Celebrating the CCA — 60 Years Strong!

Bul­letin 39/05

Ottawa, Octo­ber 12, 2005 – The Board of Gov­er­nors of the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) met

in Ottawa on Sep­tem­ber 29 and 30, 2005, amidst cel­e­bra­tions to mark the organization’s 60th anniversary.

The fes­tiv­i­ties began with a recep­tion and din­ner in the Salon Room of the National Arts Cen­tre on Sep­tem­ber 28.  The gala evening fea­tured per­for­mances by clas­si­cal Chi­nese dancer William Lau, new music soprano Jan­ice Jack­son, and the Cadenza String Quar­tet, a group of musi­cians from the Ottawa Youth Orches­tra.  The Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage, the Hon. Liza Frulla, joined the cel­e­bra­tions and gave a warm con­grat­u­la­tory speech to mark the occasion.

The CCA took advan­tage of the event to present its Diplome d’honneur award to Québec writer Roch Car­rier and the Keith Kelly Award for Cul­tural Lead­er­ship to BC activist and for­mer CCA Board mem­ber Nini Baird.  Min­is­ter Frulla pre­sented both awards to the recip­i­ents.  Also in atten­dance were many CCA Board mem­bers, both past and present, as well as four past National Direc­tors, sev­eral for­mer award win­ners, and four Life Members.

The Board met for two days fol­low­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties and dis­cussed a wide vari­ety of impor­tant top­ics, including:

- fair tax treat­ment for artists and arts pro­fes­sion­als — Canada’s new Inter­na­tional Pol­icy Statement

- “rules of engage­ment” for the forth­com­ing fed­eral elec­tion cam­paign — the satel­lite radio decision

- revi­sions to the Copy­right Act

- child pornog­ra­phy leg­is­la­tion (Bill C-2)

- the CCA’s pre-budget sub­mis­sion to the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Finance — a progress report on sta­tus of the artist

- pri­or­ity set­ting pro­ce­dures for the CCA

For a vari­ety of rea­sons, the Board decided it would move the sched­uled Novem­ber 2005 National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence to March 3–4, 2006.  The con­fer­ence will be held in Ottawa, and more details will fol­low in

the com­ing weeks.

The Board also took advan­tage of the 60th anniver­sary to reaf­firm its com­mit­ment to a strong focus on cul­tural pol­icy and advo­cacy.  It also instructed the Sec­re­tariat to redou­ble its efforts to com­mu­ni­cate with mem­bers and the cul­tural sec­tor about those issues that have an impact on the lives of artists, arts pro­fes­sion­als and producers.

The Board sees the 60th anniver­sary as a time of renewal and is deter­mined to move for­ward with energy and resolve.  The Board also expressed its appre­ci­a­tion for the loy­alty of the CCA’s membership

and renewed its com­mit­ment to engage them more fully in