Election 2021: The Major Parties on Arts and Culture
/On September 20, Canadians will be going to the polls: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called a federal election. We’ll have our ArtsVote BC website up as soon as possible, but in the meantime, here are the positions of the major parties on arts, culture, and heritage. [Last updated: August 18, 2021.]
CONSERVATIVE PARTY OF CANADA
The Conservatives have pledged: to create the “Canada Job Surge Plan”, which would pay up to 50 per cent of the salary of new employees for six months; business loans of up to $200,000 for small businesses in the hospitality, retail and tourism sectors; to give Radio-Canada a separate and distinct legal and administrative structure to reflect its distinct mandate of promoting francophone language and culture; create a new Canadian Heritage Preservation Fund to provide a total of $75 million in grants to municipal governments over the next five years for the repair and restoration of historical monuments, statues, and heritage buildings; to require large digital streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video to reinvest a significant portion of their Canadian gross revenue into producing original Canadian programming, of which a mandated proportion must be French language programming; to recognize and correct the adverse economic impact for creators and publishers from the uncompensated use of their works in a manner consistent with the unanimous recommendations of the Heritage Committee of the House of Commons Report in 2019; to conduct a review of federal book publishing policy to enhance the commercial viability of Canada’s independent publishing sector.
For the full Conservative platform as it stands, click here.
GREEN PARTY
The Greens have not yet released their arts and culture pledges or full platform.
LIBERAL PARTY
The Liberals have pledged: to extend the Canada Recovery Hiring Program that covers up to half the wages of rehired workers; to provide the country’s tourism industry with temporary wage and rent support of up to 75 percent of their expenses to help them get through the winter months; and to match ticket sales for performances to compensate for pandemic restrictions on venue capacity.
For the Liberals’ 2019 cultural pledges, click here. Stay tuned for the Liberals’ complete 2021 platform.
NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The NDP have pledged: to create a dedicated re-building package for the performing arts, theatre, festivals and other arts that have been most severely impacted by the pandemic; to make sure that Canadian talent can thrive on both digital and traditional platforms; to make web giants like Netflix and Google pay corporate taxes, support Canadian content in both official languages, and take responsibility for what appears on their platforms; to modernize the Broadcasting Act fairly in order to create a level playing field between Canadian broadcasters and foreign streaming services; to extend support to Canadian media to assist them in making the digital transition; to provide financial support for Indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre; and to put in place income tax averaging for artists and cultural workers.
For the full NDP platform, click here.
If you have any information or updates, please email Taylor Basso at taylor@allianceforarts.com.
