Liberal Party of Canada

Party Leader: Mark Carney
Click here for a list of Liberal’s MPs and Candidates

*The 2025 campaign platform of the Liberal Party of Canada has not been released*

In the 2021 election, the Liberal Party of Canada pledged to:
*This is taken from the 2021 election platform

“Arts and culture draw us together and help tell us who we are. Culture is a shared experience, but for a year and a half, we have had to stay apart. Many of Canada’s stages are dark, concert halls sit empty, and exhibit halls are bare. The reality is that cultural workers and businesses are facing challenges that put their future at risk.”

Key Supports for Artists, Creators, and Cultural Organizations, Since 2015 

• Committed $1.9 billion to support the arts, culture, heritage, and sport sectors through the pandemic and help them recover.

• Created a $200-million two-year Major Festivals and Events Support Initiative that will help keep flagship Canadian festivals and events alive and ready when all visitors can come back.

Helping Artists and Cultural Industries Recover
A re-elected Liberal government will:

• Launch a new Arts and Culture Recovery Program that will match ticket sales for performing arts, live theatres, and other cultural venues to compensate for reduced capacity.

• Extend COVID-related insurance coverage for media production stoppages to support 150,000 Canadian jobs.

• Implement a COVID-19 transitional support program to provide emergency relief to out-of-work artists, craftspeople, creators, and authors who are primarily self-employed or independent contractors.

• Ensure the realities of artists and cultural workers are considered in upcoming reforms to the Employment Insurance (EI) system.

• Protect Canadian artists, creators, and copyright holders by making changes to the Copyright Act, including amending the Act to allow resale rights for artists.

• Hold a summit, within the first 100 days, on plans to restart the industry.

Supporting Canadian Music, Film and Television
As more and more of us stream shows, movies, and music on multinational digital platforms instead of tuning into Canadian TV and Radio, Canadian creators and audiences are at real risk of being edged out by foreign giants. We need a Broadcasting Act that’s built for today’s world.

A re-elected Liberal government will:

• Within the first 100 days, reintroduce legislation to reform the Broadcasting Act to ensure foreign web giants contribute to the creation and promotion of Canadian stories and music.

• Modernize the institutions (Telefilm, National Film Board, Canada Media Fund) and funding tools that support Canada’s audio-visual sector, including video games, in order to make funding platformagnostic and open to more traditionally underrepresented storytellers, while favouring Canadian productions over foreign ones and ensuring that Canadians are better equipped to own and benefit from the content that they produce.

• Support Canadian feature films by permanently increasing funding to Telefilm Canada by $50 million.

• Support Canadian television productions by doubling the government contribution, over three years, to the Canada Media Fund.

• Increase the proportion of funding for French audiovisual content at Telefilm and the Canada Media Fund from 33% to 40% to support a better presence of French-language productions.

• Ensure better and stable funding for the music sector by increasing the annual contribution to the Canada Music Fund to $50 million by 2024-2025.

• Provide the Indigenous Screen Office with $13 million per year, permanently, so more Indigenous stories can be told and seen.

Bringing Canadian Culture to the World
Canada has some of the best artists and performers in the world, but there is very little support available for creative industries to share their creations abroad. By finding ways to bring the work of Canadian artists and creators to the world stage, we can harness the impact of their extraordinary talents and reputations to increase the impact of Canada’s diplomacy.

A re-elected Liberal Government will:

• Help Canadian cultural industries succeed abroad by issuing a mandate to BDC and EDC to support the growth of creative industries in new markets.

• Launch a new cultural diplomacy strategy with an annual budget of $20 million per year to leverage the work done by our artists and cultural industries to support Canada’s diplomatic goals.

• Forge an international coalition to work on a new UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Content Online.

• Celebrate Canada’s unique francophone cultures through the promotion of the French language across our diplomatic missions and in our work to transform the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie.

Supporting Canada’s Authors
Book sales hit a record in Canada during COVID-19, but Canadian authors struggle to get the recognition and market share that their talent deserves.

