Alliance Activities
in cra-briefings36 · May 01, 2006
Alliance co-chairs Susan Crean and Michel Beauchemin attended the combined Chalmers Conference and annual policy conference of the Canadian Conference of the Arts held in Ottawa in early March. An unexpected contribution came from David Stewart-Patterson, executive vice-president of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) who made a presentation calling on Canada to follow Ireland’s lead and a abolish taxes on creativity. In a paper published in February entitled, From Bronze to Gold: A Blueprint for Canadian Leadership in a Transforming World, the CCCE makes a series of recommendations “necessary to secure Canada’s success as a country” and then advances five proposals for action which it admits are bold and controversial. The first of these “five creative leaps” is the proposal to abolish taxes on creativity. “To ensure that Canada is a haven for creative minds,” the CCCE suggests that inventors, artists and writers be exempt from income tax on their earnings from intellectual property. The paper points to the phenomenal success of the Irish economy since 1969 when the exemption on revenues from copyright and patents was first introduced. In its 2006 budget, however, Ireland put a cap on the exemption, restricting it to the first €250,000 earned. However, the paper notes, this is about ten times the modest proposal of $30,000 exemption on copyright income advanced by the CCA a few years ago. (Quebec adopted a similar provision in 1995.) Questions from the floor indicated that the business council sees the exemption benefiting corporations as well as individual creators. Many of its members, including pharmaceutical companies would benefit, although * was unable to say how much of their revenues would be ascribed to IP income. For more details see: www.ceocouncil.ca.