The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art: The First Sixty Years of the Canada Council for the Arts 9780773552685

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THE R O OTS O F C U LT U R E THE P OW E R O F A R T

M O N I C A G AT T I N G E R

THE R O OTS OF C U LT U R E THE P OW E R OF ART The First Sixty Years of the Canada Council for the Arts

McGill-Queen’s University Press | Montreal & Kingston | London | Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2017 isbn 978-0-7735-5163-3 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-5268-5 (epdf) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2017 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. Photograph on page vi: The Canada Council Art Bank. Courtesy of the Canada Council Art Bank. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Gattinger, Monica, 1970–, author The roots of culture, the power of art : the first sixty years of the Canada Council for the Arts / Monica Gattinger. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. isbn 978-0-7735-5163-3 (cloth). – isbn 978-0-7735-5268-5 (epdf) 1. Canada Council for the Arts – History. 2. Art and state – Canada – History. 3. Federal aid to the arts – Canada – History. 4. Art and society – Canada – History. I. Title. nx750.c3g38 2017

306.4'70971

c2017-905098-2 c2017-905099-0

To Roxanne, for believing in me To Cameron, for believing in the power of art

CONTENTS Introduction The Canada Council for the Arts: Sixty Years Old or Sixty Years Young? | 3

1 The Canada Council’s Origin Story: How Did This Distinctive Arts Council Model Come to Be? Has It Stood the Test of Time? | 19

2 The Past as Prologue: From the Roots of Culture to the Power of Art: The Model Evolved but the Mandate Endures | 41

3 The Canada Council and the Changing Face(s) of Art: From “The Disciplines” to Inter-Arts, Equity, Aboriginal Arts, and Beyond | 72

4 Too Close or Too Far for Comfort? The Canada Council as Crown Corporation: Leadership, Money, and Navigating Political and Bureaucratic Waters | 100

5 A Seat at the Table: The Canada Council as More than Arts Grantmaker | 135 Conclusion The Canada Council for the Arts: Reflecting on the Past, Looking to the Future | 167 Acknowledgments | 183 Illustration Credits | 189 Notes | 195 Bibliography | 203 Index | 211

THE R O OTS O F C U LT U R E THE P OW E R O F A R T

0.1 The Canada Council for the Arts is the anchor tenant in Performance Court, a twenty-one-storey office tower nestled respectfully between two heritage properties. The Council’s logo appears prominently in the gable peak atop the main entrance.

Introduction The Canada Council for the Arts: Sixty Years Old or Sixty Years Young?

Walking towards the offices of the Canada Council for the Arts in Ottawa, you can’t help but be filled with a sense of possibility. “Performance Court” is no typical office tower. A careful blending of the historic and the contemporary, the cutting edge and the traditional, the space is an artistic and architectural delight. The main entrance, encased in blue-tinted glass, stands four storeys tall, and prominently features the Canada Council logo high atop a gabled roof. Situated on Elgin Street, a hip, bustling restaurantand club-filled scene on the eastern edge of Ottawa’s staid downtown core, the tower is nestled between two heritage properties: the brick two-anda-half-storey “Grant House”1 to the left, built in Second Empire style by industrialist and parliamentarian Dr James Grant in 1875, and First Baptist Church to the right, built of limestone in Gothic-revival style in 1877–78. Rather than overpowering the heritage properties, however, Performance Court is set unobtrusively behind them, and only gradually scales up to its full twenty-one-storey height. The effect is one of respect for the past, while striding into the future – a feeling that evocatively captures major transformations under way at the Council. This harmonious blending of the old and the new continues and blossoms as you enter the space. The main atrium level is bright, curvilinear, and airy, with natural light flooding through the glass panels that stretch from floor to two-and-a-half-storey ceiling onto elegantly curved walls, the arched main staircase, and the large, whimsical silver swirls snaking across

0.2 The glass-encased atrium is flooded with natural light and encompasses the back of historic property Grant House, elegantly converted into an upscale restaurant and wine bar.

0.3 The atrium of the Council’s office at Performance Court features a thirty-foot-tall video tower that exhibits multimedia art and property information. Featured in this photo is Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s interactive installation, The Year’s Midnight.

0.4 Opposite Âjagemô, the three-thousand-square-foot exhibition space on the lobby level of the Canada Council offices. Âjagemô (the Algonquin word for “crossroads”) is open daily to the public, and features curated exhibitions of contemporary Canadian art, including works from the Canada Council Art Bank (featured is Land Reform(ed), curated by Stanzie Tooth).

the floor. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the thirty-foot-tall video tower that sweeps up the atrium wall on your right. Composed of large, interactive video panels arranged floor to ceiling, with cityscape silhouette cutouts at the top, it features property information (tenants, history, developer, etc.) and news content, and is also used to exhibit multimedia works of art. The Year’s Midnight, by Mexican-born Montreal-based artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, was exhibited when the Canada Council officially opened its new offices at its 2014 Annual Public Meeting.2 Elevators to the second-floor Canada Council reception desk are adjacent to the video wall, but curiosity draws visitors further into the building’s lobby, where contemporary Canadian art graces the walls of Âjagemô, the three-thousand-square-foot exhibition space open daily to the public. Passersby are treated to curated exhibits featuring Canadian works of art, often from the Canada Council Art Bank, the largest working collection of Canadian contemporary art in the world. Âjagemô, the Algonquin word for “crossroads,” elegantly encapsulates the building’s homage to the traditional and the contemporary, and bears witness to the structure’s presence on unceded Algonquin territory. At the far end of Âjagemô, on a beautiful

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Introduction

curvilinear wall, hangs a small birch-bark canoe, complete with tiny paddles. Handcrafted by Algonquin elder Daniel “Pinock” Smith, the child’s canoe was acquired by the Canada Council Art Bank, and hangs permanently in the building, recognizing and honouring Indigenous art,3 culture, and craftsmanship. A visit to the Canada Council is an experience in the most literal and profound sense of the word. You can’t help but be moved by the setting’s architectural and artistic beauty, by the thought-provoking juxtapositioning of the historic and the contemporary, and, fundamentally, by the tangible intangibility of the power of art. Visitors are understandably filled with a sense of possibility.4 The same feeling is palpable at the Council itself. Senior leaders are energized, enthusiastic, and visibly optimistic about the organization’s future. Their eyes light up as they speak excitedly about transformation, dynamism, and opportunity. This is surprising in a policy, economic, and social context that routinely – increasingly – questions the relevance and need for public support for the arts. Indeed, the quest for relevance has been an ongoing imperative at the Canada Council over the course of its sixty-year history. The organization is unlike any other federal agency: it must continuously strive to justify its very existence. Few question the need for federal organizations supporting the country’s economy, defence, environment, health, or safety, but many question the need for a federal body supporting the arts. For critics, the arts are a frill, an unnecessary embellishment unworthy of taxpayers’ support. Why support artists and arts organizations if they can’t support themselves? If their work isn’t purchased by society, why should government pick up the tab? It’s just welfare by another name. Or so the criticisms go. And the grounds for such critiques are ever-expanding. In the twentyfirst century, cultural content proliferates on a dizzying array of platforms. The pace of technological change is rapid, cultural tastes are in constant mutation, and the very definition of art is moving fast. The lines between cultural creator, presenter, and consumer are becoming ever more blurred – some would say disappearing altogether. When any Canadian can write, compose, paint, sculpt, dance, or sing, and disseminate and promote their work on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, XLibris, and more, does Canada still need public investment in the arts?

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

Does the Country Still Need the Canada Council?

This book answers this question in the affirmative, but not unconditionally so. Canada is a federation that is geographically large, and culturally, linguistically, and regionally diverse. Its population is small, and the vast majority of people live in urban centres along a lengthy border shared with the economic, military, and cultural powerhouse that is the United States. The remainder lives mainly in isolated remote communities. In this context, government support for the arts is essential. How are Canadians to know one another, to have an understanding and awareness of their collective histories, cultures, shared challenges, and opportunities, and their innate capacity for unique self-expression, without public support for the arts? Of course, art would be created without public money, but given the country’s size, diversity, relatively small population, and asymmetrical relationship with the United States, the amount of art produced, the diversity of the works in question, the capacity for artists and arts organizations to be financially sustainable, and the extent to which Canadians could access Canadian art would fall well short of a socially desirable outcome. Ticket prices for performing arts would be higher, organizations would be less willing to take risks and less inclined to showcase new Canadian works or more challenging pieces, fewer artists would be able to dedicate themselves to their oeuvre, and market incentives would prioritize mainstream traditional tastes, stifling creativity, innovation, and risk-taking. Canadians would also be less likely to come into contact with non-Western-influenced Canadian art, notably Indigenous art and art created by Canada’s diverse ethnocultural communities. Emerging non-traditional art forms, such as interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary art, circus arts, and Deaf5 and disability arts, would also be less likely to thrive and be experienced by Canadians. But what should public support look like? Who and what should be supported? For what reasons should it be supported, and what forms should support take? These are fundamental questions that the Canada Council for the Arts must address as it charts its future.

