About the CCA

The CCA was formed in 1945 by a coalition of artists and cultural institutions, to be an advocate for artists in all disciplines. The CCA's membership now represents more than 250,000 artists and cultural supporters across Canada. Click here for a PDF of the chronological history of the CCA to 2001.

Throughout its long life, the CCA has worked ceaselessly on behalf of Canada's artists and arts organizations. Many issues identified in the early days -— greater copyright protection for artists, public funding and support for the arts, taxation - remain on our radar today. Many others — effects of and access to new technologies, freedom of expression, foreign ownership — have been added to the list.

The need for advocacy has not decreased with time.

Today, the CCA continues to advocate for improvements for artists on many fronts, including:

• taxation and access to social benefits
• copyright concerns, and exemption from taxation on copyright income
• access to new technologies
• freedom of expression

Consultation with its members and others in the cultural sector has always been key to the work of the CCA. Its first major national conference, which called for increased funding and support for the arts, was organized in 1961. Thereafter, national conferences were held every few years, becoming biennial events in the 1980s and early 1990s. Issues tackled included taxation, status of the artist, new technologies, cultural funding, and arts and education. During the second half of the 1990s, a nation-wide government programme review was initiated, as a result of which funding to the CCA was cut drastically and the conferences were suspended.

Since 2001, the CCA's National Policy Conference has been an annual event, providing national forums for stakeholder input on a variety of timely and relevant cultural topics.

In 2000, CCA initiated the Chalmers Conferences (named for philanthropist Joan Chalmers) to provide a much-needed forum for representatives of arts service organizations to discuss issues of interest and concern, and to provide opportunities for advocacy and networking. These conferences have grown in size and importance over the past few years, with many organizations now coordinating their own activities and meetings around this annual event.

The increasing globalization of culture, and the specific discussions on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), led to the development of a non-governmental network to protect cultural sovereignty and cultural diversity. This network has grown over the intervening years into the International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD), whose secretariat is housed within the CCA at the present time. CCA maintains a further link with the INCD through the position of the National Director on its steering committee.

Established in 1998, ArtsSmarts is the largest education initiative in Canada dedicated to improving the lives and learning capacity of Canadian children by injecting arts into their academic programs. ArtsSmarts Ignites young people's excitement about learning core curricula through the arts, inspires collaboration among local arts, education and community agencies to sustain arts-infused education programs shaped by local priorities and community needs, and builds creative learning networks.

CLICK IMAGE TO ENLARGE
First gathering of the Conference of Canadian Artists, Kingston, ON, 1941

Photo courtesy of Library and Archives Canada