Highlights:
Vol. 5, No. 1, March 2007
Canada Hails Entry Into Force of UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions; Seeks Election to Intergovernmental Committee
Minister of Canadian Heritage Beverley Oda welcomed the March 18 entry into force of the UNESCO convention on the diversity of cultural expressions, calling it “a crucial step in our endeavour to preserve and protect cultural diversity in Canada and throughout the world.”
"This important treaty will allow us to adopt policies that promote the growth of cultural industries and help our artists and creators to continue sharing their ideas and stories with all Canadians and with the rest of the world,” Minister Oda added.
Minister Oda reiterated the Canadian Government’s resolve to remain a leader as the campaign for the convention enters the implementation phase:
"By standing as a candidate for election to the Intergovernmental Committee, Canada hopes to participate in decisions that will monitor the Convention, and to ensure that the treaty remains firmly focused on the field of application for which it was designed. We want to ensure concrete and prompt action on the provisions concerning international cooperation, and for that reason, we are pledging to contribute to the Fund that will be established to help developing countries acquire the tools they need to maintain the vitality of their cultural expressions.”
The 24-member Intergovernmental Committee, which will be elected at the first Conference of Parties to the Convention now set for June 18-20, will be the body mandated to oversee and promote its implementation, including drafting its operational guidelines as well as identifying avenues for upholding and promoting its principles and objectives in other international forums. The 56 UNESCO member states that had ratified the convention by March 20 will be eligible to attend this first Conference.
Canada was the first country to ratify the convention, a little over one month after it was adopted by an overwhelming vote on October 20, 2005 at UNESCO’s 33rd General Conference. On December 18, 2006, the Convention surpassed the minimum number of 30 ratifications required for it to enter into force three months later.
Minister Oda’s statement, issued on March 16, reiterated commitments made during a February 12 roundtable on the UNESCO convention that she hosted in Ottawa with Quebec Minister of Culture and Communications Line Beauchamp with the participation of members of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Coalition for Cultural Diversity.
At the roundtable, Minister Oda also announced that Canada would not only seek election to the Convention’s Intergovernmental Committee, but if elected would also offer to host its first meeting, scheduled for December 2007.
During the roundtable, Ministers Beauchamp and Oda committed to continuing to work together with the Canadian Coalition in order to achieve a still larger number of ratifications and thus give greater legitimacy to the Convention around the world.
On behalf of the CCD, Executive Vice President Robert Pilon emphasized the positive impact of the close cooperation between leader governments and the Coalition, and joined with the ministers in emphasizing the challenges still ahead:
"Meeting the ratification target required for the Convention to enter into force in a little over one year represents a striking achievement, and is the result of a textbook case of complementary work by government and civil society, he said.
"But the job is by no means complete. We need to continue the ratification campaign into a Phase II push to secure ratification by 125 to 150 countries, to place the Convention on an equal footing with other major international agreements. And we need to make sure the momentum we've built thus far is channelled into the First Conference of Parties, which will begin the practical process of implementing the Convention,” Pilon concluded.
Quebec Ministers Salute Convention’s Entry Into Force
In an open letter released on the occasion of the entry into force of the UNESCO convention, Minister of Culture and Communications Line Beauchamp, Minister of International Relations Monique Gagnon-Tremblay, and Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Exports Raymond Bachand joined in signalling the importance of this historic milestone, while emphasizing that this signals a transition into a new phase rather than the end of a process.
The Government of Quebec strongly supported the campaign for the UNESCO convention from the very beginning, and the three ministers affirmed the government’s resolve to remain maintain this engagement both with respect to promoting broader ratification as well as working to ensure the convention is implemented effectively.
“We must remember that the Convention’s legitimacy will be proportional to the number of countries that ratify it and that we must therefore continually strive to obtain as many ratifications as possible,” they said.
Noting that 53 UNESCO member states had ratified at the time of their letter, the Ministers stated that “it is realistic to think that more than 100 countries will complete this process over the next two years, at the same time as it will be important to ensure that governments from every region of the world ratify.”
