Message from the President

Dear Mem­bers and Colleagues,

By now many of you have been made aware of the CCA’s chang­ing rela­tion­ship with its major fun­der, the Gov­ern­ment of Canada. Indeed, many of you may already or will soon be fac­ing the prospect of reduced sup­port fed­er­ally. The model is shift­ing and chang­ing for all of us. It is an immense chal­lenge for this orga­ni­za­tion given its reliance for 45 years on fed­eral sup­port. The board and staff have been work­ing since last sum­mer on a series of finan­cial options and a busi­ness plan that will allow us to move for­ward inde­pen­dent of that sup­port. And the National Direc­tor has been on the road for weeks con­sult­ing the mem­ber­ship on the ser­vices it needs and wants from its national cul­tural ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion. While none of us knows what the out­come will be when the bud­get is released in mid-March, we feel con­fi­dent that the gov­ern­ment will under­stand the neces­sity of a tran­si­tional period of sup­port to ensure the CCA has the time to develop an entirely new fund­ing model. There is no ques­tion that the future is not guar­an­teed, but from the con­sul­ta­tion ses­sions in Toronto, Mon­treal and Ottawa last fall, from Alain’s tour across the coun­try these past few weeks and last, given the pas­sion­ate and com­mit­ted response from my board of direc­tors and the ded­i­ca­tion of the staff, the pos­si­bil­i­ties are tremen­dously excit­ing!
Now more than ever we need a national voice in Ottawa. This board wants to build with your help an orga­ni­za­tion that will pro­vide needed ser­vices and sup­port for the achieve­ment of this goal. Every­where we go, we hear the need for solid research and strate­gic advo­cacy. We want to work with all the NASOs, unions, coali­tions and other orga­ni­za­tions engaged in this work to help strengthen that voice.
The CCA has such a rich his­tory, 67 years of work­ing on behalf of artists and cul­tural orga­ni­za­tions in Canada! It is a long and proud legacy of achieve­ment and we will not let that go lightly. While I am active now as Pres­i­dent, there were many years I renewed my mem­ber­ship but did lit­tle else. Dur­ing those years, while I might not have directly accessed ser­vices on offer, I was always con­fi­dent that cul­tural pol­icy and research was being done for the ben­e­fit of us all. I felt it was an impor­tant and nec­es­sary, in fact, cru­cial, entity that needed to remain active and finan­cially healthy.
I still feel that way. That’s why I decided to get involved four years ago and why, even in this very uncer­tain time, I am com­pletely con­vinced that this orga­ni­za­tion is key to the health of the cul­tural sec­tor in Canada. We all need a voice in Ottawa. We need solid and effec­tive research. And we cer­tainly need strate­gic advo­cacy and com­mu­ni­ca­tions.
My biggest regret is that I couldn’t be on the road with Alain meet­ing all of you! Please share your thoughts any­time through this web­site.
I invite all of you to join us in this change and in build­ing a vibrant future for arts and cul­ture in our country!

Kath­leen