Heritage tables $190-million wish list for new media in innovation funding round

New media technologies and digitization are promising to give Canadian Heritage a technological facelift as it joins other science-based departments and agencies (SBDAs) in putting forward recommendations for the upcoming Innovation White Paper. Canadian Heritage has tabled $400 million in proposals as part of a draft document of nearly $20-billion in funding for projects related to innovation, research and development. The document, obtained by Decima Publishing Inc, includes funding requests from 15 government departments and agencies. Heritage director of innovation Réné Bouchard acknowledged that his department is taking part in the process, but won’t confirm details until the paper is released, possibly in June. The department’s wish list for funding is dwarfed by more R&D-focused agencies such as the National Research Council and Health Canada. Its $400 million in proposals is also modest when compared to Industry Canada’s nearly-$2 billion list of goodies for biotech, ICT and e-learning initiatives, among others. The Heritage list calls for $90 million in funding over four years to support youth projects that focus on arts, craft and culture industries; $120 million over four years to support national training institutions that prepare Canadians for careers in theatre, music and dance; and $190 million over five years to support the further digitization of Canadian cultural content, develop on-line gateways, develop tools to facilitate content creation, and provide incentives for new media content creation. Also on the list, but with no funding attached, is a request by both Heritage and Industry Canada to amend the Copyright Act. In a separate but possibly related development, both Industry Canada and Heritage told the cultural industry this week that they would look at amending the ambiguous section 31 of the act which is at the heart of the JumpTV.com Inc debate (see story in this issue). The money – and there’s no guarantee Minister Copps’ department will ultimately be successful at winning it – would be in addition to $568 million announced by the prime minister earlier this month for Canadian cultural industries, including $108 million earmarked for new media projects. That envelope is widely expected to pay for the little publicized Canadian Cultural Digital Content Initiative supporting the digitization of content and the Virtual Museum of Canada, as well as Telefilm Canada’s multimedia fund. Industry analyst Sam Punnett, VP of innovation at Delvinia Inc, says he’s not surprised Canadian Heritage was included in a list of hard-core, science-based department proposals. While only speculation, he hazards that CANARIE Inc, an ICT industry consortium funded by Industry Canada and private sector partners, may be behind Heritage’s inclusion. CANARIE has been pushing hard of late to put content on par with infrastructure as government priorities (CNM, March 8/01). "I think those that champion content from the CANARIE side realize there’s a problem addressing the issue if Heritage isn’t engaged," he told Canadian NEW MEDIA. "The problem today with addressing content in a responsible manner is that this stuff straddles both areas… All parties are dancing around addressing the issue, but until everybody is engaged in acknowledging that they have a stake, you’re not going to get any programs that hit the nail on the head," he says. "The connecting thread is about innovation… They’re all trying to sing a song that includes the lyric, ‘innovation’, to get heard by that pool of cash." Still, he says he’s not encouraged by the type of new media funding being sought by the department. Digitization and an online gateway are commendable, he says, but won’t help the broader industry. "That, of course, is the object of the exercise for anything that’s being done federally that says it’s for new media. It should be about getting this industry up to a critical mass."

Heritage tables $190-million wish list for new media in innovation funding round

Broadcast | May 31, 2001

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