A re-elected Liberal Government will:

• Invest $43 million per year to support Canadian authors and books publishers by increasing, by 50%, funding for through the Canada Book Fund, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Public Lending Right Program.

Levelling the Playing Field with Digital Giants
In 2021, most Canadians get their news from digital platforms which drives key advertising revenues away from Canadian news organizations and towards platforms owned by social media companies and digital giants.

A re-elected Liberal Government will:

• Introduce legislation, within 100 days, that would require digital platforms that generate revenues from the publication of news content to share a portion of their revenues with Canadian news outlets. This legislation would be based on the Australian model and level the playing field between global platforms and Canadian news outlets. The bill will also allow news publishers to work together to prepare for collective negotiation.

Modernizing CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC/Radio-Canada is a fundamental Canadian institution. Decreasing advertising revenues for all broadcasters are putting Canada’s public broadcaster under increasing pressure. In our rapidly evolving world, CBC/RadioCanada’s mandate needs an update.

A re-elected Liberal Government would:

• Update CBC/Radio-Canada’s mandate to ensure that it is meeting the needs and expectation of today’s Canadian audiences, with a unique programming that distinguishes it from private broadcasters.

• Reaffirm the role of the public broadcaster in protecting and promoting the French language and Francophone cultures in Quebec and across the country.

• Increase production of national, regional, and local news.

• Strengthen Radio Canada International, our voice for peace, democracy, and universal human values on the world stage.

• Ensure that Indigenous voices and cultures are present on our screens and radios.

• Bring Canada’s TV and film productions to the world stage.

• Provide $400 million over 4 years to CBC/RadioCanada so that it is less reliant on private advertising with a goal of eliminating advertising during news and other public affairs shows.

To read the 2021 Liberal Party of Canada’s platform, click here

Conservative Party of Canada

Party Leader: Pierre Poilievre
Click here for a list of Conservative Party of Canada MPs and Candidates

*The 2025 campaign platform of the Conservative Party of Canada has not been released*

In the 2021 election, the Conservative Party of Canada pledged to:
*This is taken from the 2021 election platform

Broadcasting
Canada’s Conservatives will repeal Liberal Bill C-10, which gives too much power to regulators while failing to provide businesses with the clear guidelines they need to operate. We will replace it with legislation that updates the Broadcasting Act to deal with the realities of an increasingly online market and the need to provide businesses with certainty and consumers with choice.

Our alternative approach will:

• Require large digital streaming services like Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video to reinvest a significant portion of their Canadian gross revenue into producing original Canadian programming, of which a mandated proportion must be French language programming.

  • If they fail to do so on their own in a given year, they will be required to pay the difference into the Canadian Media Fund.

  • The proportion chosen will vary based on the nature of the streaming service and would be determined based on the best practices of other jurisdictions, such as those in Europe and Australia, as well as the nature of the Canadian market.

  • Content reinvestment requirements will also recognize and incentivize partnerships with Canadian independent media producers.

• Exempt the content Canadians upload onto social media sites like Facebook, YouTube and Tik Tok from regulation in order to protect free speech.

• Streamline and reduce the regulatory burden placed on conventional Canadian broadcasters and cable companies, including CRTC license fees and Canadian Media Fund contribution requirements, with the loss in revenue to be compensated by a portion of the revenue from the new digital services tax.

  • This will include abolishing CRTC Part II license fees.

  • The health of the Canadian cultural sector depends on the continued viability and success of its private broadcasters. Conventional Canadian broadcasters and cable companies have experienced significant losses in subscribers and revenue in recent years due to the rise of online streaming services.

Canada’s Conservatives will also conduct a full review of the mandate of the CRTC to ensure that it better reflects the needs of Canadians and doesn’t prevent Canadian broadcasters from innovating and adapting to changes in the market.

