Moncton and Charlottetown

Feb­ru­ary 12, 2012

Last Wednes­day in Monc­ton was as busy as I said it would be in my last blog! Three pre­sen­ta­tions back-to-back in the City Coun­cil Cham­bers (clearly a favoured venue for this visit to New Brunswick). The day begins at 10 am with a meet­ing in French, my first since Saint Boni­face. Over thirty peo­ple lis­ten atten­tively to my pre­sen­ta­tion and I am a bit dis­com­bob­u­lated by their quiet­ness. What has hap­pened to the Aca­di­ans I have grown to know? Not very much like them to stay silent! But things warm up a bit and I answer ques­tions about what to expect with the next fed­eral bud­get. Will the cuts be as severe as feared? I say here what I have said in other places: very dif­fi­cult to pre­dict since the secret in Ottawa around the bud­get is so heavy that we don’t even hear the usual rumours, except to the effect that there will be a lot of blood all over. It does seem that most Her­itage agen­cies have been told to expect 10% rather than 5%, if not more. I stick my neck out and offer my own opin­ion that I expect that the Canada Coun­cil will prob­a­bly fare bet­ter and get only a 5% cut, but this is just an opin­ion! On another front, I am asked if an inde­pen­dent CCA would be heard by the gov­ern­ment. I think so, most likely bet­ter than if it is sub­si­dized to the tune of 75% by the pub­lic purse. If we suc­ceed in estab­lish­ing a self-sustaining CCA funded in part by a much larger mem­ber­ship, both orga­ni­za­tional and indi­vid­ual, it seems clear to me that this can only increase our legit­i­macy with elected offi­cials. But our mes­sage will have an impact only if MPs hear directly from peo­ple in their rid­ings about the cru­cial role of cul­ture in shap­ing vibrant com­mu­ni­ties and a new gen­er­a­tion of well-rounded cit­i­zens. This leads us to talk about the tools that every­one needs to advo­cate effi­ciently MPs and about the role the CCA could play in this regard. In clos­ing, I invite all to spread the mes­sage of the CCA, an absolute con­di­tion for this orga­ni­za­tion to become a broadly based grass-root move­ment strong enough to influ­ence on pub­lic decision-making.

This meet­ing is fol­lowed by a short pre­sen­ta­tion on Rev­enue Canada’s con­sul­ta­tion con­cern­ing the new guide­lines for arts orga­ni­za­tions seek­ing char­i­ta­ble sta­tus under the Income Tax Act. I has­ten to reas­sure par­tic­i­pants: this is not an attack on the cul­tural sec­tor, the pro­posed guide­lines do not change any­thing in the law, nor in exist­ing reg­u­la­tions nor in jurispru­dence in the mat­ter. As long as they respect the gen­eral con­di­tions imposed on char­i­ta­ble orga­ni­za­tions, rec­og­nized artis­tic ones should not be wor­ried. But it is jus­ti­fied to fear that the pro­posed cod­i­fi­ca­tion may make it more dif­fi­cult for new art forms and dis­ci­plines result­ing from ever-evolving tech­nolo­gies to obtain such a sta­tus. This con­cern is at the heart of the brief the CCA filed last week with Rev­enue Canada.

Before the Eng­lish con­sul­ta­tion, I barely have the time to eat the sand­wich kindly pro­vided by Jean-Pierre Caissie from the Asso­ci­a­tion aca­di­enne des artistes professionnel.le.s du Nouveau-Brunswick, the co-host of these meet­ings with the City of Monc­ton. I am pleas­antly sur­prised by the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants: over thirty peo­ple again! This time around, the con­ver­sa­tion which fol­lows my pre­sen­ta­tion is quite lively. I field a large num­ber of ques­tions, amongst oth­ers whether we intend to ensure that regional view­points are heard in the deter­mi­na­tion of CCA’s pri­or­i­ties. I con­firm that this is part of our plans as we rein­vent the orga­ni­za­tion and that well will do every­thing we can to fos­ter the estab­lish­ment of provincial/regional struc­tures mir­ror­ing the CCA in terms of mem­ber­ship and man­date. This would be done by respect­ing the spe­cific con­text of each region and will in no way be imposed by the CCA. We also talk about the pos­si­ble name of the rein­vented CCA: most peo­ple con­sider that “con­fer­ence” does not con­vey the nature or man­date of the orga­ni­za­tion and that “arts” is too restric­tive. Some of the sug­ges­tions: Cul­ture Canada, the Cana­dian Cul­tural Alliance, the Coun­cil of Cana­dian for Cul­ture… After the meet­ing, many peo­ple express their appre­ci­a­tion and if they fol­low up on their inten­tions, we will have gained a few mem­bers here today!

