Vol. 4, No. 1, March 2006

• Canada’s CCD and the Robarts Centre Present Symposium at York University : Minister Meilleur Pledges Ontario’s Support for UNESCO Convention Ratification Campaign
  
  
• Charest Reaffirms Quebec’s Commitment to UNESCO Convention Ratification Campaign
  
  
• China, India Figure Prominently in CCD International Missions
  
  
• CCD Participates in L.A. Roundtable on the UNESCO Convention
  
  

IN THIS ISSUE:

Canada’s CCD and the Robarts Centre Present
Symposium at York University:

Minister Meilleur Pledges Ontario’s Support for UNESCO Convention Ratification Campaign

Ontario Minister of Culture Madeleine Meilleur reaffirmed her government’s strong commitment to seeing the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity ratified and implemented in a keynote speech opening a day-long international symposium focusing on the convention and future of cultural policies held March 21 in Toronto.

Organized by Canada’s Coalition for Cultural Diversity in conjunction with York University’s Roberts Centre for Canadian Studies, the symposium also featured presentations by Jacques Paquette, Assistant Deputy Minister International and Intergovernmental Affairs, Department, Canadian Heritage, and John Gero, Assistant Deputy Minister, Trade Policy and Negotiations Branch, Department of International Trade. They were joined by experts in international law, trade, cultural policy, and by representatives of cultural organizations from several countries.

“I am pleased that Ontario has been a key supporter of Canada as the first country to ratify the convention, in November 2005,” Minister Meilleur stated. “Ontario will continue to play a leading role, along with Québec, in support of the UNESCO convention. I will collaborate with the new federal Heritage Minister, and I will support the efforts of the federal government.”

“The convention is especially important for all our cultural industries – not just film and television production – but also book and magazine publishing, sound recording and new media. They are the most likely targets of trade challenges,” the Minister noted. “Technology and globalization are transforming our cultural industries. We must also have the right to create new policies that ensure our position in the global marketplace.”

Recognizing the presence at the symposium of representatives of coalitions for cultural diversity from 23 other countries in addition to Canada, the Minister observed: “I know our international guests feel as strongly as I do about the right of governments to promote cultural expression. I support your efforts to lobby your governments to ratify the convention.”

The Minister also saluted the CCD’s work in building support among cultural organizations at home and internationally in support of the convention.

“The Coalition has acted as a role model internationally, and helped create similar coalitions in other countries. Ontario is a keen supporter of the work of Canada’s Coalition,” she said. “We will continue our support of the Coalition.”

“It is good to hear that there are more coalitions forming around the world, to ensure the convention is ratified a soon as possible. We must work together to ensure that the convention’s objectives and principles translate into concrete action,” the Minister concluded.

The international participants were part of an overall audience of approximately 85 people, including several representatives of member organizations of the Canadian Coalition for Cultural Diversity.

In his speech, Jacques Paquette provided a recap of the negotiations leading to the overwhelming adoption of the UNESCO convention at last October’s General Conference and highlighted the key provisions of the convention. While emphasizing the important achievement represented by the convention’s adoption, he stressed the importance of building on this:

“Already the signs exists that this convention is having an influence on the way countries are approaching trade and culture. Culture has gained a new place in the international system. There is an increased awareness of the challenges we are facing to ensure the diversity of cultural expression. There is also a clear recognition that cultural goods and services are more than commodities,” he said.

“But the momentum that the dialogue in UNESCO began, and the political will that the adoption of the convention demonstrated, must not be lost. Thirty countries need to ratify the convention before it can enter into force. This is a minimum - this is not the ultimate objective. A critical mass of countries will be required in order for the convention to have a real impact,” he added.

He noted that Canada had acted very quickly to become the first country to ratify the convention, and said it would continue its leadership work in support of ratification and implementation

“We are working towards the promotion of the widespread ratification of the convention. This involves the promotion of the convention in our bilateral relations, and working in various multilateral forums such as the Organisation of American States, La Francophonie, the International Network on Cultural Policy, and within UNESCO itself,” he said.

In this work, Canada will continue to work closely with civil society movements such as the Coalition for Cultural Diversity, he said.

