Julianna Yau’s blog

I met with Andrew Telegdi yesterday, and the meeting was wholly different than the one I had with Cindy Jacobsen.

The meeting felt like a job interview, with Andrew giving me an overview of his exhaustive history as an MP for Kitchener-Waterloo. It was clear that he knows his way around the political world and that his focus & passion is for human rights and immigration issues. This, sadly, leaves me wondering how (if at all) he will be able to represent and speak on behalf of my concerns regarding environmental and cultural issues.

Yes, human rights are extremely important. And, yes, being focused is good. But I am concerned about other issues (whether they’re ones I or others are concerned about) not getting the attention they need.

Time for more thinking about what to do and not to do with my vote.

I’m feeling like I’m all over the place recently (probably because I am).

I heard back from Andrew Telegdi‘s office this week and we’re trying to arrange for a meeting soon. I’ve also contacted Cathy MacLellan for a meeting, but haven’t heard back yet. Along with Cindy Jacobsen (whom I’ve already met), they’re really the only candidates in my riding I’ll be trying to meet. I have no interest in wasting my time with the Conservative party, and I’m too busy to try to meet with the candidates for the other parties (which I doubt have a realistic chance at being elected).

You’ll probably mostly be seeing mini posts like this and bookmarks of other sources for the next week or so. I’m going to be very busy creating new sculptures, coordinating the upcoming events for Globe Studios and jump-starting an exciting new venture.

Other stuff happening:

The Writers Guild of Canada is organizing a pro-arts rally in front of the Canadian Broadcasting Centre at Front & John Street in Toronto on Wednesday, October 8 from 11:30am to 12:30pm. A PDF of the flyer can be found here.

The Department of Culture has also extended their Gone in 30 Seconds video contest deadline to 6pm on Oct 5th.

This is in response to the article Make the case for culture to ordinary Canadians, artists told from the CBC.

I’m disgusted by the fact that politicians believe we need to make a case at all, and that they don’t understand why we’re outraged by the arts budget cuts.

The spending on the arts was approved by Parliament, and so were the programs receiving the funding and the amount of funding being allocated to the programs.

The budget cuts were done in secret, without approval by Parliament, without consulation with the arts community, without clear, specific and direct explanations on why the particular cuts were made, without formal announcement to the public or the arts community, and without clear and direct information on where the excess of $60m was being redirected.

If the government really cared about arts & culture, they would already be aware of the many reports and studies on the importance of arts & culture. So-called “ordinary Canadians” live and breathe art & culture all the time; if they are not happy with the way the money is being spent on the arts, it’s either because of a lack of understanding of the jury process or because we need to improve the process with consultation with the arts community. I know of no other sector where funding is cut, without consultation with the stakeholders, because “ordinary Canadians” or ideologically-threatened policymakers don’t like the product. How do we allow cigarettes to be freely marketed, but arts funding to be cut at the whim of a minority government?

So, to those who need a case presented to them, here is a short list of resources which show why art & culture is important:

• Hill Strategies Research
• Cultivating Demands for the Arts (pdf report)
• Cultural Value and the Crisis of Legitimacy (pdf)
  
• Art classes improve diagnostic skills of medical students (CBC article)
• Canadian Tourism Commission
• Status of the Artist legistlation
• Valuing Culture: Measuring and Understanding Canada’s Creative Economy (report)

Please post any other resources in the comments.

The next Department of Culture meeting is this Saturday, September 13 from 10am to noon at The Theatre Centre (1087 Queen St. West) in Toronto. The meeting is to organize swing teams for the Oakville and Oshawa ridings.

Facebook event here.

This weekend, it was announced that Telefilm’s $14.5m new media fund has been the latest to have its support pulled as a result of the Tories’ “strategic review” of “all departments”.

Also this weekend, I listened to the podcast of Q from Friday, and was surprised (and then not so surprised) by the list of criteria John Abbott provided as reasons for funding to be cut.

1. reached their objectives
2. high administrative cost
3. poor performance
4. did not have satisfactory results

These are slightly different (and the last one more suspect) than the ones provided at the Heritage committee meeting:

1. met their objectives
2. similar programs were providing similar services
3. the program had high operating costs

If you can believe it, I’ve been busy for the past two days with things other than copyright or arts advocacy (one of them being the production and administration of my sculptures!).

This meant I missed the live broadcast of the arts budget cuts discussion on Q, which is thankfully available as a podcast. I also received an email from Hedy Fry (the second member of the Heritage Committee to respond to my email):

Dear Ms. Yau:

Thank you for your letter protesting the recent cuts to Arts and Cultural programs by Foreign Affairs and Heritage Canada.

We, Liberal MPs all remember that Stephen Harper was a member of the Reform Party, which took the ideological stance that Arts and Culture was an inconsequential frill. We should not be surprised that as Prime Minister he would implement that ideology.

