From the traveling desk of Alain Pineau — Written from the tarmac in Winnipeg
WINNIPEG — The weather gods are no longer smiling upon me! Freezing rain in Toronto and Ottawa means that I have at least three hours of leisure time at the Winnipeg airport: who knows at what time I’ll get home today! I may as well take advantage of this delay to blog on my short visit in Manitoba’s capital. CCA Board member Nicole Matiation and Thom Sparling, Executive Director of the Arts and Cultural Industries Association of Manitoba (ACI) prepared a fully loaded agenda for me. Thursday morning started with a meeting at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain in Saint-Boniface where ten representatives of francophone arts organizations gathered. Here again, the CCA is an unknown entity. I hope it was less so by the time the meeting was over. While there is a clear interest in what we do and propose, I see a common theme between this meeting and one that took place two weeks ago with the franco-columbian community: how can we afford to contribute financially to the CCA? There are only so many organizations to which we can belong. How can we set priorities given our modest budgets? And how come we never hear about you through the umbrella organizations you say are members of the CCA? This is a very good question, and we will have to find an answer if the conclusion of my national tour is that the CCA does indeed have a unique role to play in the ecology of the cultural sector.
I met with a similar set of comments during the afternoon meeting at the Folk Exchange in the historic quarter of Winnipeg. Some 30 representatives from a variety of cultural organizations gathered to hear about the CCA and what it is putting forward to contribute to a vibrant future for the arts and culture sector in our vast country. “How come the information the CCA produces does not trickle down to us?” The work the CCA does on files like public investments in the arts, copyright, culture statistics, foreign ownership of cultural industries clearly resonate here. Yet, a recipient of our bulletins commented that they are too detailed and technical for most people; not everyone is a policy wonk and the CCA should make sure its communications are more appropriate for the broader audience we say we want to reach and whose support we seek.
On another front, some participants dared raise some rather delicate questions. Faced with likely difficult times, should we not realign our strategies as a sector? Could it be that we spread our efforts too thin and that we have too many organizations with a silo mentality which do not coordinate their advocacy efforts and the conferences they organise? A participant declares, “I belonged to three different associations and last year, each one wanted me to attend a Day on the Hill in Ottawa within the spate of a few weeks. I have neither the time nor the budget to participate in all those activities, as important as they may be! How am I to choose this one rather that the other? Can’t we work more closely together?” This cri du cœur seems to resonate with others in the room, which puts me in an awkward situation: the last thing the CCA needs is to appear to undermine other organizations which deliver valuable services to this or that sector in particular. One must confess however that the question is not irrelevant: I have heard it asked in private conversations, but this is a taboo topic rarely raised in public.
I cannot avoid citing another participant of British origins, who spent years working on cultural files for the city of London, who says emphatically that the cultural sector in Great Britain would benefit greatly from having an instrument like the CCA. I am even happier to report that a few hours later, I received an email informing me that both he and his wife decided to join the CCA as individual members! Let’s hope many other do the same in the near future!
Between the two public meetings, I gave a long form interview for the Saturday morning show at CKSB, CBC’s French radio station in Manitoba. How great to have some twenty minutes instead of the usual thirty second clip one is given to explain complex and important issues! Then, lunch at the ACI offices with a group of cultural leaders who have been working hard for over a year to create a multidisciplinary alliance whose mandate and membership resembles very much on the provincial level those of the CCA at the national one. As National Director of the latter, I can only applaud at this important initiative. This focal point can only serve the common interests of Manitoba’s diverse cultural communities. It also provides the kind of affiliate network mentioned in our proposals and which would allow the CCA to be ever so relevant in its national mandate. I give my full support to this initiative which I deem to be particularly timely given the changes in our environments.
I finished my short stay in Manitoba this morning in a very positive meeting with Ms. Veronica Dick, Assistant Deputy Minister for Culture, Heritage and Tourism, with members of her staff and with representatives from the Manitoba and Winnipeg Arts Councils. Excellent opportunity to review files of common interest, particularly concerning culture statistics and copyright, the CCA receiving warm kudos for the work done on the latter.
So ends a very full week of meetings in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. On Monday, January 30th I hit the road again to go to Calgary and Edmonton. Let’s hope that the weather will be on my side!
Alain