What does it really take to run a culture ministry? by Kate Taylor
Source : Globe & Mail
December 17, 2003
And the cry went up in Ottawa: "Hélène who?"
Arts lobbyists and culturecrats have been busy trying to assess Hélène Chalifour Scherrer, a Paul Martin loyalist from Quebec City with zero profile in the cultural community, since she was sworn in as Minister of Canadian Heritage on Friday. Publicly, they welcome the new minister and look forward to the opportunity of working with . . . etc., etc. Privately, there's a lot of questions surrounding her appointment.
"We have been reading tea leaves," said one observer, interrupted in that very task.
Many had been expecting Liza Frulla, a former Quebec minister of culture and Radio-Canada host, who has been appointed the new federal Minister of Social Development, whatever that will mean, to get the job for which she had been lobbying none too quietly. The choice of Scherrer, whose chief claim to fame was that she was one of five Liberal MPs who publicly called for Jean Chrétien's retirement back in 2002, came as a not-all-together-pleasant surprise.
In her favour, the former social worker has strong community experience and a first-hand knowledge of how non-profits operate from working in a Montreal psychiatric hospital, in municipal politics in the Quebec City suburb of Sillery and serving on the board of a small art museum there.
On the other hand, for a cultural community that often suffers at the hands of politicians who just don't get the arts, there are some warning signs that she may not be the best fit for the job. Her very specific interest in amateur sport and the cries of rapture with which the Canadian Olympic Committee greeted her appointment to the portfolio, which does include sport, suggests she may lack the broad vision needed to tackle the large range of regulatory and funding issues that lie at the core of the Canadian Heritage mandate. Comments made to the CBC by her spokesman immediately after her swearing-in about running a "tighter ship" at a ministry that wasn't going to be a "bank" any more didn't help.
The skepticism about Scherrer may also simply flow from sympathy for outgoing Heritage Minister Sheila Copps. There's a very justifiable sense of outrage over Martin's treatment of Copps, the Liberal leadership candidate who dared to believe she was living in a democracy in which even an unwinnable challenge against an unbeatable opponent was a worthy undertaking. Allan Rock bowed out of the race early enough to earn a nice diplomatic posting; John Manley exits to the private sector with his head held high, but Copps not only gets booted out of cabinet, she will also have to fight for the Liberal nomination in her own riding because redistribution has her up against an incumbent there.
Perhaps Martin learned a lesson about power from all his years as the thorn in Chrétien's side: Don't let your former leadership rivals anywhere near the cabinet.
Copps, Heritage Minister since 1996 of the omnibus portfolio Chrétien created by amalgamating culture and communications with citizenship and multiculturalism when he came to power in 1993, has been an enthusiastic and high-profile advocate for a bailiwick that includes not only the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the CBC, the Canada Council, Telefilm Canada and all the national museums, but also the national parks, sport and multicultural programming, and she is generally respected by the arts community.
She's something of a cultural nationalist: Recently she has been lending her weight to UNESCO's attempts to establish some cultural protectionism in the face of the American onslaught, which is about the only way a culture minister can create any kind of legacy.
Heritage is split between its regulatory functions -- overseeing the CRTC or rewriting copyright law -- and its funding of the cultural agencies, and Copps has often succeeded in balancing this mix of hardware and software. If in recent months, the department has seemed bogged down in the minutiae of initiatives such as copyright legislation, Copps has also secured $500-million in extra funding since 2001, and placed much-needed restrictions on development inside Banff National Park.
The latest from the Ottawa rumour mill is that the sprawling Heritage Canada portfolio is going to be severed again, following the example Martin has set by breaking up the cumbersome and controversial Human Resources Development Canada into the Social Development portfolio he handed to Frulla, and the Human Resources and Skills Development department that Joe Volpe will lead. With Martin now promising expenditure review and a spring election looming while Parks Canada has already been quietly shifted to Environment Canada, the cultural bureaucracy is predicting a split that might also hive offmulticulturalism and sport but would, more importantly, send regulatory and industry functions such as copyright, the CRTC and Telefilm over to Industry Canada. That was a move dismissed by most as ignoring the technological future when it was attempted by the briefly lived Kim Campbell Tories back in 1993, and while it might provide a more easily managed mix, it could leave culture in a political backwater. Whatever shape these hypothetical departments take, Scherrer may find she is not Minister of Canadian Heritage for very long.