CBC and Radio Canada have made important contributions to Canada over the past 84 years. While parts of it remain as relevant as ever, including Radio Canada, CBC Radio, and CBC North, many question whether CBC’s English TV continues to live up to its mandate. There are also concerns that CBC’s online news presence is undermining the viability of Canadian print and online media, reducing the diversity of voices available to Canadians.

Canada’s Conservatives will:

• Give Radio-Canada a separate and distinct legal and administrative structure to reflect its distinct mandate of promoting francophone language and culture while maintaining its funding and providing for continued sharing of resources and facilities where applicable.

  • The Board of Directors of the reformed Radio-Canada would include representatives appointed by the Government of Québec and representation of francophone minority communities outside Québec.

• Radio-Canada will:

  • No longer charge user fees for its online streaming services or operate branding services like Tandem in competition with private francophone media.

  • Provide increased content representative of francophone communities outside Québec.

• Protect CBC Radio and CBC North.

• Review the mandate of CBC English Television, CBC News Network and CBC English online news to assess the viability of refocusing the service on a public interest model like that of PBS in the United States, ensuring that it no longer competes with private Canadian broadcasters and digital providers.

Protecting and Ensuring the Independence of Canadian Media
Canadian media is in crisis. The loss of digital advertising revenue to American tech giants like Google and Facebook is putting local newspapers out of business, costing Canadian jobs, and undermining our ability to tell local, Canadian stories.

Canada’s Conservatives don’t believe that the solution is for the government to provide direct funding to hand-picked media outlets, something that undermines press freedom and trust in the media.

Instead, we will secure a level playing field for Canadian media, ensuring that Canadians are paid fairly for the content they create while encouraging the creation of more Canadian media and culture.

Canada’s Conservatives will:

• Introduce a digital media royalty framework to ensure that Canadian media outlets are fairly compensated for the sharing of their content by platforms like Google and Facebook. It will:

  • Adopt a made in Canada approach that incorporates the best practices of jurisdictions like Australia and France.

  • Include a robust arbitration process and the creation of an intellectual property right for article extracts shared on a social media platform.

  • Ensure that smaller media outlets are included, and that the government won’t be able to pick and choose who has access to the royalty framework.

• Introduce a Digital Services Tax representing 3% of gross revenue in Canada to make web giants pay their fair share.

• Significantly reduce the amount of money the government is spending on advertising with big foreign tech companies like Twitter and instead direct federal ad dollars to Canadian media, including community weeklies, regional media, and ethnic media.

• Recognize and correct the adverse economic impact for creators and publishers from the uncompensated use of their works in a manner consistent with the unanimous recommendations of the Heritage Committee of the House of Commons Report in 2019.

• End Trudeau’s $600 million media bailout. While we support Canadian media outlets, they should not be directly receiving tax dollars. Government funding of “approved” media undermines press freedom, a vital part of a free society.

• Conduct a review of federal book publishing policy to enhance the commercial viability of Canada’s independent publishing sector.

Celebrating Canadian Heritage
Conservatives believe in the importance of commemorating our past. Canada has a rich heritage as one of the world’s oldest constitutional democracies which needs to be more effectively highlighted and taught to future generations. Unfortunately, many of our public monuments and heritage buildings are in a state of disrepair.

That is why Canada’s Conservatives will:

• Create a new Canadian Heritage Preservation Fund to provide a total of $75 million in grants to municipal governments over the next five years for the repair and restoration of historical monuments, statues, and heritage buildings.

• Continue to support efforts to maintain Canada’s national monuments.

• Ensure the prompt completion of the Canadian Monument to the Victims of Communism.

To read the 2021 Conservative Party of Canada’s platform, click here.

Canada NDP

Party Leader: Jagmeet Singh
Click here for a list of Canada NDP MPs and Candidates

*The 2025 campaign platform of the Canada NDP has not been released*

In the 2021 election, the Canada NDP pledged to:
*This is taken from the 2021 Canada NDP election platform

Supporting Canadian arts and culture
Arts and culture are at the heart of who we are as Canadians. It’s how we listen and understand each other better. It’s how we connect across vast distances and celebrate our identities. And in such a diverse country, it’s how we share our incredible stories with each other, in both official languages – and with the entire world.

