Québec City

Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012

Bon­homme Car­naval was back in stor­age, the sky was pure blue and the air icy cold when I arrived in Québec City on Sun­day. I come here invited by the net­work of Québec inde­pen­dent pre­sen­ters (RIDEAU) to be a pan­el­list at their annual gath­er­ing. I seize the oppor­tu­nity to meet a num­ber of peo­ple in the province’s old cap­i­tal who have an inter­est in the future of the CCA. Mon­day starts early: an all-morning work­shop  start­ing at 8:30 am,  pre­ceded by break­fast with fel­low pan­elists and the mod­er­a­tor. The theme of the debate could not be more appro­pri­ate for me: “Asso­ci­a­tions? What for?” I am in good com­pany, with the for­mer direc­tor of Québec’s the­atre asso­ci­a­tion, now exec­u­tive direc­tor of the provin­cial asso­ci­a­tion of city man­agers; the exec­u­tive direc­tor of Les Arts et la Ville; a con­sul­tant in human resources and the com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ager for Amnesty Inter­na­tional Canada. It is as a case study of sorts that the CCA has been invited to par­tic­i­pate. Being the last pre­sen­ter, I am able to relate to all the main issues raised by the oth­ers: the need for asso­ci­a­tions to reg­u­larly rein­vent them­selves and reaf­firm their per­ti­nence; the cru­cial impor­tance of engag­ing mem­bers; the key role of com­mu­ni­ca­tions; the chal­lenges of gov­er­nance and, of course, the ever present fund­ing pre­oc­cu­pa­tions. Very famil­iar themes for any­one who has fol­lowed my tour of the coun­try over the past month! This is the ideal plat­form to deliver my mes­sage and I am pleas­antly sur­prised to hear the inter­est peo­ple have in our future and in our efforts to rein­vent our­selves. Peo­ple here seem to under­stand the unique role that the CCA can play in the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor and at least two vol­un­teer that they will sup­port us finan­cially! Another small step towards our ulti­mate goal…

This is fol­lowed by lunch in a restau­rant of the lower town, in an area which over the past sev­eral years has gone from almost derelict to fash­ion­able. It’s a work­ing lunch with lead­ers of the regional cul­tural coun­cil for Québec/Chaudière-Appalaches. It is clear right from the begin­ning that I am with friends: “We are nat­ural allies”, declares Marc Gour­deau, pres­i­dent of the coun­cil and artis­tic direc­tor of a local the­atre com­pany. Peo­ple agree that the CCA should main­tain its pol­icy devel­op­ment activ­i­ties while also becom­ing a national grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion fos­ter­ing pub­lic engage­ment in cul­ture. When we part, it appears likely that the coun­cil will join the CCA and, it would be the fourth regional cul­tural coun­cil in the province to do so.

Next appoint­ment for the day is with the new direc­tor of the Québec National Museum of Fine-Arts, Ms. Line Ouel­let. Located at the east­ern edge of the famous bat­tle site the Plains of Abra­ham, the Museum is build­ing a new mag­nif­i­cent wing, slated to open in 2014. This expan­sion will allow the Museum to present its rich col­lec­tion of post-1960 Québec art which has been slum­ber­ing in vaults for too long. Ms. Ouel­let and I get along splen­didly as we dis­cuss copy­right and the chal­lenges met by muse­ums and gal­leries seek­ing to make their col­lec­tions of con­tem­po­rary works acces­si­ble via Inter­net.  I agree that this is a very impor­tant issue which the CCA will look into as soon as pos­si­ble. Ms. Ouel­let is also inter­ested in the role that the CCA can play in build­ing bridges between Québec and Eng­lish Canada’s insti­tu­tions, and it is on the per­spec­tive of another pos­si­ble new mem­ber that I take my leave.

Saint Valentine’s Day offers me the oppor­tu­nity to address the assem­bly of RIDEAU mem­bers: in ten min­utes, I deliver the gist of the CCA mes­sage I have been pre­sent­ing across the coun­try. This is well received and echoed by sup­port­ing com­ments of RIDEAU’s Pres­i­dent Jean-Pierre Leduc and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Colette Brouillé. After a quick cof­fee with my friend Diane Saint-Pierre from  the Insti­tut national de recherche sci­en­tifique du Québec (INRS), I meet CCA Board mem­ber André Leclerc who accom­pa­nies me for my meet­ing with Québec Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Mrs. Saint-Pierre wel­comes me as her for­mer boss! (it must be said that as luck would have it, I did hire her  for her fist job as jour­nal­ist sev­eral years ago, when I was man­ag­ing edi­tor of the radio news­room for Radio-Canada in Mon­tréal!). We dis­cuss the Copy­right Bill and the role of the CCA in this file, other top­ics of shared inter­est and the future of the CCA which she seems con­cerned with. I men­tion our ambi­tious National Pol­icy Con­fer­ence project for next year on draft­ing a new cul­tural agenda for Canada, a project of that clearly catches her atten­tion. I men­tion how impor­tant it is for us that her Min­istry is an affil­i­ate mem­ber of the CCA. Before I leave, she sug­gests that I should meet some of her col­leagues at the first oppor­tu­nity and I leave on a promise of follow-ups soon.

And then, I am on my way to Hal­i­fax, last but one leg of my cross-country tour and the object of my next blog!

- Alain