Important board and staff changes at the Canadian Conference of the Arts
June 30, 2005
OTTAWA – The Board of Governors of the Canadian Conference of the Arts is pleased to
announce that Andrew David Terris has been appointed as Interim National Director of the CCA.
In order to accept this key position, Mr. Terris has stepped down as CCA President and resigned
from the Board. The Board has filled the vacancy by electing Vice President Robert Spickler as
President and Karl Siegler, Chair of the CCA’s Policy and Planning Committee, as Vice
President.
“With the departure of our National Director, Jean Malavoy, the Board wanted strong leadership
in the national office”, stated Mr. Spickler. “Mr. Terris was our unanimous choice, based on his
thorough knowledge of the CCA and his broad experience in Canada’s culture sector.”
In accepting his new position, Mr. Spickler said that “I have always had great respect for the
Canadian Conference of the Arts and its many achievements over its 60 year history. Being
President of such a dynamic organization will be a challenge, but one which I am pleased to
accept.”
Mr. Siegler noted that “The CCA has been a leader on many cultural policy issues over the past
60 years. Our job as the Board of Governors is to ensure that the CCA continues to provide such
enlightened leadership on an ongoing basis. I am delighted that Mr. Terris has agreed to assist
us in this important work.”
Mr. Terris accepted the position of Interim National Director with the following statement: “I am
deeply honoured that the Board has trusted me with this important transitional position. The CCA
has gone through some positive, if difficult, changes over the past few years, and it is now very
well positioned to assume its proper role as an arts leadership organization for all of Canada. My
job is to ensure that we maintain momentum towards that important goal.”
Concurrent with this appointment, the CCA will be launching an aggressive search for a new
National Director. To that end, a Search Committee, chaired by Past-President Denise Roy, has
been formed. The committee’s goal is to have a new National Director in place sometime this fall.
Robert Spickler, the incoming President, has over 35 years of experience as a senior manager
of cultural organizations, and he brings an impressive wealth of knowledge and leadership to the
CCA. He has held senior management positions at the Canada Council for the Arts, the Montreal
Symphony Orchestra, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Mr. Spickler has also been
chair and spokesperson for cultural agencies on the domestic and international scenes. He is
currently Associate Director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.
Karl Siegler, the new Vice President, is publisher of Talon Books in Vancouver. He was one of
the founding members of the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia and served three
times as president. He helped to start the Literary Press Group of Canada in 1975 and has twice
been president of the Association of Canadian Publishers. As a representative of the ACP, Mr.
Siegler played a significant role in creating the “Cultural Industries Exemption” in both the FTA
and the NAFTA. He has also created countless public policy briefs on book publishing, including
one on the negative effect that Chapters has had on the retail book sector in Canada.
Andrew David Terris has worked as an artist, designer, researcher, writer, administrator,
consultant, and activist over the past 35 years. He was the author of Public Policy and Cultural
Development in Nova Scotia, a 1990 report which eventually led to the creation of the Nova
Scotia Arts Council. From 1992 to 2002, he spent five years as Executive Director of Visual Arts
Nova Scotia and another five as founding Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Cultural
Network. Since then he has been principal of his own company, ARTS NOVA Cultural Research
and Consulting.
Sixty years strong, the Canadian Conference of the Arts is the national forum for the arts and
cultural community in Canada. It serves as a leader, authority, and catalyst to ensure that artists
can contribute freely and fully to a creative, dynamic, and civil Canadian society.
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