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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