FROM THE DESK of Alain Pineau: A follow-up to the 2010 National Policy Conference

CCA Bul­letin 29/10

Novem­ber 15, 2010

It was close to a year in the mak­ing and accord­ing to all of the feed­back received so far, the CCA’s National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence Artists: Pow­er­ing the Cre­ative Econ­omy? was a suc­cess and a thought pro­vok­ing two days which placed artists at the cen­tre of the con­ver­sa­tion. Com­ments on the three main pan­els were very pos­i­tive, as were reac­tions to two new com­po­nents included in this year’s con­fer­ence. The Emerg­ing Thinkers Speed Speaker Series and the white­board ses­sions were wel­comed by many par­tic­i­pants. I am par­tic­u­larly happy with one of the com­ments I received: that one had not seen so many young peo­ple at a CCA con­fer­ence in many, many years!

All in all, some 150 del­e­gates from all ten provinces and two of the ter­ri­to­ries gath­ered at the National Arts Cen­tre in Ottawa to explore ques­tions regard­ing where artists stand in Cana­dian soci­ety and how artists inter­act with Cana­dian and inter­na­tional audi­ences. We spoke about how the roles of artists are chang­ing in our urban, rural and cul­tural com­mu­ni­ties. We also debated the types of new busi­ness mod­els nec­es­sary for artists to par­tic­i­pate in a soci­ety and an econ­omy trans­formed by the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion. I want to extend my warmest thanks to the diverse voices heard over the two days – from artists to lead­ers of major arts orga­ni­za­tions and emerg­ing arts professionals.

I am also thrilled to report that the 65th anniver­sary gala which kicked off the whole event was par­tic­u­larly suc­cess­ful. The atmos­phere was truly fes­tive and judg­ing by the con­ver­sa­tion in the room, it was obvi­ous that the 120 guests were happy to see each other on this occa­sion. The evening’s high­lights included our awards cer­e­mony, which hon­oured four great Cana­di­ans, and our keynote speaker, actor and direc­tor Paul Gross, who left nobody indifferent!

As we explained dur­ing the con­fer­ence, this diverse gath­er­ing was part of an ongo­ing process for the CCA. The areas iden­ti­fied for fur­ther con­sul­ta­tion will be sub­mit­ted to the recently formed National Advi­sory Com­mit­tee on Pol­icy Pri­or­i­ties which will meet next in Jan­u­ary. Rec­om­men­da­tions will then go to the Board of Gov­er­nors which will set the CCA’s pri­or­i­ties for the next two years in terms of research, debate and pol­icy development.

I invite you all to join the CCA as we move on to the next steps in the dis­cus­sion of arts, cul­ture and her­itage in Canada. You can help us by start­ing this process today! Please read Garry Neil’s sum­mary of the con­fer­ence and post your com­ments on our blog. Don’t for­get to check out our photo album from the CCA’s 65th anniver­sary gala cel­e­bra­tion and awards cer­e­mony, as well as the conference!