the introduction of innovations such as the Canada Council for the Arts which was created in 1957 to fund the humanities, arts and social sciences, and the development of television broadcasting by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1952, Canadian artists were provided with mechanisms to assist them.

Further benchmarks in the review of Canada’s cultural policies can be seen in the creation of the Culture Statistics Program at Statistics Canada in 1973 and the findings of the Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee otherwise known as the Applebaum-Hébert Report, which reported to the Minister of Communications in 1982. The Applebaum-Hébert Report gave over 101 recommendations to improve the cultural sector including: emphasizing the importance of political autonomy and diversity of funding support for artists and cultural agencies, the articulation that improvement in the economic status of artists was necessary, and highlighting the lack of training available for a new generation of artists.

Strengthening the Sector

Currently there is a wide array of professional non-governmental training institutions to shape new talent in many art forms that have flourished under the nurturing “arms-length” model of support. They include: the National Ballet School, the National Theatre School, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and over 30 others which receive financial support from the Department of Canadian Heritage. In 1997, the National Arts Training Contribution Program was established to sustain and assist in further development of these types of institutions. In addition, the Cultural Human Resource Council was created to specifically address the ongoing needs and opportunities for artists, creators and arts professionals.

The range of cultural expression seen in the list of national training institutions funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage is illustrative of the changes that have taken place in how Canadians define arts and culture. The recognition of the important role of the culturally diverse and Aboriginal communities as integral to our national identity is clearly evident. This diversity continues to enhance the richness and depth of artistic expression in all parts of Canada.

The development of an extensive inventory of talented artists and creators through the work of the Canada Council for the Arts and other government departments and agencies was an important achievement of federal cultural policies. However, it is the cultural industries that have provided the means to make Canadian work available to audiences both at home and around the world. For this reason, Canada’s cultural policies have always included specific financial measures to ensure that creators of Canadian culture can reach a wider audience.

Most recently, support has taken the form of collaborations between the public and the private sector like the 2000 Script to Screen initiative that created the Canada Feature Film Fund administered by Telefilm Canada. Examples of financial measures include: the 1983 Broadcast Program Development Fund, the Feature Film Fund (1986) the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (1979), the Publications Distribution Assistance Program (1993) the Publications Assistance Program (1997), the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit (1994), the Canada Magazine Fund (2000), the 1986 Sound Recording Development Program, the From Creators to Audience (PDF) initiative (2001), and the 2001 Tomorrow Starts Today initiative which provided $560 million in cultural investments over three years and was renewed for an additional five years. In 1990, the Business Development Bank of Canada established the Cultural Industries Development Fund to support entrepreneurs in the cultural industries. Although these financial initiatives have changed over time, the fundamental objective of preserving these cultural industries for the dissemination of Canadian artistic and cultural work has not.

In 1992, Canada became the first signatory nation of the 1980 UNESCO Belgrade Recommendation on the Status of the Artist (PDF) to pass legislation designed to bolster the ability of Canadian artists to earn a livelihood from the practice of their art. The drafting of this Status of the Artist Act was the result of a long process of consultation and analysis by the Task Force on the Status of the Artist (1986), the Canadian Advisory Committee on the Status of the Artist (1987), and a special study by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Communications and Culture (1987). The legislation recognized artists’ rights of freedom of expression and established the Canadian Council on the Status of the Artist and the Producers Professional Relations Tribunal.

Another element of Canada’s legislative toolkit is the Copyright Act, which provides moral and economic rights for creators and copyright owners in regard to the public use of their works. This evolving Act recognizes that in an information economy, copyright is a major tool, which can lead to important sources of income for creators, artists and copyright owners. Culturescope's Rethinking Copyright provides a more in-depth look at copyright’s role in promoting the development of cultural content.

In 2006 over 700,000 Canadians are engaged on a full-time basis in the arts and cultural sector, which is larger than agriculture, forestry and mining combined and contributes over $35 billion to the economy. The continued growth of the arts and culture sector presents challenges to all levels of government that struggle to determine how best to sustain policies and funding appropriate to changing realities and challenges. Provincial and territorial governments and municipalities have become increasingly engaged in the elaboration and support of cultural policy plans and artistic and cultural practices, and common pressures are inspiring greater collaboration among all levels of government as well as reinforcing the commitment to civil society, industry and private sector partners.

Partners

Arts and cultural service agencies are key organizations in the cultural ecosystem that continue to engage governments at all levels, as well as the public and private sectors of Canadian society, and are essential partners in providing encouragement and new, constructive ideas to the ongoing dialogue on arts and cultural policies. The arts and cultural service agencies have played an important role in both reconstruction efforts following WWII as well as providing a voice for specific arts and cultural constituencies. In 1991, the Minister of Finance introduced important changes to the Income Tax Act that for the first time allowed national arts services organizations to receive charitable donations. The value of these partners was again reaffirmed in the 1999 report A Sense of Place, a Sense of Being: The Evolving Role of the Federal Government in Support of Culture in Canada. Subsequently, the Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program was established in 2001 to strengthen organizational effectiveness and build the capacity of arts and heritage organizations. Further support for cultural organizations and communities was given through the Cultural Spaces Canada that was created in 2001 to improve physical conditions for artistic creativity and innovation by supporting arts and heritage capital projects, and the Cultural Capitals Program that works to reinvigorate the arts and culture at the municipality level. These changes have strengthened the ability of members of the cultural sector to work and contribute to Canada’s cultural scene.

Canada has also been active in supporting cultural policy development on the world stage. In 1995, Canada declared culture the third pillar of foreign policy, but had originally signaled its belief that culture was a significant element of international relations some eighteen years prior when it established a bureau of International Cultural Relations at the Department of External Affairs. Canada has promoted and supported cultural diversity and the protection of cultural property and expression through various international forums including UNESCO, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade Organization, Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the International Network for Cultural Policy (INCP), the Organization of American States (OAS) and in partnership with civil society groups like the International Network on Cultural Diversity (INCD). Canada has demonstrated its commitment to these values by its 1976 accession to UNESCO’s Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage and its subsequent 1977 Cultural Property Export and Import Control Act followed by the Movable Cultural Property Program. In 2006, following a decade of international collaboration and mobilization towards an instrument on cultural diversity, Canada celebrated its contribution by becoming the first country to accede to UNESCO’s Convention on Cultural Diversity

Finally, the Government of Canada has embraced the Internet as a key partner by uniquely adapting its own public cultural services to reflect the online environment through educational, outreach, transparency and cultural distribution initiatives. In 2002, the Department of Canadian Heritage launched the Canadian Culture Online Program that provides funding to produce new media and internet content, increase access and build new audiences for Canadian digital content. The federal government has made Canadian culture accessible online through the launch of cultural portals like the Virtual Museum of Canada (2001), and CultureCanada.gc.ca, Culture.ca Gateway and the Canadian Cultural Observatory’s digital hub, Culturescope.ca (the latter two were created in 2003 and provide resources for Canadian culture and cultural policy). The recent Household Internet Use Survey by Statistics Canada demonstrates that the Internet continues to change how many Canadians are living their lives; technology’s impact on culture and the strategic use of the Internet will remain key in the continued development and implementation of Canadian cultural objectives.

The cumulative effect of these measures and partnerships has allowed Canada to develop a cultural identity that embraces diversity and accommodates cultural differences, an important source of cohesion for post-modern nations confronting social tensions catalyzed by globalization and changing demographics. As a result, high quality, creative Canadian voices have won acclaim for their work both at home and around the world. The system that has evolved enables Canadians in all parts of the country to celebrate and share in the work of our diverse artists and creators.

Previous Section

Next Section

Section 5: All Resources