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This is the third in a series of posts highlighting the merits of governement supporting artistic endeavours.  I talked about Canada’s government funded public broadcaster, and more specifically CBC Radio 3 here and about Canadian Content, or CanCon broadcasting rules here.  This post will look at direct subsidies for Canadian art, music in particular.

There are many aspects of the social sphere where it has been decided that to allow ‘pure’ market forces to exert complete control over these areas would lead to undesired consequences. Policing, firefighting, emergency paramedics, K-12 education and health care (as long as you are not in the US) all fall into this category.  Arts and culture do as well.  Canada’s close proximity and interconnectedness to the US, the worlds largest cultural exporter, make this a necessity; if our artists were unsupported by the government, the dynamics of the 300 million strong marketplace to the south would trump our 30 million every time.  Thankfully our government still supports our artists and musicians.  The primary mechanism for directing public funding towards Canadian musicians is the Canadian Music Fund.

The Canadian music industry includes a wide range of creators and entrepreneurs who create, produce and market original and diverse Canadian music. To help the industry meet new challenges, the Government created the Canada Music Fund. The Canada Music Fund (CMF) is the primary tool implementing the three major objectives of the Canadian Sound Recording Policy, which are:

• to enhance Canadians access to a diverse range of Canadian music choices through existing and emerging media;
• to increase the opportunities available for Canadian music artists and entrepreneurs to make a significant and lasting contribution to Canadian cultural expression; and,
• to ensure that Canadian music artists and entrepreneurs have the skills, know-how and tools to succeed in a global and digital environment.

One of the central vehicles for delivering funding is the group FACTOR, a not for profit organization that has “been managing federal funds since the inception of the Sound Recording Development Program in 1986 (now known as the Canada Music Fund Council).”  FACTOR has grown considerably since it’s inception and aides musicians in many facets:

Whether an artist is looking to record a demo, full length sound recording, market and promote an already existing album or showcase and tour domestically and internationally, funding is available. FACTOR supports many facets of the infrastructure which must be in place in order for artists and Canadian labels to progress into the international arena.

FACTOR started out with an annual budget of $200,000 and is currently providing in excess of $14 million annually to support the Canadian music industry.

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One of the more depressing aspects of my Monday morning commute is the frequency with which there is going to be some sad news relayed on the 8 o’clock news from over the weekend.  This Monday was no exception as there were 7 separate incidents involving collisions with pedestrians. A 77 year old man was killed in one of these.  Not a great kickoff to National Safe Driving Week.

What was most depressing about this particular report was some of the information that was said to have come from the police.  The causes that were cited in these ‘accidents’ were: weather conditions, pedestrians dark clothing and jaywalking.  Apparently inattentive driving does not factor in.  In Vancouver, weather conditions means that it’s raining; if the road is wet what can the driver do?  Change how they drive?  A novel idea.

The automobile is such an ingrained part of our lives that drivers are barely cognizant that they are controlling a machine weighing several tonnes.  The driver holds others safety in their own hands, not just their own.  This is such a basic notion, yet when I read a published opinion piece a few weeks back whining about BC’s upcoming ban on cell phone use while driving (hands free models will still be allowed) the author was suggesting they should be charged higher insurance premiums and be allowed to keep using their cell phone as they do now.  Clearly there are those not aware that others safety is incumbent on their responsible operation of a vehicle.  Most drivers seem to be rather perturbed with any alteration to their actions that is requested of them; driving how you like is almost viewed as a right.

Despite this, pedestrians who jaywalk are endangering themselves and potentially others.  For whatever reason though, I have a hard time believing this septagenarian and his wife (also injured) were trying to run across the street when they should not have been.

It was nice to read this morning that I was not the only one thinking that pedestrians do not place high enough, or at all, on any given cities priorities.  Bev Ballantyne, co-founder of Putting Pedestrians First, is pushing for a pedestrian task force in Vancouver.  A commitee of this type was nearly approved in 2000, but that morphed into a ‘sidewalk taskforce.’  It has been mostly concerned with dog leash infractions.  This is an issue that effects every resident of the city; we are not all drivers, but we do all transport ourselves through the streets in one fashion or another (be it walking, wheelchair, Segway or some other mode.)  More attention on driver and pedestrian interactions is most welcome.

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To follow up on an earlier posting that contended that government sponsored initiatives are capable of producing innovation in broadcasting I thought it was also worth highlighting our CanCon radio requirements and the Canadian Music Fund.  I’ll touch on CanCon in this posting and have something regarding the Canadian Music Fund in a piece to come later.