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Introduction

Sixty Years Old and Sixty Years Young

The organization has a proud history to celebrate in its sixtieth-anniversary year, but it can’t rest on its laurels. The context for arts funding in 2017 is dramatically different than it was when the organization was founded in 1957. The Council’s mandate to “foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts” remains as relevant in 2017 as it was in 1957, but the way in which the Council interprets this mandate, weights its various elements – fostering versus promoting, studying versus enjoyment versus production – and puts them into action, has evolved over the years. And it must of necessity continue to evolve in response to changes in society, the economy, politics, technology, and artistic practice. As this book attests, the organization’s history is mainly one of evolution, not revolution. To be sure, there have been periods of fundamental change, but the Canada Council has tended to evolve gradually, in part because it is remarkably well-grounded in the country’s diverse and farflung artistic communities. Through the direct connections of program officers with artists and arts organizations, through its extensive system of peer-assessment committees, which engage artists and arts administrators from across the country in the evaluation of funding proposals, and through its board, which includes members from diverse walks of life and regions of the country, the organization has an impressive capacity to remain highly attuned and responsive to the artistic environment. And the Council has used this close connection to evolve in lockstep with Canada’s artistic community. But there is danger in close familiarity. In this case, the danger is not that familiarity breeds contempt (although it has been known to do so from time to time), but rather, that the Council’s relationships with the artistic community become unhelpfully symbiotic, calcifying into organizational blinders that restrict its line of sight to the needs, interests, and aspirations of artists and arts organizations alone, rather than to the needs, interests, and aspirations of Canadian society writ large. To be sure, these two focal points – artists and Canadians – are not mutually exclusive, but the Council must strike a balance between serving the needs of artists and serving the needs of society. If not, it risks being perceived as parochial and co-opted at best, and irrelevant and unnecessary at worst. This is not an easy balance to achieve. But the Council’s relevance – some would say its very existence

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

– depends on it. If Canadians, and by extension governments, don’t see the Council’s work as relevant, federal budget time may become a very unhappy time for the organization. But the challenge doesn’t end there. As described in greater detail below, in addition to serving the artistic community and Canadian society writ large, the Council must also strike a balance between a number of additional core tensions in its work: between “art for art’s sake” and pursuing broader social and economic aims through the arts, between emerging non-traditional and long-standing established art forms, between leadership and followership, and between autonomy and collaboration with the government of the day and other public bodies. The balance points it has opted for on these fronts over the last sixty years are the subject of this book. They vividly reflect how the organization has defined its relevance over time in response to changing political, economic, technological, and demographic concerns. Looking forward, the Council faces a progressively more complex and demanding environment. In an era of fiscal prudence, the default position for government intervention is “no intervention.” Building “the case” for government support for the arts is an ongoing priority at the Council. For good or ill, the days of thinking that governments should support “art for art’s sake” are in the past. Likewise, focusing on “grants for grants’ sake” – no matter how efficient and professional the process – is no longer a compelling rationale justifying the existence of an arts council, if it ever was. This is not to say the Council has viewed its role in such reductionist narrow terms, but rather that there is an ever-increasing emphasis – as there is in all policy sectors – on clearly, rigorously, and persuasively stating the rationale for government support for the arts. Moreover, politicians, senior bureaucrats, and the general public look increasingly to impact and outcomes. It’s no longer sufficient to say, “We supported X thousands of artists and arts organizations with grants totalling X million dollars.” Today, laser-like focus zeros in on impact. What impact do grants have, not only for artists and arts organizations, but for society writ large? In this context, the Canada Council cannot afford to see artists and arts organizations as the main “clientele” that it “serves.” While the organization is deeply rooted across the country in its relationships with artistic communities, the ultimate “client,” as it were, is the Canadian public. Stated bluntly, the Canada Council must have a persuasive answer to the question, “What have you done for Canadian society lately?” While the arts touch Canadians

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Introduction

directly, as they have always done, and contribute to quality of life, Canadian identity, community participation, Canadian culture, and more, the need to make the value of that contribution explicit, self-evident, and measurable has grown in importance. At the same time, as noted above, the artistic milieu is dynamic and rapidly changing, with new art forms and artistic organizations emerging on a constant basis. Requests for funding are burgeoning, and they increasingly cross disciplinary lines, propose activities not contemplated by granting programs, and seek support for organizations with unconventional governance models. The number of square pegs that fit awkwardly or not at all into the round holes of the Council’s traditionally discipline-based programming has been on the rise. Against this backdrop, the Canada Council has undertaken the largest policy and program transformation in its history. Leading the charge is Director and ceo Simon Brault, the dynamic, indefatigable founding member and former chair of Culture Montréal, who spent over thirty years at the National Theatre School, the last two decades as general director and ceo. Brault embraces social media (he has over six thousand followers on Twitter and tweets at all hours) and wrote a veritable treatise on the importance of culture and the arts to society in his critically acclaimed book Le Facteur C: L’avenir passe par la culture.6 In its “New Funding Model,” announced in 2015, the Council is collapsing over one hundred and forty discipline-based programs into six thematic non-discipline-specific programs (e.g., artistic creation, touring, community engagement, and so on). As with all change, this reframing of the Council’s activities bears risks. In expanding its focus from artists and arts organizations to Canadian society as a whole, the organization exposes itself to the charge that it’s instrumentalizing the arts to pursue other policy objectives – national identity and social aims at best, propaganda and social engineering at worst. Striking the right balance will be difficult but essential. The transformation also raises the spectre of imperilling the organization’s traditional focus on artistic excellence. Will broadening the purview of impact to include not only impact on artists and Canadian art, but on Canadians and Canadian society, be undertaken at the expense of artistic excellence? Will modifying programs to make them more open to Indigenous and non-traditional, non-Western, non-discipline-based art forms reframe excellence in ways that compromise understandings of excellence in the established disciplines? Will the Council’s transformation jeopardize its historically close

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

relationships with artists and arts organizations across the country on the one hand, and its autonomy as an arm’s length Crown corporation on the other? These questions – and many more – consume Council leaders, observers, practitioners, artists, and arts professionals alike. They are also the key preoccupations that have accompanied the Council throughout its history.

Five Enduring Tensions at the Heart of the Canada Council’s History

Five core tensions animate the Council’s work. First, as noted above, is the tension between “art for art’s sake” and pursuing broader social and economic aims through the arts. In a democracy, artists must have creative freedom. This is one of the primary reasons the Canada Council was established at arm’s length from government: to ensure that partisan political criteria don’t usurp artistic excellence in decision-making. The second and related tension in the Council’s work is that between serving the needs of the artistic community and the needs of Canadian society as a whole. In its early years, the Council’s main focus was on artistic supply: supporting the production of artistic works, along with the cultural infrastructure to develop and showcase them. The same applied to the Council’s early efforts in post-secondary education, where it allocated capital grants to universities and research grants to faculty and students. Given the underdeveloped Canadian artistic and post-secondary landscape in the early postwar period, focusing mainly on the production component of the Council’s mandate was only natural. But as the roots of Canadian production flourished, placing greater emphasis on other components of the mandate – notably promotion and enjoyment – became possible, some would say imperative. Current transformations under way at the Council are inspired by this insight. The third tension is that between established and emerging art forms, practices, and organizational arrangements. For most of its existence, the Council has organized its support programs around “the disciplines” (dance, theatre, music, etc.), with a particular focus on Western genres and art forms and an understanding of “professional” derived from Western European artistic practice: artists dedicated to creation on a full-time basis, trained by “the masters” in “the best” schools, and selected by their “peers” to showcase their work in “the best” venues. While the Council

11

Introduction

continues and will continue to support traditional Western-influenced art forms and artistic practices, over the years it has evolved its funding priorities, programs, and processes in response to emerging trends in the art world(s) and in broader society. This includes, notably, extending funding priorities to non-Western artistic forms, multicultural artists, more female artists, Indigenous artists and artistic practices, media arts, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary arts, and, more recently, to Deaf and disability arts. These changes have rarely, if ever, come easily. They are accompanied by vigorous debates – sometimes hard-fought battles – on aesthetic, ideological, and pecuniary grounds. Does the new practice constitute art? Do the artists meet the definition of “professional”? Is the Council abandoning artistic excellence in favour of political correctness? Conversely, why should the Council privilege white Western European art forms, leaving other art forms to sink or swim on their own? The fourth tension is that between leadership and followership. “Followership” is the flip side of leadership, and refers to following someone or something else’s lead. In the case of the Canada Council, it can refer to looking to artists and arts organizations, to other arts councils at the provincial/territorial levels, or to the government of the day, for direction. The Council is remarkably rooted in the artistic and broader arts policy community in Canada. It has a finger on “the arts pulse” and can be extraordinarily responsive to the needs, interests, concerns, changes, and opportunities in the sector. This vue d’ensemble affords the Council an unparalleled capacity to exercise leadership, whether it be in its funding priorities and approaches, its role vis-à-vis provincial and territorial arts councils or other federal bodies, or its engagement in the international milieu. But leadership also comes with risks. If the Council is out of step with artists and arts organizations, it risks alienating the community it most visibly serves. Likewise, taking a leadership position in the world of federal-provincial-territorial arts bodies leaves it open to the charge that “Ottawa” is trying to call the shots in an area of shared constitutional jurisdiction. Leadership also bears risks for the Council’s relationship with the federal government if it leads in areas in which the government has been reticent or slow to get involved, or is even opposed to government action. On the flip side, too much followership, if it means continuously following the wishes of existing funding recipients, can make the organization slow to change and unduly narrow its focus and aims. At its extreme, the ultimate threat of excessive followership is irrelevance.

