CCA Timeline

For more than 65 years, the CCA has made so many records in the cul­tural sec­tor that we can­not name them all.  Since the 1940s, note some facts that have par­tic­u­larly marked the his­tory of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the arts and the Cana­dian cul­tural indus­tries.  By fol­low­ing this path brief his­tory, you will fol­low the course of the his­tory of cul­tural policies.

• 1946    Del­e­gates from the CAC (Cana­dian Arts Coun­cil) are part of the Cana­dian del­e­ga­tion to the first Gen­eral Assem­bly of UNESCO in Paris.

• 1948    The CAC pro­duces the results of a sur­vey of the copy­right prac­tices of gal­leries, muse­ums and com­mer­cial film.

• 1950    Pre­sen­ta­tion of  a brief to the Royal Com­mis­sion in National Devel­op­ment in the Arts, Let­ters and Sci­ences (Massey-Lévesque).  Based on the Tur­geon brief, it rec­om­mended that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment estab­lish a national arts board inde­pen­dent from gov­ern­ment, a National Library and a National Com­mis­sion for UNESCO, sup­port indige­nous Cana­dian art, cre­ate com­mu­nity cul­tural cen­tres across Canada, and ensure proper pay­ment of artists’ fees.

• 1956    Sub­mis­sion of a brief to the Royal Com­mis­sion on Broad­cast­ing, empha­siz­ing fund­ing for the CBC and means to encour­age the pro­duc­tion and air­ing of Cana­dian pro­grams employ­ing Cana­dian talent.

• 1958    Cana­dian Arts Coun­cil changes its name to the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) to avoid con­fu­sion with the Canada Coun­cil cre­ated in 1957.

• 1961    Orga­nizes the first major national arts con­fer­ence, the O’Keefe Con­fer­ence on Arts in Soci­ety, call­ing for increased fund­ing and sup­port for the arts.

• 1966    Sub­mis­sion to the Carter Com­mis­sion on tax­a­tion call­ing for a bet­ter tax envi­ron­ment for artists, donors and patrons.

• 1966    The CCA receives its first grant from the Sec­re­tary of State.

• 1970    Orga­nizes The First National Forum on Cul­tural Pol­icy, where the fed­eral min­is­ter pre­sented the pri­or­i­ties and objec­tives of a fed­eral cul­tural policy.

• 1980    Presents to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment and the Fed­eral cul­tural Pol­icy Review Com­mit­tee (Applebaum-Hébert) A Strat­egy for Cul­ture:  Pro­pos­als for a Fed­eral Pol­icy for the Arts and the Cul­tural Indus­tries in Canada, con­tain­ing spe­cific rec­om­men­da­tions on all sec­tors of the arts and cul­tural indus­tries.  Two fur­ther pol­icy briefs evolved from that report, More Strat­egy for Cul­ture (1981) and A Third Strat­egy (1984)

• 1985    The CCA is involved for the first time in the offi­cial pre-Budget con­sul­ta­tive process, and par­tic­i­pated in the National Eco­nomic Con­fer­ence, a two-day sum­mit chaired by the Prime Min­is­ter, where the CCA stressed the eco­nomic and employ­ment impact of the cul­tural sector.

• 1985    The CCA orga­nizes a national con­fer­ence on the future of the Cana­dian broad­cast­ing sys­tem to assess its present sit­u­a­tion and rec­om­mend its future orientation.

• 1986    The CCA holds con­fer­ences on the Sta­tus of the Artist and New Technologies.

• 1986    Presents a brief to the Com­mis­sion of Inquiry on Unem­ploy­ment Insur­ance to defend artists’ interests.

• 1987    The CCA takes part in sev­eral ini­tia­tives regard­ing tax pol­icy:  responded to the tabling of the White Paper on Tax Reform, orga­nized a con­fer­ence on tax pol­icy and the arts, and pub­lished Tax­a­tion and the Arts.

• 1988    Pre­pares and dis­trib­utes to mem­bers a sum­mary of the Free Trade Agreement’s impact on the cul­tural sector.

• 1989    Reviews  Sta­tus of the Artist.  A par­lia­men­tary sub-committee on the Sta­tus of the Artist tabled a report con­tain­ing 11 rec­om­men­da­tions that closely reflected the CCA’s stand on these issues.

• 1989    Holds a con­fer­ence for arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tions on social ben­e­fit issues related to the revi­sions to the Copy­right Act.

• 1990    Pre­pares guides on the GST for artists and arts organizations.

• 1990    Orga­nizes the con­fer­ence Chang­ing Artists, Chang­ing Worlds, where the Min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions announced that the Income Tax Act would be amended.

• 1991    Estab­lishes the Cul­tural Sec­tor Train­ing Com­mit­tee with par­tial fund­ing from the fed­eral gov­ern­ment which oper­ated at arm’s length from the CCA (CSTC evolved into the National Sec­toral Coun­cil for Cul­ture in 1993 and became the inde­pen­dent Cul­tural Human Resources Coun­cil in 1994).

• 1992    CCA is one of the orig­i­nal mem­bers of the foun­da­tion of the Gov­er­nor Gen­eral Award in the per­form­ing arts

• 1993    Orga­nizes a press con­fer­ence with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of ACTRA, l’Union des artistes, and the Cana­dian Film and Tele­vi­sion Pro­duc­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, to call upon the Gov­ern­ment of Canada to sup­port the posi­tion of the Gov­ern­ment of France on the exemp­tion of cul­ture in the Gen­eral Agree­ment on Tar­iffs and Trade.

• 1994    In part­ner­ship with Sta­tis­tics Canada, pro­duces Cul­ture Counts, a newslet­ter on the Cul­tural Labour Force Survey.

• 1995    Pub­lishes the report of an advi­sory com­mit­tee on the future of the Art Bank, a response to the announce­ment by the Canada coun­cil that it would close the Art Bank (the Coun­cil later decided to main­tain the Bank).

• 1997    Pro­duces Shar­ing the Dream:  A Report of the Task Force on Char­i­ta­ble Giv­ing and the Arts, to assist orga­ni­za­tions in the cul­tural sec­tor in their devel­op­ment of addi­tional pri­vate sec­tor revenues.

• 2001    The CCA con­ducts the first Per­form­ing Arts Spon­sor­ship Sur­vey.

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