CanCon is shorthand for ‘Canadian Content’ and the label mostly explains itself; by law a certain amount of radio airplay must be Canadian Content.  The ratio of necessary ‘Canadianess’ varies depending on what genre(s) of music the station broadcasts, as well as the particular market they are in but a good shorthand is to figure that 25% of the broadcast content must be Canadian.  While not a perfect mechanism (it’s easy to find people arguing that CanCon should be entirely scrapped) it does serve to keep Canadian content on the airwaves.  While reading through Wikipedia’s article on this I saw the Arcade Fire mentioned as an example demonstrating CanCon’s failure.  It was only after the band started getting played in heavy rotation in the States that heavy Canadian airplay followed.  A counter example though would be the massive explosion of Feist; vehicles for promoting Canada’s independent artists were more refined in 2007 than they were in 2005 (ie CBC Radio3) and her airplay was building in Canada before the iPod commercial featuring “1-2-3-4″ sent her into the stratosphere.  As I see it, the problem with CanCon as it stands is that there is not enough emphasis on new artists and recordings.  Instead of scrapping the whole system it should be tweaked, so that if a broadcaster features new recordings, a certain percentage of their Canadian content has to be new as well.  Vancouver has a relatively new commercial radio station, The Peak FM that seems to be having some success playing lots of new, independent Canadian artists.  Hopefully they are starting to turn a profit so my referencing them is relevent.

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Thursday evening saw a divided panel come together for a public forum on security and civil liberties during the 2010 Olympics at the SFU Harbour Centre.  The forum was organized by the Impact on Communities Coalition and consisted of Integrated Security Unit chief Bud Mercer, Vancouver Police Department deputy chief Steve Sweeney, BC Civil Liberties Association director David Eby, Vancouver City Councilor Geoff Meegs, Pivot Legal Society attorney Laura Track, Vancouver Organizing Committee director of corporate rights and management Bill Cooper and anti-Olympics activist Alissa Westergard-Thorpe.  There was another panelist speaking from an anti-Olympics stance, but this writer did not catch her name and has not been able to find a complete speakers list online.  My apologies to her.  The forum was moderated by IOCC director Am Johal.

The panel was clearly separated into two camps: organizing and security personnel on one side and those against the Olympics due to concerns about civil liberties infringements, both against those exercising political protest and the homeless on the other.

Civil rights advocates first highlighted the history of the IOC’s desire to present a ‘clean’ image of the games and the lack of communication from VANOC to the IOC that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the law of the land and must inevitably hold sway over efforts at image and brand control.  They further argued that the passing of the city’s 2010 Olympic and Paralympic bylaw, providing officials with the power to remove messaging throughout the city, along with the more recent provincial passage of the Assistance to Shelter Act not only flout the Charter rights but fly directly in the face of the bid committee’s Inner-City Inclusive Commitment Statement.

Panelists representing different organizational facets of the games highlighted upcoming changes to the city’s Olympic bylaw they say clarify their position that actions will only be taken against commercial messaging, not political messages.  Additionally they indicated these upcoming changes will limit the scope of both the time frame for these changes in enforcement as well as the physical areas that constitute Olympic Venues where enforcement will take place.  Outside of the venues, protest would be handled “business as usual” according to deputy chief Sweeney.  Aside from these messages, Mr. Mercer and Mr. Sweeney both underlined that they are in charge of difficult exercises in logistics.  The audience was not particularly sympathetic to this point.

Should organizers insistence that only commercial messaging will be targeted for removal prove to hold true then I will be satisfied that rights to speech are being protected sufficiently.  Nonetheless the fact that it has taken this long to present clarifying language from the city on the original bylaw that was so clearly an infringement on free speech liberties is disturbing.  Smarter minds than myself have not been mollified as easily.  Chris Shaw, a UBC professor who brought forward a lawsuit in response to the cities bylaw describes the proposed changes as “more superficial than substantive” and has indicated his suit “won’t end until the civil liberties playing field for all of us gets a lot more level.”

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Via Brad DeLong’s ongoing series ‘Why oh why can’t we have a better press corps?”:

My first reaction is to be grateful that my country does not consider the outlet in question a legitimate part of the press corps.  Then I remember that the economic winds in this nation are largely dependent on the country that does have the source of the above as part of it’s media. Sigh.

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the public with an opportunity to learn about the men who buy sex, the experiences of sex workers with their clients, and why neither sex workers nor their clients should be criminalized

The turnout of over 120 individuals (all seating used plus standing room) indicates at the very least that this is an issue the public is interested in and desires more information on it.

The forum began with the viewing of a short film entitled We want to save you (and if you don’t appreciate it, you will be punished!) The film is an interview with Pye Jacobsson, a sex worker and activist from Sweden.  She succinctly outlines the background behind Sweden’s adoption of statutes that have criminalized the purchase of sexual services while making the sale of sexual services legal.  Pye then goes on to explain the effects of this legal regime on Sweden’s sex workers. The video is at the end of this post.

