FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau – The CCA enters the Blogosphere!

CCA Bul­letin 43/08

Octo­ber 10, 2008

Thanks to a set of cir­cum­stances which nobody could have fore­seen, arts and cul­ture have occu­pied with politi­cians and jour­nal­ists a most unusual place in the course of the fed­eral elec­tion cam­paign. The ques­tion is: what will hap­pen on the day after the election?

Sev­eral months ago, the CCA had cho­sen the theme of its March 2009 National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence and of the series of Regional Forums which will pre­cede it: how can we best work together to bet­ter posi­tion arts and cul­ture in pub­lic debate? We could not have been more top­i­cal if we had tried!

Dur­ing the next two months, I will travel all over the coun­try to con­sult with mem­bers of the CCA and will all those who are con­cerned about the impor­tant place arts and cul­ture occupy in our soci­ety and who want to raise its pro­file with Cana­di­ans at large and with decision-makers in par­tic­u­lar. The first of these con­sul­ta­tions will take place in Ottawa on Octo­ber 17 and the last one in Fred­er­ic­ton on Decem­ber 5.

Dur­ing the whole process, I will keep here a diary on the high­lights of each forum. I invite you to fol­low this series of con­sul­ta­tions to see what is on the mind of your col­leagues across the coun­try, the com­mon pri­or­i­ties they think we should adopt and the short, mid and long-term strate­gies we should develop to make sure arts and cul­ture occupy the place they deserve on the pub­lic agenda.

But even more, I invite you to write you com­ments and sug­ges­tions as the con­sul­ta­tion process unfolds. And of course, I urge you to reg­is­ter for the forum which will take place in your province.

I look for­ward to read­ing you and, bet­ter still, of meet­ing you!