But the arts and culture sectors have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. This comes on the heels of decades of cuts, a rapidly digitizing media landscape and government inaction are putting Canadian arts, culture and jobs at risk.

It’s time for a different approach.

New Democrats will protect our heritage and support a strong, independent Canadian arts and culture industry. New Democrats will be there to support with a dedicated re-building package for the performing arts, theatre, festivals and other arts that have been most severely impacted by the pandemic.

New Democrats will also make sure that Canadian talent can thrive on both digital and traditional platforms – here at home and around the world. We think that artists should be able to earn a decent living from their art, and that government has an important role to play in making sure that a diversity of Canadian voices tell our stories.

Most Canadians now get their news from Facebook, and Netflix is the largest broadcaster in the country – but despite the Liberals promising to take action, these web giants still don’t pay the same taxes or contribute to funding Canadian content in the same way that traditional media do. Canadian film, television, and media is up against a tidal wave of well-funded American content – and the Liberals have not done what it takes to level the playing field.

That’s why a we will step up to make sure that Netflix, Facebook, Google and other digital media companies play by the same rules as Canadian broadcasters. It means that these companies need to pay corporate taxes now, support Canadian content in both official languages, and take responsibility for what appears on their platforms, just like other media outlets.

New Democrats will do what the Liberals failed to do and modernize the Broadcasting Act fairly in order to create a level playing field between Canadian broadcasters and foreign streaming services, to rebalance negotiating power for Canadian independent producers and the Canadian cultural sector, and to ensure Canadian programming is owned by Canadians. In addition, we will prioritize partnerships with Canadian independent producers, increase funding for Telefilm and enhance financial support for the Canada Media Fund.

We’ll also increase funding for CBC and Radio-Canada to help reverse the damage of decades of funding cuts under both Liberal and Conservative governments. Public broadcasting has a remarkable legacy of connecting all points of our country – and it needs to have an even stronger future now more than ever to help make sure that Canadians have access to accurate, relevant information no matter where they live.

We will make sure that arts and cultural institutions receive stable, long-term funding to grow and promote Canada’s diverse cultures and histories. We will also extend support to Canadian media to assist them in making the digital transition.

The arts also have a vital place in reconciliation. A New Democrat government will provide financial support for Indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre as part of our larger efforts to honour and support Indigenous arts and culture.

Finally, recognizing the special challenges faced by people who make a living in the arts and culture industry, we’ll make life more affordable by putting in place income tax averaging for artists and cultural workers.

To read the 2021 Canada NDP’s platform, click here.

Green Party of Canada

Party Leader: Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault
Click here for a list of Green Party of Canada’s MPs and Candidates

The Green Party of Canada has pledged to:

• Restore the Canada Council for the Arts’ budget to its 2021 level of $500 million

• Direct the restored funds toward communities that have historically received less support by implementing the Regional Development Agency model for arts funding, ensuring resources are distributed equitably and proportionately across the country.

To read more on the announcement, click here.

In the 2021 election, the Green Party of Canada pledged to:
*This is taken from the 2021 Green Party of Canada Canada election platform

Green Innovation: Artistic engagement with the climate crisis to mobilize the public
Our Green innovation is to add direct funding opportunities for creators and producers to engage with the climate crisis in order to increase public support for meaningful government action. The Green Party of Canada believes that federal support for Canada’s creative sector must be adjusted to give our artists a clear incentive to address the priority issue facing all of humanity: the climate emergency.

• Increase support for indoor or outdoor arts performances required to adapt to become compliant with COVID regulations. 

• Provide $25 million in additional funding to aid museums and cultural organizations in both post-pandemic reopening and continuing to offer accessible digital offerings. 

• Ensure the viability of our cultural infrastructure in consultation with Arts Service Organizations, professional associations, trade associations and unions across the creative sector. 

