Canadá, Cultura e promoção exterior

Enquanto em Portugal nunca existiu vontade política nem verbas no Orçamento de Estado para promoção das diferentes expressões artísticas no exterior de forma coerente, outros países debatem-se com o problema da redução de verbas... parece-me que estariamos melhor se estivessemos nessa fase e não na fase de discussão da mais-valia de se valorizar as diferentes expressões artísticas produzidas em Portugal (ideia que é rejeitada pelo Governo na promoção de Portugal no estrangeiro):

Canadian Cultural Exports on Decline
Authors and artists want the overseas promotion funds cut last fall to be restored, something the foreign minister says he's unable to do.
By Lee Berthiaume

The authors who were there say the announced cuts couldn't have been timed worse and resulted in not only an embarrassing night for them, but for Canada as a whole. A celebration to honour North American literature and culture was held in Vincennes, France, at the end of September 2006. Canada was selected for special recognition at the event, which reportedly drew 23,000 people over three days. As a result, the 26 Canadian authors who attended, including Margaret Atwood, Jane Urquhart and Alistair MacLeod, represented the largest contingent. But only days earlier, the Conservative government had announced it was cutting almost $12 million in public diplomacy money, the brunt of which had been targeted to helping Canadian artists promote their work abroad. The results came on one of the nights when the Canadians were honoured at a party organized not by their embassy, but by the Americans. "The Americans had the big reception for the literary festival where Canada was the country being honoured," Ms. Urquhart said last week. "And we had no reception at all. "It was embarrassing. It was not a good experience because you felt like a tiny little tinpot country. It's really embarrassing, especially in Europe." Since the cuts were announced, artists and authors have been calling on the government to reinstate funding to help them promote their work abroad. The government has never explained why it cut the money, but the announcement came during a time when the Conservatives were conducting what they described as an effort to be more efficient and cut programs that were wasteful. But those who have been affected say the cuts are hurting not only Canada's image, but its bottom line as well. Statistics Canada reported on June 25 that Canada's trade deficit in cultural goods expanded in 2006 to $1.8 billion, the largest it has been since 1999. While imports declined 3.2 per cent to $3.9 billion, exports dropped 12.7 per cent to 2.1 billion, the third consecutive decline. Cultural goods are defined as books, compact discs, films and paintings. Nineteen per cent of Canada's exports were books, 18 per cent film and nearly 16 per cent was advertising material. While there is no way to prove how much the cuts to funding for cultural promotion, which has long been described as minimal by those who rely on it, authors and artists believe the connection is evident.

Foreign Sales of Cdn. Books Bring in Millions

The government has trumpeted the $50 million over two years it injected into the Canada Council for the Arts in one-time funding last year, but Deborah Windsor, executive director of the Writers' Union of Canada, said the money is $100 million less than the Paul Martin government promised for the council over three years. Last week, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion met with numerous prominent authors in Toronto and promised that a Liberal government would re-instate the $11.8 million in public diplomacy funding and $11 million in touring funding, both over three years. Ms. Windsor said she had met with Heritage Minister Bev Oda, who she felt did not understand the importance of the touring funds, and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay. "[Mr. MacKay] was able to say he personally supported what we were saying, and yet in the bigger picture, he was not able to convince others," she said. The money pledged by Mr. Dion is "very minute amount, but it is an amount that will make a great difference for all Canadians," Ms. Windsor added. "When you re-invest into the arts overseas, you are generating new monies into Canada with foreign sales. As with any other industry, it is an economic boon." Ms. Windsor said Canadians do not realize that foreign sales of Canadian books, films and other culture contribute billions of dollars to the economy, and, like all other industries, rely on proper marketing. "Culture is an industry in itself and it is an industry that every other industry will use," she said. "When Canada is recognized internationally on a cultural forum, it makes it easier for the computer technology people to go over there because they already have the doors open through the culture." Like Ms. Urquhart, who was forced to negotiate a flight from Berlin to Poland to attend an event she was invited to attend later this summer and almost had to cancel, Toronto novelist Susan Swan said she has already seen the effects of the budget cuts. Published in 16 countries, she has already seen funding for travelling to such countries as Spain and Mexico, two of her biggest markets, cut. Last week she received four issues of her most recent novel, What Casanova Told Me, that were translated into Russian, her first foray into that country. "This is my first novel translated into Russian and it's a thrill," she said. "In the old days, I would have made an effort to go over there to promote it but lack of cultural funding discourages me from being more enterprising."
http://www.embassymag.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=/2007/july/11/culturalexports/