Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 9th, 2009

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

This is mere speculation. Show us your studies and stop the speculation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Ms. Lavallée, you'll have another opportunity in the next round.

Mr. Angus, please.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Minister, let me congratulate you on your position. I've congratulated you privately, but this is our first time at committee and I'm very glad to have you here. I'm very glad that we are discussing arts funding. I think it is very, very important.

When looking at what you're bringing forward today, I'm thinking of it as being sold as an economic driver, an economic stimulus package. That's my major question. There are a lot of opportunities for some excellent photo ops, and I'm sure that all members of the government side will be out this summer getting their pictures taken at all of the various festivals to show how much they love artists, but I'm not sure how much of the money being promoted as new is not just existing funds. For example, the Canadian Television Fund is at 1996 levels. The New Media Fund is basically the same.

When you're looking at economic drivers, your key drivers are going to be in areas like film and television. Those are areas that are facing a major economic crunch right now, because credit is drying up. Why was the decision not made to put more money there on a short-term basis, that is, into the Canadian Television Fund and New Media Fund, because we're basically dealing with 1996 dollars?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

We've renewed the Canadian Television Fund, as you know, for two years. This is a lot of money.

I actually think that the bigger concern that's been expressed to me by industry, and also by the Auditor General, as you know, is the issue regarding the management thereof and the governance thereof.

So on the issue of new media and the Canadian Television Fund, we've renewed it for two years. It is at high levels. Obviously there can be an argument about how much more we should spend, how much more we ought to spend, but it is at high levels.

I can just let you know that the chapter on this is not closed, that we'll have some more information coming soon. We're continuing to look at the questions that have been raised in the past about governance and at how the money can be spent as effectively as possible.

I did want to take the chance, though, and be very specific. In this budget, the sunsetting programs, like the Canadian Television Fund, are being renewed, and all of them combined amount to $540 million. The specific new amounts are $276 million over two years of investments.

You're right, to be honest, this is something that our government across different departments is wrestling with. We want to make sure this money gets spent, and gets spent effectively.

I'll give you an example: $60 million was announced in the budget for cultural spaces. It's a $60 million shot in the arm over two years for cultural spaces. We want to make sure that the money gets spent as quickly as possible. It doesn't do Canadians any good to be paying taxes and having money sitting on a balance sheet but not getting spent. So we want it to be spent properly.

One of the things we're considering with this fund, and we haven't determined it yet, is to make sure this money for cultural spaces goes, frankly, to more folks than is usually the case.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Sorry, I only have five minutes, and it is fascinating.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Fair enough. You would like to know how we're changing, but that's okay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm certainly interested in what you said, that the other shoe on the Canadian Television Fund hasn't dropped yet.

There's been a lot of concern about the recommendations at the CRTC to split the fund, which is being demanded by the cable operators but universally opposed by industry. Do you have plans on changing the governance structure and how the CTF is being funded?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Not in terms of how it's being funded, no, but of course the governance models are, as you know, a source of debate and controversy, and I know that this—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Do you have a timeline on when you'll be coming back with dropping this other shoe on the television and film industry?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

We anticipate making an announcement soon.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Excellent. The Luminato prize--I guess I had to scratch my head on that. I have nothing against prizes to artists, but I'm thinking about $25 million to promote international arts. Certainly you could make an argument for it as an economic stimulus, but I'm asking why this. Why this and not, for example, the fact that the National Film Board is down at $67 million when 15 years ago it was at $81 million? I think every single Canadian in this country can name five or six National Film Board films they've seen, and everybody internationally has probably seen at least one National Film Board film. So we're looking at a major Canadian institution that's been really ground down in terms of the funding it has, and yet we have the Luminato prize.

Who did you meet with? How was the decision made to support an international prize out of Toronto and not support the National Film Board?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I really don't think it's a question of this or that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

But it is. You have to make those decisions. That's what a budget is about.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Yes, you have to make those decisions, but I wouldn't say it's quite as stark as that. We're investing in the National Film Board. It's an important institution. We're continuing with those investments and making sure those investments are done in an effective way.

