The National Director’s Blog — On the way back from Edmonton
EDMONTON — My too-short visit to Edmonton was a fitting conclusion to a very exciting week in Alberta. I arrived in the provincial capital Tuesday night on the Red Arrow bus from Calgary (what high quality travel on board of those buses, something to shame Voyageur services back East!). Tom McFall, Executive Director of the Alberta Craft Council and CCA Board member, was waiting for me at the station and after dropping my luggage at the hotel, we went out for dinner to prepare the meetings he lined up for me: not a minute of my day and a half here will be wasted!
We begin on Wednesday morning with a meeting with the Director of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA), Dr. Jeffrey Anderson, musician by training and currently Chair of the Canadian Public Arts Funders network. For close to an hour and a half, we talk about the CCA, its contribution to the cultural and heritage sector and its future plans. We review some issues of common interest: the copyright file, culture statistics and Revenue Canada’s consultation on arts organizations and charitable status. Before we leave, Dr. Anderson gives us a quick tour of the impressive AFA collection of Albertan art and crafts. And we will see again soon since he intends to attend the afternoon session which the Edmonton Arts Council is hosting for the CCA.
But before we go to that public meeting, Tom brings me to the Alberta Craft Council offices where he arranged a “bring your lunch” meeting with a small group of provincial arts service organizations including the Professional Arts Coalition of Edmonton (PACE). This informal gathering provides for a lively exchange about the CCA and I am pleasantly surprised to hear that many of the participants also plan to attend the formal session in the Prince of Wales Armouries, former military drill hall converted into space for the municipal archives and for the Edmonton Arts Council (a very nice building by the way, in the grand tradition of military architecture, with crenellated battlements). Some 50 people fill the room and I am stunned to see half of them raise their hand when I ask if anyone has ever heard of the CCA! This is the first time since the beginning of my tour and, come to think of it, it is not so surprising since I was a guest speaker at the Arts Council’s AGM last June. Double joy: not only did these people listen to what I said then but they are ready to hear more!
This familiarity with our organization certainly facilitated the conversation that followed my presentation; something I was worried about with such a large group. I should have remembered that Edmontonians are not shy about expressing their views! And they possess a trait characteristic of Albertans: cut to the chase and look for solutions to identified problems! So we had a very active exchange for more than half of the meeting, a first during this tour. People are generally interested in the CCA’s activities and proposals and call them essential. The roles of convener, consensus-builder and catalyst resonate well here. More and more people seem conscious of the fact that the fragmentation and dispersion of efforts in our sector greatly handicap our capacity to influence decision-makers. Conversations followed that line of thought. Of the four pillars on which the CCA is building its strategic plan, it is engaging the public in culture that draws the most comments. I am told that the CCA must break its anonymity and it is suggested that we position ourselves with the broader public as a national action group, which is also the path to bringing money to the organization. But how to become a popular movement when so few people know about the CCA? Answer: you must mobilize your member organizations to support you in that effort. I counter that this is easier said than done: it is not obvious to ask our organizational members, most of which have financial challenges of their own, to invite their own members to support us! Maybe it’s the military past of the room, but someone proposes a strategy of attacking both at the top and from the base: the CCA has obtained expressions of support from its member organizations, let individual members of those organizations convey the message from within the ranks! Two participants promise they will do so: well, that’s a beginning!
The same theme dominates dinner conversation with John Mahon, Executive Director of the Arts Council, Tom and our Past President Denise Roy. We waste no time building on the ideas expressed during the afternoon meeting. John suggests that the Arts Council could indeed invite its numerous members to become a CCA supporting member or to make a donation. Tom chimes in and proposes to do the same with the Alberta Craft Council’s members and presto!, we have the beginning of a fundraising campaign!
The trend carries on Thursday morning during the last meeting where Tom convened leaders of some of the largest Edmonton arts organizations. It is with pleasure that I see former Senator Tommy Banks, renowned musician, long-time cultural activist and supporter of the CCA. Here again I am told that we must position the CCA as the national champion of culture, not only in Ottawa but all over the country. While our member organizations may certainly appreciate our policy development work, our analyses and our support for collaborative leadership, this will not bring us the kind of budget we need to be self-sufficient and have the resources required to deliver our mandate. I am told that it is only by turning the CCA into a popular movement that we can achieve our objectives. Just imagine, they say, that you reach ten thousand supporters across the country who commit to giving you $5 a month: that’s $ 600,000 right there! And this is conservative apparently! Fine, but how do you get from the current 150 individual members to thousands? We will start here in Alberta: representatives of three organizations present at the meeting undertake to solicit their members on our behalf, as soon as I send them the short and catchy message they need.
This is obviously a commitment I make wholeheartedly and it is with my head full of dreams about what could be that I take the flight back home. Two and a half days in Ottawa, and then I hit the road again to visit New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, in the penultimate week of my country-wide consultation.
Hi Alain:
I have been reading your reports on the consultations across the country with great interest. It is good to know that you are getting valuable feedback and useful ideas with respect to the CCA’s future role in the development of the arts and culture in Canada.
Your reports remind me of the Direction Canada consultations the CCA initiated many years ago. Do you think the time has come for another Direction Canada experience of some type? Now that the CCA is involved in developing a strategic action plan for the future, it would seem to me that the experience with Direction Canada was — and still is — very relevant. Not only did it create a fundamental set of priorities for the future — priorities that were based on the frequency of issues raised by the arts and cultural community in all parts of the country — but also it made the CCA very visible and enabled it to fulfill one of the most essential objectives in its mandate, namely to be a powerful lobbying and advocacy organization on behalf of the arts and cultural community in Canada. Is the time ripe for the CCA to return to its original role in this respect, particularly in terms of holding governments and the private sector accountable for their actions and funding of the arts and culture throughout the country?
Your reports also reminded me of the discussions the CCA had several years ago with respect to making ‘the case for the arts and culture’ in Canada. Surely much could be accomplished by making this a high priority in the CCA’s future development, especially as the role of the arts and culture in Canadian development has changed considerably over the last few years and contemporary research is revealing that the arts and culture have a much greater impact on people’s health, welfare, well-being, and lives than was previously thought. As you know, recent developments in arts education are very pertinent in this regard.
I raise these two issues in the hope that they might be included in the dialogue you are having about the CCA’s future development as a strong and independent not-for-profit organization. Surely one of the great things about life is that a door usually opens when another door closes. The CCA’s future would appear to be very bright in this respect.
With warmest regards.
Paul Schafer
Dear Paul,
thank you very much for your thoughtful message and apologies for not having responded earlier: the pace of this ountry-wide consultation is quite fast and I try to maximize my short stay in each city by piling as many meetings as possible… and then at night, it’s writing the blogs in both official languages, and catching up with the emails at the office which have been accumulating.
Enough whining and excuses! I must say that as challenging as it may be, this tour of Canada is also most rewarding. Everywhere it seems that the message I am bringing is resonating and there are clear signs that when they hear about the CCA and what it has to offer to the Canadian cultural sector, people are interested in seeing it reinvented and reinvigorated, particularly as a grassroot organization with precisely the kind of mandate you are talking about. All of this feeds my hope and energy.
Thank you for your sustained interest in this venerable and hopefully soon to be recreated institution!
best regards,
alain