Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting us and for listening to our presentations.
As mentioned, I work at the Conseil culturel et artistique francophone de la Colombie-Britannique. Our organization is the provincial voice for arts and culture. We promote the development of francophone arts and culture here in the province. Arts and culture span the country and are an engine of vitality. We saw an example of this at the beginning of the session. The CD you were presented with is a fine example of the scope of our arts and culture.
At the outset, I must say that our organization, as well as the sector in its entirety, is particularly pleased to see arts and culture clearly established in the Action Plan for Official Languages, 2018-2023: Investing in Our Future. To be completely honest, I will say that we have been waiting for this for a number of years. Our organization also pointed this out in a media release we issued when the action plan was announced last March.
Arts and culture are dealt with in the section entitled “Investing in Culture”, which is part of Pillar I, entitled "Strengthening Our Communities”. For us, this shows a recognition of the sector and of the work being done across the network, for example with the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française, which is our national voice. Overall, we are happy with the enhancements in the action plan.
We are also happy with the consultation process with the provinces and territories in determining the priorities for additional funding in the action plan. We consider that this provides the government and the communities with a real opening to work together and to commit to establishing priorities.
However, we still have questions as to the implementation of the action plan and the awareness of it on the part of other departments. For example, we wonder whether incentives have been, or will be, established to encourage not only the implementation of the action plan but also other departments to adopt its recommendations.
The action plan expresses a desire to encourage an intersectoral approach as a way of implementing the initiatives it describes. We wonder, for example, how organizations responsible for official language, and more specifically Canadian Heritage, will be able to encourage other departments to collaborate in implementing its various measures.
As we have already indicated, we acknowledge the investment announced in the action plan and the increase in program funding. For us, and, I believe, for the entire arts and culture sector, and for the community, this is a major step forward.
However, we believe that it is important to mention that this investment is playing catch-up. No additional investments have been made for many years, in fact. That leads us to say that indexing should be considered as a priority. If that principle is not observed in the coming years, we are afraid that we will still be underfunded. For our sector, and for the community as a whole, indexing the funds is a priority in the coming years.
In closing, I would say that we are aware of the fact that the action plan is mostly about official languages and Canadian Heritage programs. We are pleased with the investments, such as the community cultural action fund. That said, we must point out the importance of other programs that are not in the ambit of the department responsible for official languages, such as the Canada arts presentation fund. This program is a pillar for communities and for our members involved in the performing arts. That means festivals and community and cultural centres. The finds allocated to this program have not increased for practically as long as those allocated to the community life component of the official languages program. This program, with the official languages, really enhances the vitality of our communities. We believe that it is important to give it particular attention in the years to come, certainly, but sooner rather than later, because there is a great need for arts and culture to flow freely throughout our country.
Thank you for listening.