“This partnership is key,” he stated. “The relationship which worked so well in the lead up to the convention – convincing countries of the importance of the development of a convention – must continue, as we shift towards promoting its ratification and implementation. And we count on all our friends in other countries to do the same.”

“We will also continue to work with our partners in the provinces and territories, recognizing that they too have a stake in this convention,” he added.

The day-long symposium also featured a series of four panel discussions examining the challenge of maximizing the political and legal potential of the convention, the ongoing pressure on culture from trade negotiations, the impact the convention stands to have on the climate for cultural policies in the future, and how the provisions for international cooperation between member states party to the convention can be translated into practical action, notably with respect to ways in which developed countries can work with developing countries to nurture the emergence of their own cultural industries.

Panelists included international trade expert Ivan Bernier; cultural industries lawyer and author Peter Grant (Blockbusters and Trade Wars); Professor Daniel Drache of York University; Artur Wilczynski, Director of International Relations and Outreach with Canadian Heritage, and also chair of the working group on cultural diversity and globalization with the INCP culture ministers network; Kimmo Aulake, Deputy Head of the Division of Cultural Exports, Ministry of Culture, Finland and a member of the INCP working group.

Other panellists included: Pierre Curzi, Co-Chair of the CCD and President of UDA; Pamela Brand, National Executive Director and CEO, Directors Guild of Canada; as well as the following international representatives of coalitions for cultural diversity: Neffali El-Hassane of Morocco, Bernardo Jaramillo of Colombia, Bebe Kamin of Argentina, Geraldo Moraes of Brazil, Christine Merkel of Germany, Mane Nett of Chile, Kodjo Noussouglo of Togo, and Gi-Hwan Yang of Korea.

Moderators included Professor Seth Feldman, Director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies; Professor Fred Fletcher, Director of the graduate program in communications and culture of York and Ryerson universities; Robert Pilon, Executive Vice-President of the Canadian CCD; and Jim McKee, the CCD’s Director of External Relations.

The symposium took place in conjunction with two additional major activities organized by the Canadian CCD: a March 19 and 20th meeting of the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (ILC) attended by coalition representatives coming from 23 countries and hosted by the Canadian CCD in its capacity as Co-Secretariat of the ILC; and a March 20th meeting of the CCD board. A report on the ILC meeting will appear in the next issue of Coalition Currents, the CCD’s international bulletin.

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Charest Reaffirms Quebec’s Commitment
to UNESCO Convention Ratification Campaign

Quebec Premier Jean Charest used his government’s Inaugural Speech launching the second session of the 37th Legislature of the Quebec National Assembly to reiterate his government’s unqualified commitment to seeing the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity ratified and implemented.

“The role played by Quebec in UNESCO’s adoption of the convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions constitutes its greatest diplomatic victory at the international level,” the text of the address stated.

“We will continue to play a leadership role, in conjunction with the federal government and with civil society, notably in defending the principles of this convention. We must work tirelessly and with determination to have it ratified by other states” it continued (CCD translation).

The statement in the inaugural address was just the latest in a long series of similar affirmations the Charest government has made in support of the convention since it came to power in April of 2003. This includes repeated statements by Minister of Culture and Communications Line Beauchamp, Minister of International Relations Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, as well as a number of key statements by the Premier himself over the past three years—at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland as well as during missions to China, New York, London, Paris, and most recently India during a trade mission this past January (see following article).

China, India Figure Prominently in
CCD International Missions

The Canadian Coalition continued an active program of international missions in the last quarter of fiscal 2005-06—with trips to Belgium, France, Finland, India, Korea and China. These missions had three principal objectives: 1) to promote early ratification of the UNESCO convention by other countries; 2) to support efforts in other countries to resist pressures on governments to give up their rights to have cultural policies through trade negotiations; and 3) to support the creation of new coalitions as local vehicles for meeting both of these challenges.

In January, Robert Pilon joined a Government of Quebec trade mission to India headed by Premier Jean Charest, accompanied by Minister of International Relations Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, and then-Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Exports Claude Bechard. He used the opportunity to meet with Indian cultural organizations as well as with senior government officials in the Indian ministries of culture and communications over the course of a five-day trip that took him to New Delhi , Mumbai and Calcutta .