My faith­ful dri­ver Tim picks me up at the hotel and we imme­di­ately head towards Char­lot­te­town. A short stop in She­diac where we dine on a plate­ful of fresh, crispy smelts and a Cae­sar salad, washed down with a local beer. Back on the road: slowly ris­ing over the hori­zon, the largest orange full moon I have ever seen shows us to way to P.E.I. and we finally get to Char­lot­te­town by 9:30 pm. It’s been a good day, but before going to sleep, I spend time catch­ing up with emails and fol­low­ing up with par­tic­i­pants in the Fred­er­ic­ton and Saint-John meetings!

Thurs­day morn­ing. On my way to break­fast, I sense a fever­ish atmos­phere in the hotel lobby: how­ever, noth­ing to do with me or with the CCA! I real­ize sud­denly that this has to do with the grand national cer­e­mony hosted this year by Char­lot­te­town: Hockey Day in Canada. I spy Peter Mans­bridge in the lobby: he will be host­ing the National from here tonight and tomor­row. Don Cherry is not around, but after tour­ing the Island, the Stan­ley Cup be tonight exposed in a sanc­tu­ary adja­cent to the lobby. But duty calls! First stop is at the PEI Coun­cil of the Arts, where I meet with Pres­i­dent Greg Doran and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Dar­rin White. At the end of the meet­ing, Dar­rin says that he was expect­ing a dis­tress call and is pleas­antly sur­prised to see that the CCA is tak­ing the chal­lenge of rein­vent­ing itself with­out guar­an­teed fed­eral fund­ing in good stride and with opti­mism. I has­ten to quote my favourite Chi­nese proverb: never let a good cri­sis go to waste!

In the after­noon, cor­dial meet­ing with Ron Atkin­son, Charlottetown’s Devel­op­ment Offi­cer for Tourism and Events. P.E.I.’s cap­i­tal does not have a cul­tural pol­icy as such or any­one in charge of the file. Truth is that for decades, cul­ture and tourism have been syn­ony­mous with Anne of Green Gables… but there is more to cul­ture on this island than the inter­na­tion­ally renowned char­ac­ter cre­ated by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

The pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion starts at 5:00 pm in the Coach House of Bea­cons­field House, a splen­did exam­ple of Vic­to­rian res­i­den­tial archi­tec­ture, now a beau­ti­ful museum illus­trat­ing the lux­u­ri­ous life of late 19th cen­tury wealthy class. Another pleas­ant sur­prise: some 25 peo­ple have responded to the invi­ta­tion sent by P.E.I. Her­itage and Cul­ture P.E.I., my hosts here. It is clear that here like in other cities vis­ited so far, the call to sol­i­dar­ity res­onates. My pre­sen­ta­tion is very well received and is fol­lowed by a solid con­ver­sa­tion with par­tic­i­pants. Once again, there are many promises of mem­ber­ship, promises I will not fail to quote in my follow-up emails!

My short stay in Char­lot­te­town ends on Fri­day morn­ing with a break­fast meet­ing with Harry Hol­man, Direc­tor of Cul­ture and Libraries for the P.E.I. provin­cial gov­ern­ment. I must say that this was one of most stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tions on the CCA I have had since I hit the road a month ago. I had been warned that Mr. Hol­man would chal­lenge my con­vic­tion that the CCA is still rel­e­vant to the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor, and I had not been mis­led! This long­time civil ser­vant has pre­pared for the meet­ing, he has looked at our web­site, read my blogs and is a debat­ing pro with a legal back­ground. I did not expect our meet­ing to last a full hour and a half, and it may have gone beyond had it not been for the fact that I had com­mit­ted to a phone inter­view with St. John’s CBC radio. I guess I passed the test rea­son­ably well since Mr. Hol­man did not rule out that P.E.I. may join the seven provin­cial and ter­ri­to­r­ial gov­ern­ments which sup­port the work of the CCA through an affil­i­ate mem­ber­ship. So it is with joy in my stride and under a bright sun­shine that I head home for a short respite of 48 hours before I take the road again for the last leg of my cross-country tour: Que­bec City, Hal­i­fax and St. John’s!
–Alain