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

The final tension is that between organizational autonomy and collaboration with the government of the day and other federal agencies. As a Crown corporation, the Council possesses considerable autonomy – among the highest of any federal agency in the country – and has fought bitterly at times to safeguard its independence from political interference. However, it must be careful not to isolate or distance itself unnecessarily from the broader “federal family” of departments, agencies, boards, and commissions. Governments expect all federal organizations to advance their overarching policy aims. This means striking a balance between collaborating with the government of the day and retaining the autonomy needed to carry out its work in a credible fashion. It also means carefully thinking through how it will interpret that part of its mandate focused on promoting the arts. Does promoting the arts mean advocating on behalf of the arts and the artistic community directly and publicly to the federal government, or instead should it advocate internally through the channels of “quiet diplomacy”? These five tensions – between “art for art’s sake” and broader social and economic aims, between the needs of the artistic community and those of Canadian society as a whole, between established and emerging art forms, between leadership and followership, and between organizational autonomy and collaboration – have been and will remain at the heart of the Council’s core decision imperatives. The balance points it has struck over the years vividly capture leaders’ beliefs about how the organization should focus its work to maximize and demonstrate its relevance. Where it has got the balance wrong, it has swiftly and materially suffered the consequences, be it from the government of the day, the artistic community, or even Council staff. The chapters that follow explore how these tensions have played out over time. The analysis draws on scholarly and grey (non-academic) literature, primary documentation from the Council, news coverage, and extensive interviews with current and former Council leaders and staff, with keen observers of the organization and of cultural policy writ large, and with leaders from the arts community (artists and arts practitioners). The Council’s early years are well documented by leading scholars, practitioners, cultural critics, and authors of the day, who drew on archival materials, published documents, and their personal experiences to “tell the story” of the organization. These include award-winning historian J.L. Granatstein, Council Associate Director Frank Milligan, veteran federal cultural official

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Introduction

Bernard Ostry, inaugural Council Director Albert Trueman (memoirs), iconic author George Woodcock, and arts critic and cultural leader Max Wyman.7 In addition, authors Mailhot and Melançon published a history of the first twenty-five years of the Council.8 Interestingly, this level of scholarly and practitioner attention to the Council (attention that substantially facilitated the research that underpins this book’s analysis of the Council’s first decades), did not carry forward to the same degree in the years that followed. Cultural policy scholarship, and attention to the Canada Council in particular, waned. This book offers a corrective to this tendency, and, as a result, draws extensively on primary documentation and interviews from the 1980s forward. The Council’s history is told through the prism of the five tensions at the core of its existence, and the broad arc from the roots of culture to the power of art over time. Chapters 1 and 2 focus mainly on the first two tensions: between “art for art’s sake” and broader aims, and between the needs of the artistic community and Canadian society as a whole. Chapter 1 explores the early origins of the Council’s unique arts council model, a model that blends the British, American, and French approaches to public investment in the arts. The text focuses on the key milestones and ideas that led to the Council’s creation, mandate, and organizational structure. How did Canada come to have a national arts council that blends the British arm’s length organizational approach, focused on “high culture,” with the American privatefoundation-dominated arts funding model and the French humanist style that includes education?9 How well has this model served the organization in its first sixty years? The chapter explores these questions, paying particular attention to the drivers of key changes to the model over time. Is it the right model for the next sixty years? The book’s conclusion turns to this question, probing what current drivers of change suggest about the appropriateness of the model going forward. Chapter 2 takes a deep dive into how the Council has understood its role over time, notably how leaders have weighed various components of its mandate. The chapter’s overarching focus is on the core theme of this book: the transition at the Canada Council from the main focus in its early years on strengthening the roots of culture by enlarging the supply of, and infrastructure for, Canadian art and scholarship, to an expanded focus that places greater weight on the power of art in society over time. The analysis identifies the factors driving this shift, including the proliferation of artistic

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

content and infrastructure (much of it supported by Canada Council activities in the early years), of arts programs at other federal departments, and of provincial, territorial, and municipal arts councils and arts programming. In its first sixty years, the Council has gone from being virtually the only game in town to becoming one of many players in the arts funding world. This, along with other changes in the arts and politico-economic context, have propelled the shift from the roots of culture to the power of art. While there are merits to this shift, there are also perils and risks that accompany it. The chapter concludes by pointing to some of these challenges, challenges that are addressed more fully in the concluding chapter. The third chapter zeros in on the third and fourth tensions, examining leadership and followership at the Council when it comes to the changing face(s) of art: from the original core disciplines covered by Council funding to the proactive inclusion of artists of colour, Indigenous art, media arts, and multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and inter-arts. The expansion of Council programming into each of these areas is a fascinating story of forward-looking leadership and destabilizing change, often marked by vigorous debate and uneasy-but-healthy tension. These tensions are a microcosm of dialogues in the broader art world(s) and society over changing definitions of art and artistic practices, societal norms, and culture. They comprise aesthetic, ideological, and pecuniary dimensions. Striking the right balance points has never been an easy proposition, and is unlikely to get any easier in the future. Chapter 4 also focuses on leadership and followership, but from the perspective of the Canada Council as a Crown corporation, navigating the tension between autonomy and collaboration in the political and bureaucratic spheres. It is often said the Council has been blessed with the right leadership at the right time:10 Council chairs and ceos who stayed the course when the course needed staying, charted new ground when the time was ripe, and stood their ground with the government, parliamentarians, and the artistic community when it was called for. In its first sixty years, the Council has had to adapt to changing budgets – sometimes dramatically reduced budgets – as governments’ fiscal and policy priorities changed. It has gone from relying exclusively on its initial endowment to relying almost exclusively on parliamentary appropriations. It has had to adapt to an administrative context that increasingly focuses on accountability, continuous auditing, and value-for-money, while all the while retaining

15

Introduction

its status as an arm’s length agency. It has also had to defend granting decisions in the face of critiques from parliamentarians, the artistic community, and the general public. Is the Council too close or too far from the government for comfort? The answer to this question depends on when it is asked, of whom it is asked, and on what basis it is asked (too close or too far with respect to what?) Chapter 5 returns to the first two tensions in the light of current transformations under way at Council. As the organization has enlarged its focus from the roots of culture to the power of art, it has developed a bold new objective: acquiring “a seat at the table” in debates, dialogue, and decision-making for political and policy issues beyond the arts. The Council has a unique perspective, experience, and expertise in Canadian governance. Not only is it a microcosm of the pan-Canadian arts community (the only microcosm that transcends provincial and territorial arts communities), it is a microcosm of Canadian society, politics, and values writ large, like a “bellwether,” capable of seeing new issues, challenges, and trends as they emerge – often before they hit national political and policy agendas. This positions it uniquely to contribute to debate and dialogue on issues of the day. The vigil at Âjagemô in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks described below embodies this new philosophy. New programming to support the process of reconciliation between Canada’s Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations does as well. The Council has also consciously taken stock in recent years of the full scope of its activities beyond arts grantmaking to build synergies between its various activities. This includes its work in education, research, and diplomacy via the Canadian Commission for unesco, the Killam Program for scholarly research, the Governor General’s Awards in Arts, and the Public Lending Right (plr) Program and Commission. The concluding chapter looks forward, assessing the key challenges and opportunities for the Canada Council for the Arts in the years to come.