With regard to the Canada prize, I would just say wait for the details to come out. As I say—and I only have, I'm guessing, a minute or something here to answer—the idea of having the largest multidisciplinary prize in the world and to have it on Canadian soil is something that is being very well received by the arts and culture community. Certainly there are some who think the money should be spent elsewhere. That's always the nature of a budget.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

That is, I guess, the question. Far be it from me to not support galas that rich people go to, as the Prime Minister said, or medium and poor people, but we're looking at the National Film Board. There aren't new investments. You're down at $67 million. It's a major drop from where it was 15 years ago. You add inflation to that and this is hanging by its fingers. Ask any Canadian whether they're going to be more interested in the international Luminato prize, which is going to go to international artists, or whether they want their money to go to the National Film Board. Why did the National Film Board get left out in this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Minister, give a short answer, please.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I would just disagree that the National Film Board has been left out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for agreeing to appear before us today. Obviously it's a great opportunity for the members of the committee to get to know you and to discuss this important department.

There has been a lot of confusion around the strategic review process. Obviously we are very proud of the fact that we have done nothing but increase investment into the Department of Canadian Heritage since taking government. That said, there are a number of programs highlighted under the strategic review that were found to be not as effective a use of money as others. Could you outline those and give us some cause as to why those programs were highlighted?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I can. There's been a lot of information about this and about what happened last summer with regard to our government and arts and culture funding. Madame Lavallée raised the issue, and she's used the language “savage cuts to arts and culture”. As I was trying to say, the way the strategic review works is that the department is asked to find the 5% lowest-performing dollars spent by the department, identify those 5% lowest, and reallocate them to other areas of higher priority or of higher responsibility for the government. That's what strategic review does. So you identify the areas where money is being spent this year and where it can be reallocated for next year. That's not cutting. That's called reallocating money into higher and more effective purposes for taxpayers.

Within the envelope of this $45 million, for example, was the Canadian Memory Fund. This was a project supported by federal institutions to digitally preserve and present cultural heritage artifacts. The project was a success. It was sunsetted. It was a $12,670,000 amount that was spent last year that's not going to be spent this year because we really didn't think we needed to do the exact same project twice. I think duplication is something we ought to avoid, so that $12,670,00 was then available for other projects.

The northern distribution program supported the analog transmission infrastructure—antenas, basically, in the north. We really didn't think we should continue to sustain antennas in the north past 2010, given that digital conversion is going to happen, so we took the $2.1 million that was going to antennas in the north that nobody was going to use, and we decided to put it to other purposes like festivals, music programs, more money for museums, and more money for the Canada Council. Culture.ca was a website. Nobody was using the website. It was a virtual ghost town online. It was going to receive $3.8 million this year, so instead of putting the money towards a website that nobody was using, we took that money and we reinvested it back into other arts and culture programs. And I have every single—

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Can you confirm for me, Minister, that was running about $7 a hit, culture.ca--

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

No. It was less than that. It was about $1.98 a hit, but again a ratio that would not be tolerable by any private sector institution in the country.

The Canadian Cultural Observatory, Culturescope, provided an interactive online hub for policy researchers and it was outpaced by other technologies online. Nobody was using it. So we took that $562,000 and we reinvested it into the general pool of resources that we have at Heritage Canada and we spent it on other arts and cultural programming. Even Trade Routes, as Madam Lavallée raised, is a $7-million program. It cost $5 million to deliver $2 million worth of benefits. That's a ratio of ineffectiveness that I think Canadians would want us to shy away from, and so we have.

Another example is the PromArt program, which is another part of the international promotion of the government. The problem with that program, when you put it together with Trade Routes, was the inefficiency of the program. The idea of establishing cultural attachés and embassies around the world is an interesting idea, but the problem with it is that it's very static, and new markets might emerge for different performers and different artists but you'll have old infrastructures in place in different embassies that may or may not fluctuate in terms of their demand for Canadian artists abroad. So we've changed that and we're investing the money elsewhere.

There are all kinds of other examples I have here as well, where money was for lower purposes and redirected into higher-value purposes. Again, the Bloc wants to castigate this as savage cuts. I think not spending $13 million to accomplish something twice isn't a savage cut. I think it's good government.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

We've also made an awful lot of record investments in this budget. Can you just verify the two amounts? I think you had an amount that was over $500 million that was for the arts, of which almost $300 million was new money. Can you just reclarify that for the committee?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

The amount that's at stake in this budget is $540 million, that's the global amount. Of the $540 million, the new money is $276 million, and within that is $2 million for the Manège militaire in Quebec City, $75 million for national historic sites, $14 million for arts training and professional artistic careers, $25 million for prizes, $60 million for cultural and heritage infrastructure--museums, the Toronto library identified in the budget speech--and $100 million for festivals and marquee events across the country. So that's $276 million in new dollars. That's a lot of money. That's more than a quarter of a billion dollars in injection into arts and culture in this country as a way to push the stimulus forward, and I think it's being well received by Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

We now go to Ms. Dhalla, please.