Canadian Cultural Identity

• Increase funding to $1 billion over 3 years to all of Canada’s arts and culture organizations  including the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, orchestras, theatres, galleries and publishers.

• Increase support for community arts programs and facilities across Canada by establishing stable base funding at a set percentage of the federal budget. 

• Protect Canada’s cultural identity during trade negotiations and ensure arts and cultural representation on international trade missions. 

• Enact Copyright reform as envisaged by the current Heritage Committee report. 

• Reform the Canada Revenue Act to allow arts and culture workers to benefit from a tax averaging plan that will take into account the fact that lean years often precede and follow a good year when a show is produced, a book is published, or a grant or a prize is won. 

• Establish permanent funding for festivals and events that celebrate Canadian Heritage. 

Indigenous Cultures and Heritage

• Provide protection for Indigenous intellectual and artistic property rights. 

• Support the creation of historical information that sheds light on our colonial past wherever related statuary or plaques are currently in place. 

• Provide $100 million in funding and incentives over three years for the creation and conservation of Indigenous art forms, particularly creative knowledge that is passed through the generations. 

• Provide funding and incentives for artists to travel to Indigenous communities to stimulate young artists, as per one of the original aims of the PNIAI. 

• Support the Canadian Museums Association in ensuring, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples and in accordance with the Calls to Action, continued compliance of museum policies and best practices with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 

• Establish a dedicated national funding program, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian Museums Association, for commemoration projects on the theme of reconciliation.  

Climate and Social Justice

• Increase funding to all federal agencies including the Canada Council for the Arts, the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada to initiate programs to support creative programming that addresses the climate crisis. 

• Outreach to New Artists, Youth Artists and Rural Communities 

• Provide funding to promote and encourage artists and art events to tour Canada’s rural regions, as well as to provide funding incentives in support of artists from rural communities. 

• Provide incentives to all provinces and territories to restore and improve arts and culture components in schools and extracurricular activities

CRTC, Media and CanCon

• Proceed with regulating the powerful platforms and streaming services through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as envisioned in Bill C-10 

• Ensure that the CRTC reserves more bandwidth for independent and non-profit stations. 

• Ensure that the CRTC maintains and updates their Canadian Content (CanCon) regulations and definitions. 

• Provide stable base funding for the CBC so it can continue to provide quality Canadian content television and radio programming in both official languages, as well as programming both in and to encourage the learning of Indigenous languages. 

• Call for an Independent Commission to undertake a comprehensive study of the concentration of media ownership in Canada in comparison to other western countries and recommend how to diversify media ownership and strengthen the depth and breadth of news reporting, especially local news, in Canada. .   

Bloc Québécois

Party Leader: Yves-François Blanchet
Click here for a list of Bloc Québécois MPs and Candidates

*The 2025 campaign platform of the Canada NDP has not been released*

In the 2021 election, the Canada NDP pledged to:
*This is taken from the 2021 Canada NDP election platform

Le Bloc Québécois propose le rapatriement de tous les pouvoirs en matière de culture et la création d’un organisme québécois se substituant au CRTC, parce qu’on ne confie pas sa culture à la nation voisine.

Les Québécois sont attachés à leur culture et tiennent à sa promotion ainsi qu’à sa protection. Les Canadiens, un peu moins. Cette différence a joué un rôle fondamental dans le sabordage de la loi C-10 visant à mieux encadrer la culture à l’ère du numérique et à forcer les géants du Web à faire leur part pour l’essor de l’art et des médias québécois.

Le Bloc Québécois s’engage à améliorer et redéposer cette réforme incontournable pour l’avenir de la création de langue française, notamment les amendements essentiels du Bloc qui assuraient la protection du contenu canadien et québécois, la « découvrabilité » et la mise en valeur des arts québécois et la production de contenu francophone. Le Bloc Québécois insistera jusqu’à gain de cause pour l’imposition des revenus des géants du numérique à un taux de 3 %, comme le fait déjà la France. Le Bloc Québécois imposera aux multinationales du Web des négociations avec les créateurs de contenu québécois et canadiens afin d’établir un partage équitable des revenus.