From the Roots of Culture to the Power of Art: A Vivid Illustration

On 13 November 2015, the world was horrified as news of multiple terrorist attacks emerged from Paris. Parisians, many of them in their youth, were gunned down in brazen, cold-blooded attacks at a jam-packed concert at popular venue the Bataclan and at restaurants and cafés throughout the

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

city. Suicide bombers struck just outside the Stade de France, where a soccer game between France and Germany, attended by some eighty-thousand people, including French President François Hollande, was under way. As the shocking extent of the attacks became clear, as more and more gutwrenching photographs, video footage and live interviews, Facebook posts and tweets of the assaults hit the news and Internet, and as the death toll mounted, people the world over were shaken to their core. That ordinary people – families, friends, teenagers, lovers – enjoying themselves on a Friday night could be the target of such vicious attacks was unthinkable. One hundred and thirty people were killed and more than three hundred and fifty were wounded in the deadliest attack on France since the Second World War. The outpouring of sympathy was immediate and immense, with millions of messages of solidarity, comfort, and condolence rolling in from across the globe. People felt the need to gather to grieve, share, commemorate, and pay their respects to those affected by the attacks. Senior leaders at the Canada Council were no exception. What was exceptional was what they chose to do about it. Working swiftly over the weekend – Council offices were closed, staff were at home with their families – the Council organized a vigil to be held Monday morning at Âjagemô. They reached out to Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, who had been appointed less than ten days earlier by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, newly elected less than a month before. That senior Council leaders were able to pull this off in logistical and political terms is astounding: they organized the vigil in less than forty-eight hours, secured the attendance of a minister – and a brand new one at that – on remarkably short notice, and wrote an eloquent, heartfelt, moving speech for Simon Brault, director and ceo, to deliver at the event. The vigil, attended by some three hundred people, is a vivid illustration of the Council’s desire to use the power of art for the benefit of society. Brault spoke of the importance of freedom of expression, of unity, and of not surrendering to fear. This was not a speech about the arts, but about values, culture, and peace – concepts all foundational to and inherent in the arts. While the idea of an arts council holding a vigil for a terrorist attack might seem incongruous, if viewed through the lens of creative expression as a fundamental value underpinning democratic society, the connection becomes clear. The new government drew this connection: in her remarks, Minister Joly affirmed the government’s commitment to bringing Syrian

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Introduction

refugees to Canada11 and underscored that Canada is an inclusive society that would welcome the newcomers. zxzxz

Forging a connection between the arts and contemporary social and political issues marks an important shift in the Council’s focus over the last sixty years: the movement from emphasizing artistic supply – cultivating the roots of culture in artistic and organizational terms – to an expanded focus that draws on the power of art to ameliorate and contribute to policy, society, and the economy writ large. This includes contributing to debate and dialogue about leading issues of the day and fostering closer connections between the arts and related policy fields (health, education and research, or reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous peoples, to name a few). This book traces this important evolution in the Council’s view of itself and of its activities, exploring why the organization has evolved in this fashion, what it means for its activities and salience, and the critiques and vulnerabilities it exposes itself to in the process. The first sixty years of the Council’s existence have been marked by the shift from the roots of culture to the power of art. What will define the next sixty?

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The Roots of Culture, the Power of Art

1 The Canada Council’s Origin Story How Did This Distinctive Arts Council Model Come to Be? Has It Stood the Test of Time?

Our main object in recommending the establishment of the Canada council is to provide some assistance to universities, to the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as to students in those fields without attempting in any way to control their activities or to tamper with their freedom … I trust that our intention that the council shall be largely independent and shall have a wide measure of autonomy will be made clear by the methods which are proposed for financing its work. Prime Minister Louis St Laurent Speech to the House of Commons Announcing the Canada Council’s creation 18 January 1957

So proclaimed Prime Minister Louis St Laurent in a passionate speech to the House of Commons on 18 January 1957 as he tabled legislation creating the Canada Council. That St Laurent would deliver such a rousing set of remarks likely struck some as ironic: Prime Minister St Laurent, like his predecessor, William Lyon Mackenzie King, before him, was not keen on the idea of federal support for the arts. He needed some convincing. The arts community had been calling for an arts council since the early 1940s, and even though creating such a body was among the primary recommendations of the 1949–51 Royal Commission on National

Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (the Massey-Lévesque Commission1 ), St Laurent acted on the recommendation only in 1957, thanks mainly to a windfall of one hundred million dollars in succession duties on the estates of two wealthy businessmen. Flush with a large, unanticipated influx of cash and concerned about the increasingly dire financial situation of Canadian universities, St Laurent was finally moved by those in and around his inner circle who were imploring him to create a federal body to support the arts and scholarship. In so doing, the federal government created an arts council model unique the world over: fifty million of the hundred million dollars was dedicated to an endowment, the proceeds of which would support funding to the arts and post-secondary research, and the remaining fifty million would be spent over a period of ten years on capital infrastructure for universities. The model is an administrative hybrid of the arm’s length British public arts council approach and the American private foundation endowment-based style of arts funding. The Canada Council is also unique in its mandate, resembling the French humanist attitude toward the arts that includes related areas such as education, science, and culture. At its inception, not only did the Council fund scholarly research in the humanities and social sciences alongside the arts, it housed the Canadian Commission for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (unesco). While scholarly funding was hived off from the Council in 1977 with creation of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc), the Canadian Commission for unesco still operates under the aegis of the Council, another made-in-Canada administrative arrangement: other national commissions for unesco operate mainly under the auspices of ministries of education or foreign affairs. How did this distinctive arts council model come to be? This chapter answers this question, focusing on the key milestones, initiatives, people, and ideas that led to the Canada Council’s creation, mandate, and organizational structure. It is a fascinating story of how the burgeoning desire for self-determination of a nascent artistic community ultimately found fertile ground in an early postwar political climate rife with concern over the dangers of communism and state propaganda on the one hand, and ripe with the promise of building the intellectual and artistic infrastructure of a fledgling nation on the other. The chapter then turns to how well the model has stood the test of time. Prima facie, one could say that it has. With few exceptions, the Council’s

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mandate and organizational arrangements are identical to what they were at their origins. The hybrid nature of Canada’s approach to federal arts funding arguably takes the best from the British, French, and American funding arrangements: the arm’s length principle from the British to protect against political interference in the arts; a more anthropological conception of the arts from the French, empowering the Council to engage in areas beyond the arts; and the perpetuity and stability of foundation-style endowment funding from the United States. This made-in-Canada model enables the organization to be flexible, responsive, and proactive, adapting to and navigating its ever-changing artistic, political, economic, technological, and social environments. That said, there have been changes to the model over the years, notably the addition of annual budgetary appropriations in 1965, and the hiving off of virtually all grants for social sciences and humanities research in 1977. Annual appropriations were initially meant to supplement funds from the endowment, but over time came to represent the lion’s share of Council revenues. As for eliminating post-secondary grants from the organization’s mandate, calls for the creation of a separate federal body to support social sciences and humanities research grew within a few short years of the Council’s creation, and the potential benefits of a holistic approach to federal support for the arts and social sciences/humanities was overtaken by competition – real and perceived – for funding and attention between the two fields. There have also been demands for change, including from the province of Quebec, which has advocated for devolution of federal arts funding to the province. Such calls have not gained traction, however: successive Council leaders and federal governments remain committed to the idea that Canada needs an arm’s length arts funding body at the federal level.

The Long Road to the Canada Council Canadian Artists Unite: The Kingston Conference

The date was 26 June 1941: Germany was invading the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom would soon enter a military alliance with the Soviets, and tensions were rising rapidly in the Pacific. So why was a large group of visual artists meeting in Kingston at Queen’s University? What drove

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1.1 The 1941 Kingston Conference, organized by painter André Biéler, was attended by leading Canadian artists of the day, including Walter Abell, Jean-Paul Lemieux, Jack Shadbolt, and members of the Group of Seven. The conference marked the beginnings of a collective voice for Canadian artists.

prominent US artists like American Scene painter Thomas Hart Benton to make the trek from Kansas City, Missouri, all the way to distant Canada to discuss the technical aspects of mural painting and the role of the artist in society? And why did the Carnegie Corporation, an American foundation, bankroll the affair? The antecedents of this meeting stretch back decades. American foundations, principally Rockefeller and Carnegie, had supported artistic, scholarly, and cultural activity in Canada since the turn of the century. Rockefeller supported film, humanities research, drama, and writing, and a full one hundred and twenty-five Carnegie libraries were built in Canada, mainly in Ontario.2 Both foundations also provided generous grants to universities across the country.3 Homegrown support for the arts and scholarship did exist, but American largesse went a long way to nourishing nascent cultural development – as the Massey-Lévesque Commission was to detail with concern in its extensive research program a decade on. The aim of the Kingston gathering, organized by Queen’s University professor and artist André Biéler, was to learn about the technical aspects of mural painting – hence the involvement of Thomas Hart Benton, whose evocative murals of everyday American life shone new light on the real