What is appalling is how it was done, with no announcement, surreptitiously inserted in the Departments’ websites, during the summer, when no one was supposed to be paying attention. This is a ploy the Harper government has used on many occasions, this summer.

Of course, there were explanations for the cuts. The Minister of Heritage called them efficiencies while the officials in Foreign Affairs were at least more honest. They did not approve of “lefty” writers or the immorality of certain titles and artistic subject matter. Such censorship by any other name would be called McCarthyism.

When the federal government does not understand the value of Arts and Culture to national identity or social cohesion; when a government does not have the foresight to see that in a 21st century global economy, the only hope for survival in a country as small as ours is to encourage human creativity and innovation; we should have grave cause for concern.

Even in the crassest of terms, funding of Arts and Culture could be seen as a smart economic investment. After all the creative sector is statistically the 4th largest industry in Canada; contributing 43.2 billion dollars annually to our GDP; responsible for almost 800,000 jobs and levering 2.7 billion dollars in trade.

Liberal governments under Chretien and Martin increased funding to Arts and Culture, initiated innovative Programs like Tomorrow Starts Today, and strengthened the International arts Programs seeing them as key to Canada’s trade, as well as our diplomatic efforts in promoting Canadian values abroad.

Stéphane Dion is on record as promising to increase the international Programs to $22 million and he sees a strong creative sector as key to Canada’s competitiveness in a 21st century world of innovation, creativity and human capital.

I urge you will take a bold stance against the Harper government’s damaging tunnel vision and attempt to censure and impose its own ideology on Canadian society under the thinly veiled guise of ‘efficient public policy.’

Thank you for writing.

Sincerely,
Hon. Hedy Fry, M.P.
Vancouver Centre

A bit heavy-handed with the pre-election jargon, and I wonder what will be done on Fry’s end to compliment the bold stance I’m urged to take.

Also, Penn Kemp of the Save Prom-Art: Promote Canadian Arts and Culture Facebook group received an email from Jack Layton:

At 04:59 PM 30/08/2008 he wrote:

“Absolutely!!

We are on it. We have many artists running for us [like Tom King!] and we will present a strong programme and fight like hell to re-establish the arts funding. These cuts are terrible and wrong. The latest cuts to Telefilm, for example, are horrific, short-sighted and nasty!

Just so that you know, when you’re communicating with your arts network, I am a member of the Writers’ Union with three published books: Speaking Out Louder (Key Porter, 2006) and Homelessness (Penguin, 2008) and Les ideés pour les gens d’ici (2004). Also, the director of our national campaign is Brian Topp, Exec Director of ACTRA.

These facts can give some comfort.

See you on the campaign trail and keep on fighting the good fight.

Thanks,
Jack”
“Layton, Jack – M.P.”

Reposting from the Canadian Conference of the Arts (PDF):

The Standing Committee on Heritage has decided to start holding hearings on the impact of the budget cuts to arts and culture programs. The first session is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, September 2 in Ottawa. There will likely be another session on Thursday, September 4, but that may be the only two if the persistent rumours of an upcoming election are correct.

Each party has until Friday noon to provide the Committee’s Clerk with a list of witnesses whom they would like to call. You can express your interest to be called as witness to any of the following contacts, MAKING SURE TO INDICATE IF YOU WOULD BE AVAILABLE FOR EITHER SITTING AND IN PARTICULAR THE SEPTEMBER 2 ONE. Also indicate where you can be reached, the Clerk having only Friday afternoon to confirm the list of witness for Tuesday!

Liberal Party: please contact Benoït Bouvier tel. 613 286 9899 or email coderd0@parl.gc.ca
NDP: please contact Andrea Emond tel. (613) 9965597 or email siksab@parl.gc.ca
Bloc Québécois: please contact Daniel Dicaire, tel. 6139460644 tlx : 6139413300 email debelc@parl.gc.ca

Don’t forget to specify if your organization would be ready to appear as early as Tuesday!

Update: See the Canadian Conference of the Arts’ breakdown of the cuts, which are more accurate than the chart below.

I’m doing some prep work for my letter to my MP et al regarding the recent cuts to arts funding. Anyone out there willing to check my numbers for me? The chart I put together isn’t getting to the $40-million or $44-million number being quoted, even by the article from which I pulled the numbers (which quotes $44.8-million).

Also, The Globe & Mail indicates that the cut to Trade Routes is a $7.13m cut, while others (Canadian Conference of the Arts, DOC and CBC) indicate it’s $9m.

(embed not working? try the direct link)

I was chatting with Coxsoft Art last week about the recent arts funding cuts in Canada and was told that Britain had some recent cuts, in part, because funds needed to be diverted to the 2012 games. I said I suspected this was also a driving force here in Canada because of the 2010 games.

And now the Globe & Mail reports that it’s true.

Thanks to Margaret of the Against cuts to foreign touring and Trade Routes programs Facebook group for sending that around.

I guess it would be asking too much for the athletes to stand in unison with the artists to protest the budget cuts.