Vol. 3,
No. 4, September 2005
- Canadian Amendment to Adopt UNESCO Convention Receives Overwhelming Support during Executive Board Debate
- Quebec Premier Charest Discusses Cultural Diversity File with President of China and during Trade Mission
- Curzi, Pilon Active Representing CCD Internationally and at Home
Canadian Amendment to Adopt UNESCO Convention
Receives Overwhelming Support during
Executive Board Debate
The proposed UNESCO convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural contents took a major step towards adoption during an Executive Board debate on Friday, September 23, that culminated in a Canadian proposal in support of the convention being passed by a landslide vote of 53-1.
The proposal, introduced by Canada ’s Ambassador to UNESCO, Yvon Charbonneau, and co-sponsored by 52 other members of the Executive Board, was emphatically endorsed following a two-hour debate in which 24 board members took the floor.
The sole vote against was by the United States . There was also a single abstention: Australia .
Three other member states: Pakistan , Cape Vert , Slovenia —were not in the room at the time the vote took place.
The Canadian proposal—basically a one-paragraph amendment to Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura’s August 4 report on the convention process to UNESCO’s member states—fulfills a technical requirement that the preliminary draft text be reclassified as a draft text so that it can be voted on and adopted during the General Conference.
The proposal also served a political function by incorporating a recommendation in favour of adopting the convention during General Conference. The overwhelming vote in favour of adoption establishes an extremely favourable climate for the October General Conference.
It is now expected that the Commission IV (Culture) debate on the draft convention will take place on either October 15 or 17.
Minister of Canadian Heritage Liza Frulla is expected to be in Paris for the debate, and will be joined by Ontario Minister of Culture Madeleine Meilleur and by Quebec Minister of Culture and Communications Line Beauchamp.
Quebec Premier Charest Discusses Cultural Diversity File with President of China and during Trade Mission
On the eve of a trade mission to China, Quebec Premier Jean Charest used a September 9 meeting in Quebec City with Chinese President Hu Jintao to affirm his government’s strong support for the proposed UNESCO convention—a message he reiterated once in China as well.
For his part, President Jintao underscored his own government’s support for the UNESCO convention, and signalled the particular challenge China faced in preserving traditional cultures in the face of globalization.
Premier Charest was in
Curzi, Pilon Active Representing CCD
Internationally and at Home
Coalition for Cultural Diversity Co-Chair Pierre Curzi was a featured panelist at the Third International Meeting on Cultural Diversity hosted by the City of Buenos Aires September 5 to 8.
Curzi, joined by colleagues from coalitions in Burkina Faso , France and Argentina , discussed the process that had led to the development of the proposed UNESCO convention.
“Here in Buenos Aires many people have recognized me because they saw « The Decline of the American Empire » or “The Barbarian Invasions,” two films that I am proud to been part of, and which were distributed around the world. But those films would never have been made without the support of a wide range of government cultural policies,” he told an audience of approximately 200 people.
“It is the right to maintain and develop such cultural policies that is in question today, the right to have access to our own culture as well as the right to have access to the culture of all other countries in the world,” he said.
Curzi delivered a similar presentation much closer to home during a September 21 panel discussion also featuring Louise Beaudoin, associate professor with the history department of the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) and former Quebec Minister of Culture and Communications, French journalist Jean Roy of L’Humanité, and moderated by Jean-François Nadeau of Le Devoir as part of the industry program for the new Montreal film festival.
Meanwhile, the CCD Secretariat launched an active program of international missions on the eve of the UNESCO General Conference in October.
Following the Coalition’s August 23 executive committee meeting in Toronto, Executive Vice President Robert Pilon embarked on a mission through the Americas that took him to Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina.
In Buenos Aires , the CCD, in its capacity as Co-Secretariat of the International Liaison Committee, helped to organize an ILC meeting that brought together representatives of 19 of the 30 existing coalitions, along with representatives of leading cultural organizations from Bolivia , Paraguay and Venezuela who are actively working to establish new coalitions in their countries.
On September 20, Pilon embarked on another five-country mission, starting in Paris with meetings with Canada ’s Ambassador to UNESCO, Yvon Charbonneau, and with Katerina Stenou, Director of UNESCO’s Division of Cultural Policies and Inter-Cultural Dialogue.
This was followed by meetings in Casablanca and Tunis with local cultural professional organizations, a presentation to the CISAC board of directors in Rome, a meeting of francophone coalitions in Namur, Belgium, co-incident with that city’s film festival, and an appearance on a panel on cultural diversity in Paris organized by Canada’s cultural centre.
Coalition Update is published by
Canada's Coalition for Cultural Diversity.
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Editor: Jim McKee
Contributors: Robert Pilon and Marisol Paquin
Coalition Update is published with the financial assistance of
