From the traveling desk of Alain Pineau — Latest news from Regina

REGINA — The weather gods have been good to me so far. While Saskatchewan was a frigid –40º C last week, today was a balmy –2º C and the sun was shin­ing bright and warm, cer­tainly more pleas­ant weather to deal with as Marnie Glad­well gen­er­ously drove me from meet­ing to meet­ing. I must say that when it comes to mak­ing sure not a sec­ond of my stay here is wasted, Marnie has very few rivals. She had us booked from 8 in the morn­ing to 6 at night, with barely a break for a soup and a sand­wich at noon. But what a pro­duc­tive day this has been!

The day started with a break­fast meet­ing at Hotel Saskatchewan, God I like that hotel. It is yet another great exam­ple of 19th cen­tury rail­way hos­pi­tal­ity and is such an inte­gral part of our national her­itage. Our break­fast com­pan­ions were David Kyle, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the old­est arts coun­cil in the coun­try, and Rose Gilks, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Sask­Cul­ture Inc. Both rep­re­sent fund­ing agen­cies, the lat­ter man­ag­ing funds from provin­cial lot­ter­ies. Since David worked at the CBC, we inevitably talked about what may be in store for our pub­lic broad­caster in the upcom­ing bud­get. We quickly left these depress­ing thoughts to dis­cuss the rea­sons for my visit in Regina and iden­ti­fied areas of pos­si­ble com­mon inter­est, includ­ing research. Both Rose and David expressed a gen­uine inter­est in the future of the CCA and offered their help to increase its vis­i­bil­ity within their respec­tive net­works; an offer which I was not about to reject!

Marnie then took me to the Saskatchewan Arts Alliance where she had set up a meet­ing with Jeremy Mor­gan, for­mer Direc­tor of the Arts Board and cur­rently interim Direc­tor of the MacKen­zie Arts Gallery, where we would later hold a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion, Jen­nifer McRodie, the brand new Direc­tor of CARFAC Saskatchewan, Sheila Petty, Dean of Arts at the Uni­ver­sity of Regina and Ruth Smil­lie, Artis­tic Direc­tor & CEO of Regina’s Globe The­atre. What a meet­ing that was! I like peo­ple who speak their mind and call a spade a spade, and I was not dis­ap­pointed with this group. We had what is gen­er­ally called a frank and open dis­cus­sion about the need to rad­i­cally rein­vent the CCA, to broaden its mem­ber­ship and take the nec­es­sary mea­sures to fully engage it in the orga­ni­za­tion. We talked about the impli­ca­tion of such a renewal on con­sul­ta­tion and mobi­liza­tion mech­a­nisms and on the gov­er­nance struc­ture, which should include not only the view­points con­veyed by the large national orga­ni­za­tions but also by the regional per­spec­tives and needs of our large and so diver­si­fied coun­try. I reminded the group that our Board of Gov­er­nors has decided to put every­thing on the table, not just the fund­ing model. Fur­ther­more, since the CCA or its avatar is the con­cern of all, it is the respon­si­bil­ity of us all to shape its future. One theme dom­i­nated: com­mu­ni­ca­tion. This must be at the cen­tre of every­thing. On that front, I will assign a spe­cific to our Devel­op­ment Offi­cer Alessia Bon­gio­vanni: find a way to spon­sor a tour of the coun­try by the National Direc­tor at least every 18 months… only maybe not in win­ter time, just in case the weather gods turn their back on me!

We had to put an end to the most lively and chal­leng­ing exchange I have had so far on this tour to go the other end of town for a pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion at the MacKen­zie Art Gallery. The meet­ing was in a room with huge win­dows through which poured sun­light. Thirty peo­ple gath­ered there to talk about the CCA. Based on pre­vi­ous meet­ings, I decided to change my approach in order to allow par­tic­i­pants who had gone to the trou­ble of giv­ing two hours of their time to us to inter­vene in the meet­ing right from the begin­ning. Since no hand went up when I asked how many peo­ple knew any­thing about the CCA, I had no choice but to zip through my pre­pared pre­sen­ta­tion while allow­ing for max­i­mum for ques­tions and dia­logue. What came out of the Regina meet­ing was the core of what peo­ple value from the CCA: sup­port for col­lab­o­ra­tive lead­er­ship; gov­ern­ment rela­tions; and, infor­ma­tion on what goes on in the nation’s cap­i­tal. We also dis­cussed what the CCA could do with regard to pub­lic engage­ment in the arts and the idea that it could pro­vide tools to mem­bers to help sen­si­tize Cana­di­ans to the role arts and cul­ture play in our daily lives. This last idea seemed to gather sup­port from many of the atten­dees. We also debated over the name of the orga­ni­za­tion and there seemed to be a con­sen­sus around the word ‘cul­ture’ as cov­er­ing the total­ity of CCA’s pre­oc­cu­pa­tions and mem­ber­ship (i.e. arts, cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions and indus­tries, her­itage…). The Coun­cil of Cana­di­ans for Cul­ture maybe? The debate is open!

Marnie and I fin­ished the day by meet­ing with Ms. Wynne Young, Deputy Min­is­ter for Tourism, Parks, Cul­ture and Sport. Sakatchewan is one of the six provin­cial and ter­ri­to­r­ial juris­dic­tions who sup­port the work of the CCA as affil­i­ate mem­bers, a fact of which we are very proud. It was quite nat­ural that my visit ended with a con­ver­sa­tion review­ing the results of the con­sul­ta­tions held here and cov­er­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties for the cul­tural sec­tor to make its case in quan­tifi­able ways. Given the lack of proper met­rics for social and qual­i­ta­tive impacts of arts and cul­ture in our com­mu­ni­ties, it is dif­fi­cult to com­pete with other gov­ern­ment pri­or­i­ties like health or eco­nomic devel­op­ment. A dis­cus­sion ensued on sta­tis­tics and the work the CCA does on that front. Finally, as it was to be expected, we con­versed on the cur­rent cli­mate in Ottawa as we all brace for a fed­eral bud­get about which alarm­ing rumours circulate.

My visit here is already over. I must once again thank Marnie and Skip who ensured that my short stay was as pro­duc­tive as could be. Thank you also to La Troupe du Jour in Saska­toon and to the MacKen­zie Art Gallery for gen­er­ously spon­sor­ing our pub­lic meet­ings. I am leav­ing today for Win­nipeg where Nicole Mati­a­tion and Thom Spar­ling have also pre­pared a full agenda for me. I’ll blog again on Mon­day to report on the Man­i­toba leg of the tour.
–Alain