Le Bloc s’engage à se tenir derrière la culture québécoise afin d’assurer la pérennité et la prévisibilité des programmes et des subventions culturels et touristiques, alors que le secteur, ses créateurs, ses diffuseurs et ses petits comme grands événements, subiront encore les conséquences de la pandémie durant les quelques années à venir.

De plus, nous nous assurerons que les médias écrits et régionaux fassent partie de cette réforme. Le Bloc Québécois exigera, de plus, que les sommes perçues en taxes et impôts des géants du numérique soient redirigées vers un fonds dédié aux arts et à la culture du Québec ainsi qu’à nos médias.

Elections Canada
Elections Canada is the independent, non-partisan agency responsible for conducting federal elections and referendums. Its mission is to ensure that Canadians can exercise their democratic rights to vote and be a candidate. Click here to register to vote!

BC Coalition of Arts, Culture, and Heritage
The BC Coalition of Arts, Culture, and Heritage represent thousands of arts, culture, and heritage organizations in every region and more than 188 communities in BC. This includes hundreds of cultural businesses, venues, festivals, consultants, and independent practitioners, as well as tens of thousands of professional artists, cultural practitioners, and volunteers throughout BC.

B.C. Arts, Culture, & Heritage Sector Insights Report
The survey and report were led by GVPTA, on behalf of and in collaboration with a coalition of B.C.-based arts, culture, and heritage service organizations that represent thousands of organizations and individuals across BC, in every community and region. This includes hundreds of cultural businesses, venues, festivals, consultants, and independent practitioners, as well as thousands of professional artists, cultural practitioners, and volunteers throughout the province.

Stats Canada Arts and Culture Data Viewer
The Arts and Culture Data Viewer is an interactive data visualization tool. It allows users to easily break down Statistics Canada arts and culture economic data by geographic area, as well as data on participation in cultural activities by the demographic characteristics of participants. Economic data includes data on output, gross domestic product, employment and trade.

Provincial and Territorial Culture Indicators
Developed by Statistics Canada to measure the economic importance of culture, the arts, heritage, and sport to the Canadian economy. Among the key findings: the total gross domestic product (GDP) for culture is an estimates $58 billion in 2022; the total number of culture jobs is 648,825; and in BC, the culture GDP constituted roughly $9.2 billion (17.8%) with 115,286 jobs.

Canadian Arts Coalition
The Canadian Arts Coalition is a collaborative non-partisan advocacy movement of national associations, arts organizations and artists, lead by a volunteer Steering Committee comprised of representatives of national, provincial, regional, territorial arts organizations and/or associations committed to equity in the arts and inclusive of Indigenous, racialized, the deaf and disabled.

338Canada
The 338 Canada project is a statistical model of electoral projections based on opinions, electoral history, and demographic data. The model provides data insight on provincial and federal elections.

Global Public Affairs 2025 Federal Election Toolkit
The toolkit provides some basic rules of engagement, as well as guidance on how to comply with election law. It also outlines typical campaigning conventions – from how to engage with government, to how to develop a positive relationship with a potential future Member of Parliament.

Earnscliffe Strategies - Election Report: The Kickoff
Earnscliffe Strategies has written an article on the context of the 2025 Federal Election and what is at stake. The firm will be publishing weekly election reports on Fridays - subscribe!

Non-Profit Power Up
United Way BC, Vancity Community Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, Victora Foundation, and Food Banks BC collaborated to create Non-Profit Power Up, a government relations and communications toolkit.

Imagine Canada: Federal Election Readiness for Nonprofits
Imagine Canada is sharing resources and events to help the nonprofit and charity sector ensure it plays by the rules and is effective when engaging in federal election advocacy. 

Know a great advocacy resource? Email info@allianceforarts.com