The CCA Hits the Road This Fall: Join the Conversation!

CCA Bul­letin 33/08

Ottawa, Sep­tem­ber 5, 2008

Pre­oc­cu­pa­tions about arts and cul­ture have been very much in the press lately, but one can­not say that they are nor­mally at the top of the pub­lic agenda. The lat­ter has been a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion of the CCA for quite some time and this is why, over the past six months, we have been work­ing here at the Sec­re­tariat on plan­ning a series of four­teen regional forums which will allow me to meet with mem­bers of the cul­tural sec­tor and other Cana­di­ans who have a stake in arts and cul­ture in our soci­ety and the place it occu­pies in pub­lic debate and the agen­das of our decision-makers at all levels.

As luck would have it, the impend­ing fed­eral elec­tion and the arrival of a new gov­ern­ment of what­ever stripe pro­vides an impor­tant back­drop for set­ting the agenda for short and longer term cul­tural pol­icy devel­op­ment, for fund­ing of the arts and cul­ture and for pro­mot­ing the Cana­dian cre­ative econ­omy. The forums will give par­tic­i­pants in all ten provinces an oppor­tu­nity to share their views and strate­gies with the CCA in advance of a national pol­icy con­fer­ence to be held in March 2009 in Ottawa.

The forums are open to any­one who cares about the arts and cul­ture sec­tor in Canada, from the var­i­ous per­spec­tives of the sec­tor itself, from that of edu­ca­tors, munic­i­pal and provin­cial offi­cials or the busi­ness com­mu­nity. Bring­ing the dis­cus­sions to you is the best guar­an­tee that the CCA can present a truly uni­fied voice to gov­ern­ment and to the Cana­dian pub­lic when it talks about the pol­icy pri­or­i­ties con­cern­ing the sector.

The sched­ule for the regional forums is:

More details on each of the forums will be pro­vided in the com­ing weeks, but mark your cal­en­dars now to par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sion. All you will need to do will be to reg­is­ter in advance (no costs), and bring your enthu­si­asm and insight.

Please tell your friends and col­leagues about these forums – the more views put for­ward the bet­ter. Cana­di­ans will by then have cho­sen their next gov­ern­ment and the CCA wishes to renew its pri­or­i­ties for work­ing with the fed­eral gov­ern­ment and the 40th Par­lia­ment to advance the shared inter­ests and objec­tives of the arts and cul­ture sector.

I look for­ward to meet­ing with you and dis­cussing these very impor­tant issues which mean to much to all of us!