CCA Bul­letin 13/08

May 1 , 2008

Just the Facts

For some time, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts has been look­ing at a project called Cul­tural Pol­icy: Next Gen­er­a­tion, which will bring together sev­eral ini­tia­tives whose goal is to train the next gen­er­a­tion of cul­tural work­ers. This project, which has three sec­tions, is part of the 2008–2011 Strate­gic Plan adopted by the CCA Board at its Novem­ber 23, 2007 meeting.

The first part of this project will be the estab­lish­ment of a train­ing and research pro­gram run in col­lab­o­ra­tion with uni­ver­si­ties and research cen­tres, both in Canada and abroad. The goal of this pro­gram is two-fold: to increase, through part­ner­ships, the CCA’s research capac­ity, and at the same time, to help train a new gen­er­a­tion of cul­tural pol­icy spe­cial­ists. Research will focus on the CCA’s pol­icy pri­or­i­ties, and will encour­age pub­lic debate on cer­tain pol­icy ques­tions which have an impact on the arts and cul­ture sec­tor. The CCA will decide on per­ti­nent research top­ics, and will match researchers with appro­pri­ate men­tors for each topic. The research reports pro­duced as part of this pro­gram will serve as prepara­tory mate­r­ial for events orga­nized by the CCA, and will be avail­able at no charge on the CCA website.

The sec­ond part of the Cul­tural Pol­icy: Next Gen­er­a­tion project will be a series of intern­ships offered to recent grad­u­ates who have shown an inter­est in Cana­dian cul­tural pol­icy. These intern­ships, which will be offered as well to young admin­is­tra­tors of cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions, and even­tu­ally, to young civil ser­vants, will give par­tic­i­pants a chance to take part in the work of the CCA’s edi­to­r­ial staff, and to thus be intro­duced to the day to day work of an orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing the inter­ests of the cul­tural sec­tor to the fed­eral government.

The final ele­ment of this train­ing pro­gram for the next gen­er­a­tion of cul­tural work­ers will be a CCA-developed train­ing tool to intro­duce them to issues in Cana­dian cul­tural pol­icy. Com­prised of sev­eral mod­ules, this mate­r­ial will be on the CCA web­site, and will con­tain infor­ma­tion on the his­tory of cul­tural pol­icy and on the work­ings of the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, as well as basic train­ing in lobbying.

Tell me more

The Cul­tural Pol­icy: Next Gen­er­a­tion pro­gram was devel­oped as a result of pilot projects con­ducted by CCA staff. The first was car­ried out in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Rachael Maxwell, a Master’s stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Dublin, Ire­land. Dur­ing a three-month stay at the CCA, she wrote a research report titled The Place of Arts and Cul­ture in Cana­dian For­eign Pol­icy. This report received many favourable com­ments, and served as a basis for dis­cus­sion at the Sym­po­sium on the Role of Arts and Cul­ture in Cana­dian Pub­lic Diplo­macy, which took place in Mon­treal Novem­ber 22, 2007.

Recently, the CCA has had the chance to con­duct another project, this time work­ing with the Cen­tre for Pol­icy Stud­ies on Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ties at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity in Van­cou­ver. As part of this part­ner­ship, doc­toral stu­dent Mir­jam Gollmitzer wrote a research report, under the super­vi­sion of Cather­ine Mur­ray, titled From Econ­omy to Ecol­ogy: A Pol­icy Frame­work for Cre­ative Labour. This doc­u­ment, which coin­cided with the Inter­na­tional Forum on the Cre­ative Econ­omy, pre­sented last March by The Con­fer­ence Board of Canada and the Depart­ment of Cana­dian Her­itage, is also avail­able on the CCA website.

Spurred on by these two suc­cess­ful projects, the CCA plans to increase its level of research this sum­mer. Three other research projects will there­fore be con­ducted simul­ta­ne­ously, includ­ing two directly related to the upcom­ing March 2009 national con­fer­ence. Alexan­dra Slaby of the Uni­ver­sité de Caen, in France, will look at fed­eral orga­ni­za­tional mod­els in the cul­tural sec­tor, Pierre-André Hudon, a doc­toral stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa, will exam­ine the role of civil soci­ety in the devel­op­ment of pub­lic pol­icy, and Car­o­line Lebert, a Master’s stu­dent at the Uni­ver­sité de Mon­tréal, will study cul­tural diver­sity world­wide. Other research projects related to the March 2009 con­fer­ence are being developed.

As well, the CCA will begin its intern­ship pro­gram, with the first par­tic­i­pant join­ing the CCA edi­to­r­ial staff for a six-month period. In addi­tion to increas­ing the cur­rent staff’s research capac­ity, the intern will work, under the super­vi­sion of the CCA’s Pol­icy Advi­sors, to develop part of the cul­tural pol­icy train­ing tool. If all goes as planned, we should be able to cre­ate at least three intern­ship posi­tions dur­ing 2010–2011, includ­ing one year-long position.

What can I do?

At the begin­ning of May, the CCA will post a job offer for the first intern­ship, which will start in Sep­tem­ber and last six months. The CCA is count­ing on each one of you to cir­cu­late this job offer as widely as pos­si­ble, in order to find a prize catch to fill the posi­tion.  If you have any ques­tions or com­ments about this new CCA pro­gram, feel free to con­tact Guil­laume Sirois, Cul­tural Pol­icy Advi­sor, at (613) 238‑3561, exten­sion 19, or by email, at guillaume.sirois@ccarts.ca.