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lives of working-class people – to discuss the role of the artist in society and in the war effort, and to enable artists from across the country to exchange ideas and views.4 The event brought together some one hundred and fifty artists, educators, curators, and critics for the first time, including British Columbia’s Jack Shadbolt, Quebec’s Jean-Paul Lemieux, members of the Group of Seven, and Nova Scotia’s Walter Abell. The reactions of artists to the formal program were mixed, but there was no doubt that the Kingston Conference marked the beginnings of a collective voice for Canadian artists, a voice that was used first and foremost to call on the federal government for public support for the arts. The group recommended the government create a war art program, enhance arts education and Canadian art exhibits, and conduct research on salient arts issues, including the economic status of the artist.5 Most importantly, the meeting resulted in the creation of the Federation of Canadian Artists, an unprecedented alliance of arts communities from across the country with the mandate “to unite all Canadian artists, related art workers and interested laymen for mutual support in promoting common aims: the chief of these is to make the arts a creative factor in the national life of Canada and the artists an integral part of society.”6 With ongoing support from the Carnegie Corporation, the federation established a small secretariat and budget to advocate for government arts funding in Canada. But early advocacy, while pivotal in marking the creation of the first national arts advocacy group, did not bear fruit. The federal government’s attention was focused squarely on the war, and funding for the arts was far from mind. Momentum Builds: Postwar Reconstruction, Cultural Nationalism, and the March on Ottawa

It wasn’t until the end of the war drew near and the government turned its attention to postwar reconstruction that the Federation of Canadian Artists began to get traction. In 1942, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s government established the House of Commons Special Committee on Reconstruction and Reestablishment (the Turgeon Committee) to study and make recommendations about how to rebuild the Canadian economy and society at the war’s conclusion. The federation saw in the Turgeon Committee a golden opportunity to make its case. In alliance with fifteen other arts groups, the fca spearheaded a strategy meeting in Toronto,

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which was attended by some fifty prominent artists. The group brought their collective brief to the committee on 21 June 1944, in what was famously dubbed “the March on Ottawa” (in reality, as author and veteran senior federal cultural official Bernard Ostry points out, there was no literal “march” on Ottawa, but rather, a small delegation from Toronto arriving by bus).7 The moment, nonetheless, was a pivotal one in the artistic community’s early advocacy efforts: artists developed a well-coordinated, carefully articulated, widely supported, and vocal position advocating for federal financial support for the arts. The group’s brief underscored the important role the arts could play in advancing Canada’s international image and citizens’ quality of life, and recommended the government create a national arts funding body, establish a network of community arts centres across the country, and promote Canadian art abroad. The presentation was warmly received by committee members, and, in its 1944 final report, the Turgeon Committee endorsed the artists’ recommendations. But the government did not act on the advice. Despite government inaction, recognition that Canada did not have the domestic cultural, artistic, or scholarly infrastructure befitting its status as an increasingly independent and prominent country was progressively taking hold. Going back as far as the turn of the century and in the years following the First World War, a growing intellectual and cultural elite comprised of academics, senior government officials, and prominent opinion leaders was building the organizational and conceptual infrastructure for domestic cultural and intellectual development that would take hold decades later with creation of the Canada Council. This included creation of various national voluntary associations, such as the Association of Canadian Clubs (1903) and the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (1928), and the active involvement of learned societies like the Royal Society of Canada (1883) and the Canadian Political Science Association (1912). In keeping with the times, this group was “mostly male, mostly white and mostly middle class,”8 but it included many individuals who would go on to become key figures in the origin story of the Canada Council: Jack Pickersgill, a senior adviser to Prime Minister King, who became a cabinet member in Louis St Laurent’s government; Brooke Claxton, a lawyer who became minister of defence in the King government; Vincent Massey, who was appointed Canada’s High Commissioner to Great Britain and ultimately Canada’s first Canadian-born governor general; Norman MacKenzie, an academic who became president of the University of British

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Columbia; Hilda Neatby, history professor at the University of Saskatchewan; and Georges-Henri Lévesque, founding dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Laval University. The last four individuals were appointed to the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, which recommended the creation of the Canada Council, and the first two would be pivotal in the government’s eventual decision to create both the royal commission and, ultimately, the Council. Claxton would go on to become the Council’s first chair. Artists decried the challenges they faced in pursuing their craft in Canada. Author Hugh MacLennan spoke of the “colonial mentality” pervading writing and publishing in the 1940s, a mentality that viewed books published only in Canada as “automatically inferior.”9 Author George Woodcock lamented the “barren ground” inhabited by Canadian authors in the 1940s: the arts were “considered oddities, to be tolerated perhaps, but hardly admired,” by “practically-minded pioneers.”10 The end of the Second World War began to change that. Canada emerged from the war a key participant in the Allied Forces’ victory and, compared to war-torn Europe, was in good domestic shape. Canada’s pivotal contribution to the war effort did not go unnoticed by Canadians: there were the beginnings of barrel-chested pride in the country.11 But despite the gradual emergence of intellectual and cultural nationalism, it wasn’t until 1949 that the federal government turned its attention in earnest to domestic arts and scholarship. Prime Minister King was unmoved by the passion and vigour of those imploring him in the early postwar years to fund the arts or to create a royal commission to study the state of the arts and scholarship in the country. Claxton, by then minister of national defence, Pickersgill, then senior advisor to the prime minister, and Lester B. Pearson, who became minister of foreign affairs in 1948, all beseeched the prime minister to strike a royal commission, but to no avail. Even Vincent Massey, by that time back in Canada following his time as High Commissioner in London, was unable to persuade King, who reportedly referred to the idea of a royal commission as “ridiculous.”12 Traction at Last: The Massey-Lévesque Commission

It wasn’t until Louis St Laurent became leader of the Liberal Party, replacing King as prime minister, that the idea took hold. The efforts of Claxton, Massey, Pearson, and Pickersgill finally paid off. St Laurent struck the

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1.2 The Right Honourable William Lyon Mackenzie King (right) congratulates Louis St Laurent and his wife, Jeanne, on St Laurent’s election as leader of the Liberal Party in August 1948. St Laurent was elected prime minister on 15 November 1948 and would go on to strike the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences, which recommended creating a federal council to support the arts, international cultural relations, and scholarship.

Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences in 1949 with a mandate to study and craft recommendations on a variety of arts, cultural, and scholarly topics: federal broadcasting policy; federal support for research; the governance and funding of national cultural institutions like the National Film Board, the Library of Canada, and national museums; Canada’s relations with unesco; and the federal government’s relations with national voluntary organizations. The preamble of the order-in-council establishing the commission reflected the nationalist mood of the time, stating “[t]hat it is desirable that the Canadian people should know as much as possible about their country, its history and traditions; and about their national life and

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common achievements; [and] that it is in the national interest to give encouragement to institutions which express national feeling, promote common understanding and add to the variety and richness of Canadian life, rural as well as urban.”13 Of note, the factors prompting St Laurent to strike the commission were less related to the arts than they were to his concerns about broadcasting, for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was in dire financial straits, and about universities, which were headed for major revenue shortfalls as enrolments increased and postwar tuition funding for veterans wound down. This was evident not only in the mandate of the royal commission – which did not explicitly mention the arts or the possible creation of a federal arts funding body – but also in commission appointments. Of the five commissioners, not one was a prominent artist or formal arts expert. Vincent Massey was chancellor of the University of Toronto, and while he had a strong personal interest and experience in the arts, was not a professional artist or arts scholar. Father Georges-Henri Lévesque, Norman MacKenzie, and Hilda Neatby were academics, and Arthur Surveyor was a civil engineer from Montreal. As Woodcock tells it, St Laurent’s primary interest was in the educational component of the commission’s mandate, in particular, how the federal government could intervene in education without “causing trouble” with the provinces, given their constitutional jurisdiction over education.14 That the commission would come forward to boldly recommend the creation of a federal arts council was likely a surprise to St Laurent – but not to Claxton and the others. They knew the prime minister wasn’t keen on federal funding for the arts, so avoided addressing the issue explicitly in the commission’s mandate.15 The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences undertook the most comprehensive study of the arts, letters, and sciences in Canadian history. The group commissioned forty research studies, held public hearings in sixteen major cities across the country, and reviewed over four hundred and fifty written briefs from groups ranging from the Canadian Arts Council (a newly formed advocacy group knitting together the arts organizations that wrote the Turgeon Committee brief) to the National Conference of Canadian Universities, to the Canadian Library Association. The commission’s 1951 report constituted a watershed in Canadian arts, education, and cultural history: it included a comprehensive analysis of the state of the arts and scholarship in the country, along with detailed

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1.3 Members of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences (the Massey-Lévesque Commission), who recommended the federal government create a Canada Council for the Encouragement of the Arts, Letters, Humanities, and Social Sciences. From left to right: Arthur Surveyor, Father Georges-Henri Lévesque (standing), Hilda Neatby (standing), Vincent Massey (centre), and Norman MacKenzie, 1951.

recommendations for federal government policy and administration in these fields. Its research documented the relative paucity of artistic and cultural development across Canada, along with the considerable extent to which cultural and intellectual activity and infrastructure were supported and influenced by the United States. The commissioners underscored the importance of artistic, cultural, and intellectual production and infrastructure to civilization: “If we as a nation are concerned with the problem of defence, what, we may ask ourselves, are we defending? We are defending civilization, our share of it, our contribution to it. The things with which our inquiry deals are the elements that give civilization its character and its meaning. It would be paradoxical to defend something which we are unwilling to strengthen and enrich, and which we even allow to decline.”16 The commissioners very clearly had

