Deborah Coyne - Liberal

I strongly and unequivocally support the increase in support for the arts set out in the platform of the Liberal Party, including the proposal to double funding for the Canadian Council for the Arts by the year 2008. In addition, in the last budget the Government proposed funding of $860 million over five years for the Tomorrow Starts Today initiative, which would support excellence in the arts. I am determined that we follow through on these initiatives.

Our cultural institutions and achievements are among the most important assets uniting us as a people. Ensuring that they remain vital and excellent is critical to our national unity and national identity, as well as being of considerable economic importance (as you point out). The opportunities we provide through our arts institutions to individual Canadians are essential to our quality of life. I have said these things many times in many for over the years. For me, this is a bedrock philosophical commitment.

Moreover, the role of the CBC in Canadian public life is irreplaceable. We must resist any attempt to erode, piece by piece, the special character of the CBC as a public broadcaster, through notions of “commercialization.” We must find new ways that the CBC can harness technological developments and exploit the incredible diversity and wealth of Canadian talent—specialty channels and services, and perhaps a further move into the international arena, where there is huge demand today for alternatives to Hollywood-style products. Such initiatives not only hold the promise of offering to more and more people, in Canada and around the world, our excellent cultural products-they also hold the promise of significant revenue generation.

In addition, we need to review the way in which Canadian content is defined in cultural regulations and policies, to ensure the promotion of excellence. It may well be that recent changes have taken us backwards in terms of encouraging first-class Canadian productions of drama, among other things, for both television and film.

Finally, we must insist that our trade negotiators protect our cultural sovereignty in negotiations at the World Trade Organization and in other regional negotiations. Any new wording in trade treaties must be reviewed extremely carefully, to ensure that the security of our cultural industries and national cultural life is clearly and unambiguously provided for. Canada was recently in the forefront the negotiations of the International Convention on Cultural Diversity. I am proud that the Canadian government was the first in the world to ratify this Convention. Now we must insist that trade negotiations and tribunals interpreting existing trade rules fully respect the protections in the Convention.