Even as the ratification campaign continues, the Ministers emphasized the importance of an effective launch of the implementation process:
“These first meetings of the directive bodies of this international legal instrument will be of great importance—these must accord very clear mandates and maintain the tempo that has characterized the progress of work on the Convention these last years,” they said.
“Québec intends to contribute in a variety of ways—including through the presence of its UNESCO representative—to all aspects of the work of implementing the Convention, be it encouraging cultural cooperation, promoting the goals of the Convention in other international forums, or sharing information on cultural policies,” they added.
The Ministers recognized the work of the Canadian Coalition for Cultural Diversity—and of all the Coalitions now in existence—in helping to build support for the UNESCO convention. And they emphasized that the coalitions have a role going forward in ensuring that the potential of the convention is realized.
“Coalitions for Cultural Diversity and all of civil society throughout the world have a central role to play. The more countries there are that encourage the cultural expression of their citizens using the appropriate policies and measures, the more support there will be for the Convention’s goals and principles.”
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CCD Maintains Intense Schedule of Missions to Promote Ratification
ODuring the first quarter of 2007, staff of the Canadian Coalition maintained a steady program of international work aimed at promoting widespread ratification of the UNESCO convention while continuing the work of supporting the mobilization of cultural organizations in other countries around this issue.
In January, CCD Executive Vice-President Robert Pilon and Director of External Relations Jim McKee joined the Government of Ontario’s trade mission’s in New Delhi and Mumbai. The mission, led by Premier Dalton McGuinty, provided an opportunity to meet with senior officials in India’s Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, as well as with key cultural organizations from the sectors of books and music, and with the Secretary General of India’s National Commission for UNESCO.
As a result of the India mission, plans are now in motion to organize a seminar on the UNESCO convention just prior to the New Delhi Book Fair, which runs September 1 to 9. This project will be pursued in partnership with the Federation of Indian Publishers, and will gather Indian organizations not only from the books sector but from film, television and music as well. Books sector organizations from neighbouring countries attending the New Delhi Book Fair will also be invited to participate.
Following the India mission, Pilon and McKee travelled to Beijing, where they met with the official with China’s Ministry of Culture responsible for the UNESCO convention ratification file, with cultural organizations from the sectors of books and film and television, with officials of the culture section of the Canadian Embassy and the director of Quebec’s Beijing bureau.
Also in January, Robert Pilon joined Jacques Paquette, Assistant Deputy Minister of International, Intergovernmental Affairs and Sport with Canadian Heritage, for a series of meetings with government officials and cultural organizations in Vietnam and Thailand. Claude Michel of France’s Coalition for Cultural Diversity also took part in this mission.
Pilon concluded his January mission in Paris with meetings with officials of the International Organization of La Francophonie. These meetings were follow-ups to an earlier meeting at the beginning of January with Clément Duhaime, the Administrator of La Francophonie). During this earlier trip, Pilon also met with Gilbert Laurin, Canada’s ambassador and permanent delegate to UNESCO, and with Bhaswati Mukherjee, India’s ambassador and permanent delegate to UNESCO.
At the end of February, Pilon and CCD Researcher/Analyst Jean-Luc Pilon were in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, for a seminar on cultural diversity as well as meetings with cultural organizations in the context of the FESPACO, the major pan-African film festival.
In March, the CCD hosted the Ninth Assembly of member coalitions of the International Liaison Committee of Coalitions for Cultural Diversity, which was attended by delegates from 32 countries (for a report on this meeting, see the March issue of Coalition Currents).
Following the Montreal ILC, Pilon travelled to Barcelona to take place part in a seminar on the UNESCO convention organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Catalan Regional Government and UNESCOCAT (the Catalan UNESCO Commission) with the support of the Government of Quebec.
Pilon then travelled to Madrid for meetings with the Spanish Coalition and with officials of the Spanish Government. He concluded his mission in Paris, where he was part of a delegation of coalitions for cultural diversity that took part in a March 23 roundtable on implementation of the UNESCO convention organized by the working group on cultural diversity of the International Organization of La Francophonie.
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Editor: Jim McKee
Contributors: Robert Pilon,
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