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the role of the arts in a democratic civilization in mind. Looking to Britain, they observed, “state intervention in Great Britain … has left the artist and the writer free and unhampered. British Governments have paid heed to Lord Melbourne’s dictum, ‘God help the minister who meddles in art.’”17 The commission’s most enduring and influential recommendations centred on the need for federal funding to foster the arts, culture, and scholarship, including the creation of a federal body to support these endeavours. The Massey-Lévesque report paid special attention to the administrative arrangements underpinning federal funding to the arts, and looked to Great Britain, where funding decisions were placed at arm’s length from politicians in the independent Arts Council of Great Britain (acgb).18 The commissioners wrote, “In studying the work and the activities of the Arts Council of Great Britain we have noticed with particular interest the Council’s awareness of the dangers inherent in any system of subvention by the central government to the arts.”19 The commission cited the chair of the acgb, who stated on this point, “We administer a Treasury grant; but we act independently … State support for the Arts without State control.”20 The commission paid substantial attention to the council’s mandate. Should Canada adopt an approach with funding for the arts in one body (as was the case in Great Britain), funding to the humanities and social sciences in another body (as was the case for the natural sciences and engineering in Canada at that time through grants distributed by the National Research Council), and international cultural relations, including relations with unesco, in yet another?21 The royal commission report made clear that these various activities were closely related and could benefit in administrative and substantive terms from being carried out by a single entity. Speaking to the proposed council’s role in the humanities and social sciences, the commissioners stated, “[w]e think that the very important responsibility of encouraging these studies … can best be carried out by an organization which will be obliged by its other responsibilities to keep in the closest touch with cultural affairs at home and abroad, and with universities.”22 They therefore recommended, “That a body be created to be known as the Canada Council for the Encouragement of the Arts, Letters, Humanities and Social Sciences to stimulate and to help voluntary organizations within these fields, to foster Canada’s cultural relations abroad, to perform the functions of a national commission for UNESCO , and to devise and administer a system of scholarships.”23

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Post-Massey-Lévesque: Patience, Perseverance, and Serendipity

But, as mentioned, the government did not act immediately on the recommendation. St Laurent was still cool to the idea of federal funding for the arts. In reply to Claxton’s advice to create a royal commission, he stated that government should not be “subsidizing ‘ballet dancing.’”24 He was also averse to stoking further conflict with Quebec, where the autonomous Duplessis government was ever wary of federal intrusion. But the core supporters of the idea – chiefly Claxton, Massey, and Pickersgill – had worked hard to get this far, and weren’t easily dissuaded. Massey would continue to press for creation of the Council, but less publicly once he was appointed governor general in 1952.25 The others went about recruiting new supporters in key posts, including John Deutsch, secretary of the Treasury Board, and Maurice Lamontagne, economic advisor at the Privy Council Office, who later became responsible for the Canada Council when he was appointed secretary of state.26 Despite the group’s efforts, a full five years passed before St Laurent finally agreed to create the Council – and, even then, the impetus was less about the arts and more about education, and success was only made possible by an unanticipated influx of revenues to the government. In the mid-1950s, Sir James Hamet Dunn and Izaak Walton Killam, two wealthy East Coast industrialists, passed away in short succession (in 1955 and 1956, respectively). The death duties owed to the government on their estates amounted to a whopping one hundred million dollars, the equivalent of close to one billion dollars sixty years on.27 As historian Jack Granatstein tells it, Deutsch and Pickersgill (the latter had by then become minister of citizenship and immigration) hatched the financial plan that paved the way for the Council’s creation on a leisurely stroll into the office.28 Rather than have the duties flow into general government revenues, the men thought, why not use them to create the Canada Council? Half could go to universities’ urgent capital requirements and the other half could be used to create an endowment, the proceeds of which would support the arts and scholarship in the social sciences and humanities. They ran the idea past Lamontagne, who, as luck would have it, was working on a speech the prime minister was to give to the National Conference of Canadian Universities. The prime minister was unsure of what he wanted to say in the address. Creation of the Canada Council was just the ticket – not only for the prime minister, who was sympathetic to universities’ plight

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1.4 Brooke Claxton, one of the leading figures who pushed for creation of the Canada Council when he was minister in both the King and St Laurent governments. Claxton would go on to be appointed inaugural chair of the Council.

1.5 Jack Pickersgill, another key figure in the Canada Council’s origin story, first as senior advisor to Prime Ministers King and St Laurent, and then as cabinet minister in the St Laurent government. With John Deutsch, secretary of the Treasury Board under St Laurent, he would hatch the plan to create the Council, using succession duties on the estates of Sir James Hamet Dunn and Izaak Walton Killam.

and knew the announcement would receive the warmest of welcomes, but also for those who had been pushing hard and long for the council’s establishment. And with this clever bit of choreography, council devotees finally won the pm’s support. The legislation establishing the Council was presented by St Laurent himself to the House of Commons on 18 January 1957. The prime minister delivered an impassioned speech that spoke to the need, rationale, and widespread support for creation of a Canada Council for encouragement of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. He noted, “[u]p to the present time

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1.6 John Deutsch, a pivotal player, who urged the St Laurent government to create the Canada Council when he was secretary of the Treasury Board.

1.7 Maurice Lamontagne was a lynchpin in the St Laurent government’s decision to establish the Canada Council. As economic advisor in the Privy Council Office, he knew the prime minister would be keen to announce creation of the Council in a speech he was making to the National Conference of Canadian Universities.

relatively little has been done in Canada in the form of financial contributions from governments or from munificent individuals for the encouragement of the arts, humanities and social sciences. Without minimizing the active interest of a few individuals and the assistance of private foundations, it must be recognized that up to the present time the main source of such encouragement in Canada has come from other countries.”29 Clearly he meant the United States. The link between the new Council’s work and the question of peace was also high on his mind: “the more we can be made to realize the importance of intellectual brotherhood the more apt we are to conclude that conflicts

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between nations are really unnecessary.”30 To St Laurent, that government should support – but not control – arts and scholarship was paramount: “Governments should, I feel, support the cultural development of the nation and not attempt to control it.”31 The legislation gave the Council a broad mandate: “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.”32 This included, inter alia, the provision of grants, scholarships, and loans to individuals or groups; support for exhibitions, publications, and representations of art and scholarly works; collaboration with like-minded organizations; and exchanges with other countries. In this way, the government responded quite directly to the Massey-Lévesque Commission’s recommendations: it created an agency responsible for funding the arts and scholarship in the humanities and social sciences, and for Canada’s cultural relations abroad. The Canada Council Act also provided for the creation of a capital grants fund to support infrastructure spending in universities and stipulated that the government could assign responsibilities related to unesco to the Council. This latter provision departed from the royal commission’s recommendations, which were unambiguous on this point. However, as discussed in the next chapter, the Canadian Commission for unesco was duly created at the Council – but as a highly autonomous entity, rather than a function fully integrated into the organization’s management structure and activities. Administratively, the legislation established the endowment as Pickersgill and Deutsch had planned it, and firmly established the Council at arm’s length from the government. While its annual reports would be reviewed by the Auditor General of Canada, it was not created as an agency of the Crown and would have substantial independence in its activities. As St Laurent put it, “Our wish is that the Canada council should be a body as free from state control as it is prudent for anybody entrusted with public funds to be … [it] will be solely responsible to parliament for utilizing the funds at its disposal in such a way that the maximum benefit to the country as a whole will result.”33 With its endowment and arm’s length status, as Granatstein aptly sums it up, the Council “was in some ways a public agency and, in others, a private foundation – it was a distinctively Canadian hybrid.”34 And so, at long last, began the life of the Canada Council some sixty years ago. But has the model stood the test of time?

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1.8 Canada Council director and CEO Robert Sirman (2006–2014) spent much of his final three years at Council overseeing the design of the organization’s new offices and public spaces. Sirman, featured here in the building’s atrium in front of the interactive video tower, considers it one of his lasting legacies.