Following the video was a to the point talk given by Jody Salerno.  She discussed her history of growing up in an abusive home and emphatically underlined her main point that the criminalization of sex consumers puts sex workers at higher risk.

Next, Chris Atchison presented some fascinating data from his “John’s Voices” project.  Picking up on the point that Jody had started to make, that sex consumers are regular people, Chris’ findings made this notion extremely clear.  Sex consumers come from all walks of life, different socioeconomic classes and demographically are very similar to the country as a whole.

Following a short break, Susan Davis presented some information from a new resource entitled Trade Secrets.  This online guide draws on a wealth of knowledge from sex workers and consumers both.  The excellent schedule the panel put together had Susan presenting viewpoints of sex consumers that reinforced much of the picture that had already been started by Chris.  Suprising to some would be the extremely high levels of respect and care that most sex consumers appear to demonstrate towards those workers whose services they use.

Finally, Tamara O’Doherty tied everything up nicely by presenting a side by side comparison of the law as it stands in both Sweden and Canada as well as the consequences of those laws.  Despite a different statutory system in either country, the end results ended up being very similar.  The criminalization of sex work does not and cannot prevent individuals from entering the sex trade.  Criminalization enhances stigma and endangers sex workers.  It conflates sex work with other issues, that although related and connected, such as human trafficking and abuse, are different.  The conflation of these important issues is a detriment to making improvements in them on all fronts.

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Walking through the newly renovated Robson Square early last week, a security guard approached me to ensure that I was not about to jump out onto the not quite completed ice surface and slide across.  I suppose I must have had that glint in my eye.  After reassuring him that I would control myself, he let me know that next week sometime the ice would be re-opened to the public.  Today at noon that proved to be true as reopening ceremonies were held that included an appearance and skate by Olympic Bronze medalist and 2008 Mens’ World Champion, Jeffrey Buttle.

The skating rink has not been in use since the end of winter in 2000 due to cost concerns. Thanks to a sponsorship from GE that sees the venue renamed as the GE Ice Plaza and the expenditure of $1.6 million over the past three years outdoor skating has returned to downtown Vancouver.  Public skating continues daily from noon to 9pm through the start of the 2010 Winter Games.  Access to the ice is free and if you do not own skates, rentals are available for $3.00
(Photo by Kirsten Thompson/Metro Vancouver)

Update
The skating facilities will be open daily from 9am to 9pm, not from 12-9 as originally reported

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I’m a little late coming to this, but while reading through some CBC news stories from earlier in the week I came across this.  What a joke.  Environment minister Jim Prentice tells us that Canadian climate change legislation is several years off and that there is no way forward until both a cross border agreement with the US and and international treaty to replace Kyoto are completed.  Of course an international accord is needed.  Of course a deal with our American partners is needed.  None of these is a barrier to Canada moving forward in trying to meet goals that we have already set out.

When I was writing about this issue earlier, I hedged my initial skepticism towards the Prime Ministers comments from overseas.  Harper’s statement that a global coalition is needed to create real progress on the climate change issue, while correct, smelled like a delay tactic to me.  Being that the Conservatives have tabled specific goals (be they correct or not is not for me to speculate on) my view was that the most important step was still to be taken; developing legislation to realize these goals.  It seems like there is no such luck, at least so far.

With the Americans actually moving forward on enacting laws on this front (a bill has passed the House and it’s expected to be taken up by the Senate in the new year) what is the real cause for Canada’s seemingly continued ambivalence?  More likely than not it does stem from something nefarious, but rather apathy.  It’s time to move forward.

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Rodney Balko flags down this great compilation of quotes from the greatest television series to ever hit the airwaves.

To many people have not seen this amazing show.  If that includes yourself you should really consider changing that fact.  With the holidays upon us now, The Wire: The Complete Series would make a great present.

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Responding yesterday to Stephen Colbert in just the way that we’ve been looking for was Ted Townsend, the spokesperson for the City of Richmond. In an open letter to Colbert in response to the one on the right, Townsend said the following:

We have always welcomed our friends from south of the border with open arms (well, except for that period in 1812). In fact, we’ve always fondly considered you as our American “cousins” and politely tolerated you, even when you were in an imperialistic mood…

It takes a lot to upset us…after all, the combination of the languid smell of beaver musk and the freezing temperatures generally make us a docile people…

So as the Canadian Iceholes who also happen to be the proprietors of the Richmond Olympic Oval, we are inviting you to find yourself some sled dogs and venture forth to our great frozen wasteland to be our guest at the 2010 Olympic Games. 

Good on Ted for grabbing the media attention that is being served up on a platter. Should Stephen accept the offer he would become an official ombudsman for the games; provided he wears a pink toque his entire time here. That’s perfect! Via Margaret Sheridan’s sports blog at canoe.ca we learn that a CBC sports anchor has challenged Colbert to a race.  They’ve got the right idea, but lets get some star power behind this! Time to lace ‘em up Mercer.