Also in January, Pilon travelled to Cannes for the annual MIDEM industry conference. There, he made a presentation to a meeting of the recently-established international federation of independent music producers, and met with the leadership of CISAC, the international organization of authors’ and composers’ rights societies, and with FIM, the international Federation of Musicians, at the time of the MIDEM music industry conference in Cannes. A similar trip to Brussels was undertaken to meet with Jim Wilson, director of UNI-MEI (the media, entertainment and arts sector of Union Network International (UNI)) and with Dominique Luquer of FIA, the international federation of actors.

These meetings all shared common themes: to exchange information regarding the status of the UNESCO ratification campaign, assess the potential risks for culture coming from trade negotiations currently underway, and to explore opportunities for increased cooperation between the CCD and these organizations in the context of regional and international gatherings over the next year.

Pilon then travelled to Paris, where, on behalf of the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity (ILC), he met with Clément Duhaime, the newly-appointed chief administrator of the International Organization of La Francophonie for an exchange regarding Francophonie’s plans to promote ratification among the organization’s member states and the ILC’s action plan for supporting similar work in this sphere through country- and regional-level work by Francophonie coalitions, including ongoing efforts to spur the formation of new coalitions.

Also on behalf of the ILC, Pilon joined with Debora Abramowicz, coordinator of the French Coalition (with which the Canadian Coalition shares ILC Secretariat duties) for a meeting with Katerina Stenou, UNESCO’s director of the division of cultural policies and inter-cultural dialogue, for an exchange concerning the ILC and UNESCO’s respective plans for promoting ratification of the convention.

On January 29, Abramowicz and Pilon travelled to Finland to deliver a joint presentation on behalf of the ILC to an officials meeting of the INCP culture ministers network in Helsinki, Finland.

In late January, the government of South Korea announced it would slash the country’s quota for domestic films in half to meet a precondition insisted on by the United States in order to enter into negotiations for a bilateral Free Trade Agreement. At the request of the Korean Coalition, Robert Pilon travelled to Seoul at the beginning of February for an intensive week of media interviews, meetings with legislators, public speaking engagements, and mass demonstrations with the objective of persuading the government to reverse its decision.

In March, at the invitation of Quebec’s Ministry of International Relations, Pilon travelled to Beijing, China, to deliver a keynote speech on the UNESCO convention and deliver a presentation on the international movement of coalitions for cultural diversity as part of a multi-disciplinary conference on Quebec studies at the University of Foreign Languages of Beijing.

While there, he met with representatives of Chinese cultural professional organizations and with Chinese government officials responsible for their country’s ratification of the UNESCO convention, and also met with Rob Wright, Canada’s Ambassador to China.

CCD Participates in L.A. Roundtable
on the UNESCO Convention

On March 23, Jim McKee, the CCD’s Director of External Relations, was in Los Angeles for a roundtable discussion on the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity jointly organized by the Canadian Consulate, the Quebec Delegation, and the Department of Canadian Studies of UCLA.

The roundtable session was introduced by Denis Turcotte, Quebec’s Delegate to Los Angeles; Eric Pelletier, Consul responsible for Political & Economic Relations and Public Affairs with the Canadian Consulate; and Nga Scott, Administrative Director of International Programs and Program Coordinator, of the Center for Globalization and Policy Research and the Canadian Studies Program at UCLA.

The session was moderated by Professor Allan Scott of UCLA and featured Bill Murray, a Los Angeles-based consultant and former executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Motion Picture Association; Mirasol Riojas, a researcher for the NALIP, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers; and and Ken Thompson, ACTRA’s Director of Public Policy and Communications.

While in Los Angeles, McKee also met with senior staff of two of Hollywood’s major industry guilds—the Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America.

Coalition Update is published by Canada's Coalition for Cultural Diversity.

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Editor: Jim McKee
Contributors: Robert Pilon, Mélanie Marron and Marisol Paquin

Coalition Update is published with the financial assistance of the Government of Canada's Department of Canadian Heritage, the Government of Quebec's Department of Culture and Communications, the Ministry of Culture of Ontario and the Culture and Sport Secretariat of New Brunswick.