Has the Model Stood the Test of Time? The First Sixty Years

“What would Massey see today?” asked Canada Council Director and ceo Robert Sirman (2006–14) at the 2014 annual Walter Gordon Symposium on Public Policy at the University of Toronto’s Massey College. The event celebrated the legacy of the college’s founder, Vincent Massey – the same Vincent Massey who was such a pivotal figure in the Council’s creation story – who had established the institution fifty years earlier, in 1964. Symposium attendees – artists, arts practitioners, government representatives, academics, and Massey College fellows and students – filled the august Upper Library to the brim, packed almost as tightly shoulder-toshoulder as the thousands of volumes lining the wooden bookshelves circling the room. The setting was an auspicious one in which to pose the question: at Massey College one cannot help but be filled with a sense of

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history, of bygone eras, of long-standing cultural traditions, and of Canada’s deep historic ties with Britain. The college’s neo-Gothic and Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired architecture, with its deep-grained wood flooring, ceilings, and accents, its iron-spot brick exterior and interior walls and limestoneclad columns, its majestic wood-burning fireplace in the Common Room, and row upon row of long, sturdy wooden dining tables in the medieval high-ceilinged Great Hall, all speak to history and to the present’s tangible and intangible connections to the past.35 Sirman’s speech offered a wide-ranging and creative treatment of the Massey-Lévesque Commission’s extensive research and recommendations, asking “What would Massey see today?” if he surveyed how the arts had developed in Canada since the commission’s 1951 final report.36 Sirman felt that Massey would lament the demise of the Canadian Conference of the Arts (the successor arts advocacy organization to the Canadian Arts Council), the weakened capacity of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the extent to which economic imperatives dominate – rather than seek a balance with – social and cultural development. He thought Massey would be elated to see the explosion of artistic, cultural, and scholarly activity in Canada over the years, along with “political acceptance of the arm’s length principle.”37 The speech did not explicitly address what Massey might have thought of the evolution of the Canada Council – this was not the topic of the symposium after all – but as Massey was one of the primary architects of the Council, it would be fascinating to know. Would he lament the separation of grants to the arts from those for social sciences and humanities with the creation of sshrc in 1977? Would he be concerned that annual parliamentary appropriations, rather than proceeds from the endowment, became the bulk of the Council’s budget? While it is impossible to know what Massey’s views would have been, he would likely have lamented the narrowing of the Council’s mandate, but he might not have despaired at the evolution of the organization’s funding arrangements – as long as the arm’s length principle was respected. After all, the Massey-Lévesque Commission did not recommend creating an endowment for the Council, but rather proposed direct government funding to an (arm’s length) organization, following the British approach. The endowment was a twist of fate, and the use of it a skilful political play by Pickersgill and Deutsch to secure the pm’s support, more than it was an institutional design feature required for the organization to fulfill its mandate effectively and with credibility.

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Annual Appropriations: “So Much to Do, So Little Time, Not Too Much Money”

So said the Council in the introduction to its second annual report: After two years of service to Canadian Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, the Canada Council is in a position to confirm the truth of the old Latin tag, “ars longa, vita brevis.” So much to do, so little time to do it – and to these reflections may be added “not too much money to do it with.” This is not to say that the Endowment Fund’s annual income of approximately $2,750,000 is a negligible sum. Far from it! But the needs of Canada as expressed through existing organizations and individuals representing the infinite variety of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences are so great that time, indeed, will not wither them, nor custom stale, nor will $2,750,000 per annum wholly gratify them.38 That the Council would make requests for additional funding was all but a foregone conclusion. The first request was made to the Diefenbaker government in November 1960, just three short years after the organization’s creation.39 Proceeds from the endowment were quickly spoken for by grants to artists, arts organizations, and scholars. Council leaders asked the government to make an additional contribution to the endowment, but the request was denied, given that many millions more dollars would have been needed to generate sufficient proceeds for more grants. It wasn’t until the Pearson Liberals came to power in 1963 that the federal government looked favourably on providing additional resources to the Council. But additional funding to the endowment was not in the cards – this was far in excess of what the government was prepared to commit. Instead, the Council received an annual budget, first as a one-time payment of ten million dollars in March 1964, and then as a recurring parliamentary appropriation, starting in 1965. This marked the beginnings of a shift away from the American foundation-style approach at the Canada Council towards closer alignment with the British arts council model. This shift has progressed over the years to the point that proceeds from the Council’s endowment now comprise but a fraction of overall revenues (5.6 per cent of $194.7 million in 2014–15).40

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Indeed, the Council was never able to substantially grow its endowment with additional contributions. While it administers a number of bequests for specific awards like the Killam Program (discussed in Chapter 4), and while investment committees in the 1980s and beyond grew the endowment by investing a portion of returns back into the fund, significant private contributions to its initial fifty-million-dollar endowment never materialized over the years. This was in part because Council leaders did not want to compete with the arts community for funding from the private sector, foundations, or philanthropists. It was also in part due to the relative weakness of philanthropy in Canada compared to the United States. Canada has never had the philanthropic culture or history that characterize arts funding41 – and funding to many sectors – in the United States. Where Americans trust the market over government and turn to private support for social causes, Canadians put more faith in government and tend to turn to the public sector for support. That said, there has been strong and consistent commitment to the arm’s length principle when it comes to federal government support for artistic and scholarly creation. The first parliamentary appropriations to the Council occasioned no small measure of concern among Council leaders that receiving funding directly from government would erode the organization’s independence. But strings were not forthcoming with those first appropriations, or at least were not tightly constraining. The government did not specify what the new monies should be spent on, nor how the funding should be distributed. And this forbearance has, with few exceptions, marked the approaches of successive governments to Council funding over the years. A number of high-profile controversies between the government and Council over the organization’s independence have erupted – one director even said he was fired over it (see Chapter 4) – but the arm’s length principle has generally been understood, accepted, and respected by the government. On this point, Massey would likely be pleased. Building Silos: The Separation of the Arts from the Humanities and Social Sciences

Massey would likely not have been pleased by the separation of the arts from humanities and social sciences research. Suggestions to separate research funding from the arts emerged in the mid-1960s with the report

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of the Bladen Commission on universities.42 Created by the Canadian Universities Foundation to estimate the future financial needs of universities and ways of meeting them, the report’s recommendations included the creation of a separate body to fund post-secondary research. The government did not act immediately on the proposal, but Prime Minister Pearson signalled that a separation might be in the offing. In March 1965, in his remarks to the House of Commons announcing the ten-million-dollar special contribution to the Council, the prime minister noted, “there have been suggestions that the Canada Council might be divided and a special agency created for the humanities and social sciences. This is a matter which requires the most careful consideration.”43 By the end of the 1960s, the Council had spent down the fifty million dollars in capital funding for universities and, in the first decade of the Council’s operations, the proportion of grant funding allocated to the arts versus post-secondary research was in the order of ten to one. But as university programs and enrolment grew, so did the number of professors and research activity, along with demands on the Council to increase funding to the humanities and social sciences. The Council used its new parliamentary appropriations to address these needs along with those in the arts, and by the early 1970s, funding to the arts and grants for post-secondary research were at similar levels (approximately ten million dollars each annually). But demands on the government to create a separate body to fund the social sciences and humanities continued. The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the main advocacy body for the sector, urged the creation of a separate organization to serve the unique needs and interests of social sciences and humanities scholarship. At the same time, pressures were mounting to establish a separate organization to provide grants to the natural sciences and engineering, which, to that point, were funded by the National Research Council. These calls were ultimately heeded by the Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1968–79), with the creation of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in 1977 to “promote and assist research and scholarship in the social sciences and humanities; and advise the Minister in respect of such matters relating to such research as the Minister may refer to the Council for its consideration.”44 This necessitated a change in the Canada Council Act, which was amended to remove the portions of its mandate dealing with

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support for post-secondary scholarship. Henceforth, the Canada Council would focus its efforts on the arts and arts organizations, and on its work through the Canadian Commission for unesco. This change to the Canada Council model would likely have concerned Massey, whose thinking about federal support for the arts and scholarship saw the two in close alignment. Indeed, this change marked a turn in Canada away from the French humanist approach, with its holistic view of artistic and scholarly activities comprising an integrated field of endeavour, to a siloed approach separating the arts and scholarship into distinct and separate spheres of interest. It should be noted, though, that support for the arts and for the humanities and social sciences, even though they had been under one roof at the outset of the Council’s operations, in the main were managed by Council leaders as separate realms of activity; the creation of sshrc just made it plain for all to see. This administrative – rather than substantive – view of the relationship between the arts and social sciences and humanities research resurfaced in the 1990s, when the government planned to remerge the two organizations for efficiency’s sake. Extensive advocacy against the move defeated the enabling legislation in the Senate, however, as will be described in Chapter 4. All of this said, following the creation of sshrc, the Council would continue to retain – at least in theory if not in practice – a close link with academia and scholarship through the Canadian Commission for unesco and through the Killam and Molson prizes. The retention of the ccu at Council would likely have pleased Massey, as the alignment of support for domestic arts and scholarship, and for Canada’s role internationally through unesco, was integral to the thinking of the Massey-Lévesque Commission. That the ccu has for the most part operated autonomously and with limited interactions within the Council (more on this in Chapter 5), would likely have disappointed Massey, however. Council leaders did not embrace the commission’s holistic view of the organization’s role and activities in domestic and international cultural and scholarly relations. The retention of the Killam and Molson awards at Council, likely due to the exacting legal specifications of their respective endowments (see Chapter 5), are the sole remaining vestiges of grants for scholarly research at the organization. zxzxz

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The Canada Council’s Origin Story

All told, the Canada Council model became more British in its first sixty years: financially, annual appropriations came to define the organization far more than its initial endowment once did; administratively, the arm’s length principle underpins its relationship with the government of the day; and when it comes to its mandate, the Council’s focus has narrowed from its original French-style humanist approach to centre almost exclusively on the arts, as is the case in the United Kingdom. This evolution was propelled in part by the broad sweep of economic, socio-cultural, artistic, and technological change over the last sixty years (more on this in the next chapter). Growing demands for Council funding outstripped the endowment’s capacity to keep pace, and annual appropriations were the most fiscally feasible and expedient way of addressing the challenge. Growth in universities and in social sciences and humanities research generated calls to separate support for scholarly research from grants to the arts. In the absence of a holistic view of the arts and scholarship at Council, though, there were few if any voices to counter these demands. Overall, however, in the Council’s first sixty years, successive federal governments have remained committed to the existence of a pan-Canadian arm’s length body supporting the arts. This is no small feat given the extent of change over the last six decades. Canada’s social, economic, and government fabric transformed in the postwar period, and the Council evolved along with it. While the model became more British, the Council’s mandate has proven remarkably enduring. Successive Council leaders have interpreted this mandate differently over time, however, with the overarching change being a shift in emphasis from building the roots of culture in the early years to fostering the power of art in more recent times. The next chapter traces this shift.