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Seeing this news clip* over the weekend got me to wondering about Canada’s current environmental policy.  I was getting ready to slag the governments inaction on this front over the past couple years but I figured on gathering some information first.  I remember that in 2006/07 this was at the forefront of discussion in this country but seemed to fall by the wayside without any resolution occurring on the way to go forward.  The Conservatives put forward a plan that was widely panned as emissions targets were pegged to growth in industry; the end result would be that while relative levels of carbon emissions would go down, it was possible that the overall levels could increase.  Harper then took another kick at the can and released a proposal to reach somewhat more ambitious targets and scrapped the mechanism that would have allowed the scenario I just mentioned.  Since then the issue seems to have fallen by the wayside, both in any developments and in the nations consciousness.

In the linked to video Harper is speaking to reporters about the need for unified action on this issue.  He is right about this.  Canada is a very small emitter relative to others and even combined plans from the developed world (US, Canada, Eurozone) would not be sufficient.  It is imperative that BRIC nations are included in efforts to reduce emissions as well.  For whatever reason though I had a very hard time taking what Harper was saying in good faith.  To my ear, it sounded more like a delaying tactic than a true, practical assertion; necessary players aren’t moving forward (China, India) so there’s no point in us doing so until they are on board.

This suspicion is what prompted me to ask what our environmental policies currently are.  So I fired up my magic connected tubes and headed over to Environment Canada’s webpage on climate change.  It turns out things were much as I remembered them.  Some goals have been set to reduce emissions, 20% by 2020 and 60-70% by 2050.  Reduced 20% from what though? 2006 levels.  This was a sticking point with environmentalists (scientists too?) for not being ambitious enough.  I don’t have any level of expertise to judge this but other targets I’ve seen use 1996 as the baseline year to judge reductions against.  Another goal listed is to have 90% of Canada’s power production come from non carbon emitting sources by 2020.  I believe that it is important that we have goals set to work towards.  The feasibility/merits of those goals are for others to judge.  I am happy that we at least have targets to work towards.  More important though are the underlying policies; what mechanism are we going to use to meet this goals? Cap and Trade or a Carbon Tax? Is there some other tool that I haven’t heard of?  This section would seem to indicate that those policies have not been set

The Government of Canada is taking an aggressive approach to achieve real environmental and economic benefits for Canadians.

Our plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is on track.  We are currently fine-tuning our approach to tackling climate change, and will introduce a full suite of domestic policies addressing all major sources of emissions prior to the UN meetings in Copenhagen this December. The content and timing of the regulations implementing these policies will be driven by Canada’s national interests, while also accounting for the actions of our trading partners, including the U.S.

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In passing along some thoughts on the now in theatres film Pirate Radio, Matt Yglesias makes the following observation:

It also comes [...] with a strong libertarian, anti-statist message. And of course it’s quite true that a public agency getting involved in the arts is likely to tend toward propagation of the status quo rather than toward innovation. The German government does a lot of subsidizing of opera, and by most accounts [...] they do a very good job of mounting good performances of the classic works. But boosting innovation, the way an illegal offshore radio broadcaster like the one depicted in the movie could, is not the forte of a state broadcaster.

If you’ve ever spent anytime on Matt’s blog then you probably already know that he’s a self-admitted Canadaphile. Part of his love for Canada extends from our waves of beautiful, bold, lush (insert positive adjectives here ad infinitum) Indie music. At the end of the day he posts a tab dump along with a link to some music; I’ve seen more than a fair share of Canadian Indie darlings linked to from there. Heck, yesterday’s post linked to the song “Black Rice” by Calgary, Alberta’s own WOMEN along with a favourable comparison to the Beatles. Other bands getting big name blogger love in the past include The Most Serene Republic, Metric, Tegan & Sara and The Arcade Fire.

Those bands bring me to my point: all of them have been huge beneficiaries of Canada’s socialist broadcaster, the venerable Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or the Ceeb to those who love it.  Everyone of these groups has received exposure on CBC’s terrestrial broadcasts but owe a much larger debt to Radio3.  If you find yourself asking “What’s Radio3?” you should get thyself to a nunnery their homepage.  In short they are ‘a Canadian Independent Music Superstation’ that is available through their webpage and on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 86.  Aside from the hosted radio stream that is available you can listen to a genre stream such as Rock, Hip Hop or Electronica.  Additionally, you can listen to any of the 80000+ tracks in their library by over 19000 bands on demand.  Throw in some great podcasts (this one is a tribute to synthesizers, linked to  by Matt in the past as well) along with a nationwide, searchable and filterable concert calendar and you have one of the most inclusive, innovative music communities going.  All of it funded by the innovation suffocating guvmint.

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