The US government turns up the heat on cultural diplomacy: Can we hope that Ottawa will do the same?

CCA Bul­letin 2/11

Jan­u­ary 17, 2011

 

 

Just the facts

For the past four years, the Cana­dian Con­fer­ence of the Arts (CCA) has deplored the fact that the fed­eral gov­ern­ment no longer has a coor­di­nated strat­egy for the pro­mo­tion of Cana­dian artists and cul­tural works to national and inter­na­tional audi­ences and mar­kets. Beyond the purely eco­nomic aspects, we have also expressed con­cerns about the fact that Ottawa has all but aban­doned cul­tural diplo­macy as part of its for­eign pol­icy. This is why we were par­tic­u­larly inter­ested in exam­in­ing our neigh­bours south of the bor­der, where the con­cept of cul­tural diplo­macy seems to be enjoy­ing a revival after hav­ing been some­what cast aside after the end of the Cold War.

On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 7, the United States Embassy in Ottawa hosted a livestream view­ing party and dis­cus­sion on cul­tural diplo­macy. The pre­sen­ta­tion, titled “Cul­ture in Diplo­macy: A New Era for Arts & Cul­tural Rela­tions,” was led by Ann Stock, Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of State for Edu­ca­tional and Cul­tural Affairs, and broad­cast from the annual con­fer­ence of the Asso­ci­a­tion of Per­form­ing Arts Pre­sen­ters (APAP) in New York City. The panel included the Que­bec Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Ms. Chris­tine St-Pierre.

Dur­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion, Assis­tant Sec­re­tary Stock out­lined the Obama administration’s efforts to use cul­tural diplo­macy as an impor­tant for­eign pol­icy tool and empha­sized the Department’s man­date to estab­lish more mutu­ally rec­i­p­ro­cal rela­tions with for­eign cul­tural groups and pro­grams. She touched on many of the State Department’s flag­ship cul­tural pro­gram ini­tia­tives, includ­ing Rhythm Road, Dance­Mo­tion, smART Power, Cen­ter Stage and Cul­tural Envoys.

Fol­low­ing her pre­sen­ta­tion, Stock mod­er­ated a panel of inter­na­tional speak­ers. Chris­tine St. Pierre, Quebec’s Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, dis­cussed the province’s suc­cesses and chal­lenges in endors­ing its arts and cul­ture both domes­ti­cally and inter­na­tion­ally.  Eugene Downes, Chief Exec­u­tive of Cul­ture Ire­land, spoke about the intri­ca­cies of launch­ing and sus­tain­ing an Irish cul­tural diplo­macy pro­gram with very lim­ited man­power; he stressed the need to main­tain a tight focus and sim­ple fund­ing pro­gram. For his part, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the British Coun­cil accen­tu­ated that, in order to develop a mutual level of trust and under­stand­ing with for­eign coun­tries, cul­tural diplo­macy pro­grams are best served by devel­op­ing grass­roots, dialogue-based initiatives.

Tell Me More

The cul­tural diplo­macy ini­tia­tives insti­tuted by the United States and other nations are of par­tic­u­lar inter­est to the CCA inso­far as they enhance aware­ness about the poten­tial ben­e­fits of pro­mot­ing domes­tic arts and cul­ture internationally.

Although in the mid-90s, the Gov­ern­ment of Canada had declared “the pro­mo­tion of Cana­dian cul­ture and val­ues” to be the third pil­lar of Cana­dian for­eign pol­icy, this approach has been all but aban­doned over the past seven years. This is despite the strong evi­dence that it not only con­tributes to the much needed devel­op­ment of for­eign mar­kets for our cul­tural prod­ucts, but also plays an impor­tant part in shap­ing our image with other nations while sup­port­ing Canada’s other com­mer­cial objec­tives abroad.

As men­tioned above, despite sev­eral small inter­na­tional pro­grams within the Cana­dian Her­itage port­fo­lio agen­cies, there is cur­rently no coor­di­nated pan-governmental strat­egy for the pro­mo­tion of Cana­dian artists and cul­tural works to national and inter­na­tional audi­ences. The Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade (DFAIT) which for­merly had a pro­gram devoted to devel­op­ing cul­tural mar­kets abroad, now only offers the Global Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Asso­ci­a­tions (GOA) con­tri­bu­tions pro­gram, which gen­er­ally sup­ports national trade asso­ci­a­tions to ben­e­fit the entire realm of indus­try. Though the cur­rent gov­ern­ment has shown an inter­est in mak­ing invest­ments in the cre­ative econ­omy, it has not included a com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram to ensure that our cul­tural sec­tor can cul­ti­vate new mar­kets at home and abroad. Since the abo­li­tion of the Pro­mArt and Trade Routes pro­grams in 2008, the Que­bec gov­ern­ment has stepped for­ward by adding an annual $3 mil­lion to sup­port its cul­tural sec­tor; how­ever, despite numer­ous appeals and evi­dence put for­ward by the sec­tor, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment has yet to repair the dam­age done.

Beyond the need to develop mar­kets abroad for our artists and cul­tural indus­tries, it is impor­tant that cul­ture be rein­serted into Cana­dian for­eign diplo­macy. Over the past few years, the CCA has attempted to pro­mote aware­ness and dis­cus­sion regard­ing the cru­cial con­tri­bu­tion artists and cul­tural insti­tu­tions can play with regards to the inter­na­tional image and trade objec­tives of our country.

In Novem­ber of 2007, the CCA hosted a sym­po­sium titled The Role of the Arts and Cul­ture in Cana­dian Pub­lic Diplo­macy. Many del­e­gates at the sym­po­sium (includ­ing for­mer politi­cians, for­mer diplo­mats, artists and cul­tural work­ers) stressed the need for bet­ter coor­di­na­tion between the var­i­ous play­ers in this field, the impor­tance of main­tain­ing strong net­works world-wide, and the neces­sity to take advan­tage of new tech­nol­ogy. A back­ground dis­cus­sion paper was pub­lished and a work­ing group was estab­lished to develop an action plan ensur­ing greater involve­ment on the part of the cul­tural sec­tor in Cana­dian diplo­matic strat­egy. More imme­di­ate con­cerns and a lack of resources have led to the tem­po­rary aban­don­ment of this initiative.

In June 2008, the CCA con­tin­ued the dis­cus­sion by host­ing a pub­lic debate titled Between Pub­lic Diplo­macy and Nation Brand­ing: a New Way of Think­ing the Inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion of Cana­dian Cul­ture. Pan­elists dis­cussed the value of “nation brand­ing,” as well as other per­spec­tives and mod­els as a means of spread­ing Cana­dian cul­ture abroad. In its 2009 and 2010 pre-budget sub­mis­sions, the CCA also encour­aged the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to invest an addi­tional $40 mil­lion per year into the expan­sion of the capac­ity of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts to invest in national and inter­na­tional mar­ket devel­op­ment. More­over, it encour­aged the Depart­ment of For­eign Affairs and Inter­na­tional Trade to col­lab­o­rate with the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts on its cul­tural ini­tia­tives abroad.

It is inter­est­ing to see that other coun­tries share our views regard­ing the renewed impor­tance of cul­tural diplo­macy within our increas­ingly glob­al­ized world. If Canada can mould its envi­ron­men­tal poli­cies on Amer­i­can ini­tia­tives, is it too much to hope that it may also finally real­ize the impor­tant role cul­ture can play in its world positioning?

What can I do?

Read our pre-budget sub­mis­sion sup­port­ing cul­tural diplo­macy and com­ment on our blog. Write to your MP and empha­size your desire for arts and cul­ture to be part of Canada’s diplo­matic approach abroad.