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2 The Past as Prologue From the Roots of Culture to the Power of Art: The Model Evolved but the Mandate Endures

[T]o meet the challenging needs and the opportunities of the country as we see them ahead, the Canada Council is there. It will be best judged by what it accomplishes. I believe that the best things it will do will be to assist people, individuals, to make a better use of their own capacities … because the future of our country in every field, but particularly in this, depends on people. The Canada Council, we hope, will be regarded as a people’s organization, to serve people and to enrich our national life. Brooke Claxton, Inaugural Chair (1957–65) Canada Council for the Arts

I’ve made my career in the field of natural resources. But I’ve always maintained that our most valuable – and renewable – resource is our people and their talent. I would go so far [as] to say that human inspiration is the ultimate resource. In Canada, we can be proud of our rich supply of artistic talent that inspires us and feeds our souls … the Council is undergoing a huge transformation to scale up its impact on the arts … and on the lives of all Canadians. Pierre Lassonde, Chair (2015– ) Canada Council for the Arts

Here are two men, speaking almost exactly sixty years apart, with remarkably similar messages about the importance of people – their inspiration, their capacities, their contributions – to Canada, and the importance of the Canada Council to the country. The first, Brooke Claxton, was inaugural chair of the Council, vice-president and general manager for Canada of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, and one of the indomitable forces pushing tirelessly for creation of a federal arts council many long years ago. He was addressing a joint meeting of the august Empire Club of Canada and the Canadian Club of Toronto in October 1957. The second, Pierre Lassonde, founder of mining royalty enterprise Franco-Nevada Mining Corporation1 and an intrepid cultural philanthropist, was giving his inaugural speech at the Canada Council’s 2016 Annual Public Meeting in Ottawa following his appointment as Council chair in 2015. On the one hand, that the two should highlight the value of people to Canada, and the value of the Canada Council to Canadians’ lives, is unsurprising. The Council’s focus is people after all – supporting artists’ creative expression, funding scholars to conduct research, and facilitating Canadians’ access to the works they produce. And since it is a public agency, organizational leaders like Claxton and Lassonde must par la force des choses underscore the Council’s contribution to the country. On the other hand, it is striking that both articulated the Council’s role and contribution in such similar terms: that people are at the heart of Canada’s success and that the Council contributes to the country and the lives of its citizens in ways that are rooted in the arts, but extend well beyond the arts to individual and national life writ large. Both men also spoke to the importance of the Council’s impact on the arts and on Canada and Canadians. The similarity is all the more striking when considered against the backdrop of the extent of change in society, culture, the economy, and politics over the last six decades. In some ways, Canada would scarcely be recognizable to those who were in their sunset years in the 1950s. The country is more urban, diverse, cosmopolitan, and globally connected than ever before, Quebec nationalism surged and gained traction, multiculturalism became a fact of Canadian life, and the country’s Indigenous peoples have achieved increasing recognition and rights. Citizens no longer trust public and private institutions or defer to authority and expertise the way they once did, and technology is integrated in unprecedented ways in the economy, society, and polity. The landscape of artistic activity and postsecondary research has likewise transformed from what author George

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2.1 Brooke Claxton, inaugural chair of the Canada Council (1957–65).

2.2 Pierre Lassonde, Canada Council chair (2015– ).

Woodcock described as its “barren” origins to a burgeoning ecosystem teeming with artistic and scholarly life. Internationally, economic integration and interdependence intensified, global geopolitics morphed with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and “globalization” became the new normal. At the same time, some things have not changed since 1957 or have reemerged in familiar ways. Canada is still a federal country with a relatively small population scattered across vast geographical – and cultural – distances. It is still a trading nation that relies heavily on exports to the United States, a country with whom it has a long-standing mutually beneficial but fundamentally asymmetrical relationship. And while the early postwar threat of communism faded, it has been replaced by a new threat to democratic values, peace, and security: terrorism and violent extremism. Freedom of expression,

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The Past as Prologue

liberty, respect for difference, and the importance of bulwarks against state control of culture are again top of mind in the early years of the twenty-first century, as they were in the middle years of the twentieth. The last chapter traced the origins of the Council’s unique model in administrative and substantive terms. As seen, the model became more British over time, with the addition of annual parliamentary appropriations and the removal of support for social sciences and humanities research. What endured is that portion of the mandate dealing with the arts: “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts.”2 Successive Council leaders have interpreted this mandate differently, however, weighting the “what” of Council activities (studying versus enjoyment versus production, etc.) in varying ways, defining the scope of its activities in different manners (does “study” mean support to arts researchers? training for arts students? educating Canadians about the arts? something else?), and giving effect to the “how” of its undertakings in diverse ways (how does the Council “foster and promote”? with grants? partnerships? thought leadership? something else?). How the Council’s mandate has been interpreted over time is the topic of this chapter. It zeroes in on the overarching theme of this book: the shift in the Council’s emphasis from the roots of culture to the power of art over its first sixty years. These changes have not been made in a vacuum, of course. They have been shaped by the broader changes noted above. This chapter attests to the broad contours of change over the last six decades, along with how successive Council leaders have interpreted and operationalized the organization’s mandate over the years. They gradually shifted its emphasis from the roots of culture to the power of art, and in the process more consciously expanded its focus from artistic production (supply) to enjoyment of and public engagement with the arts (demand). But what about the next sixty years? Looking forward, is Canada’s federal arts council model the right one for the future? Will focusing on the power of art make sense going forward? Emphasizing the power of art holds great promise, but also exposes the organization to new risks in its relationships with artists and arts organizations, the broader arts community, Canadian citizens, and the government of the day. Council leaders will need to be nimble, deft, and considered in navigating the years ahead, just as those were who advocated for the creation of the Council more than six decades ago.

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From 1957 to 2017: Change from Sea to Sea … to Sea

The last sixty years have seen enormous change in the artistic, intellectual, social, cultural, political, economic, geopolitical, and technological contexts in which the Council works. To begin with, the arts and post-secondary education have flourished. Canadian artists are known the world over, and the Canada Council has gone from providing fewer than one hundred grants to artists, arts educators, and arts students, and thirty-five grants to arts organizations in its first year of operation3 to providing 2,055 grants to artists and 2,219 to arts organizations in 2015–16.4 Universities, for their part, have grown in number and calibre, and many are world class, consistently ranked among the top two hundred universities in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking index. Social sciences and humanities research has likewise burgeoned, thanks in part to growing research grants from, first, the Canada Council, and then the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. “Canadian studies” also emerged as a field of legitimate and priority inquiry in the 1970s and early 1980s.5 Provincial governments have become increasingly active in the arts sector and in education in the postwar years, with virtually all provinces developing arts councils and culture or culture-related departments to support the arts,6 and prioritizing funding for and access to post-secondary education and research. Municipalities likewise increasingly support artists and arts organizations at the local level, to the point that, today, provincial and municipal funding represents the lion’s share of total government expenditures on the arts.7 All told, the Council went from being virtually the only artsfunding game in town to one among many arts funders. Broader Canadian society and culture have also changed immensely since the creation of the Canada Council. The rise of Quebec nationalism in the 1960s and beyond saw federal arts funding and cultural relations become increasingly contentious with the province of Quebec. Prime Minister St Laurent trod softly when he created the Council, but his successors faced an increasingly self-confident and independence-seeking Quebec, first with the Quiet Revolution and the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism of the 1960s, then with the (unsuccessful) referendum on sovereignty in 1980, the refusal of Quebec to sign on to patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982, recognition of the province in the failed Meech Lake (1987) and Charlottetown (1992) accords, and the second (unsuccessful) referendum on sovereignty in 1995. All the while, Canadian

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2.3 Charles Gagnon, Espace-écran #4 / Screenspace #4, 1974. Charles Gagnon is one of the most important figures in twentieth-century Quebec and Canadian art. Born in Montreal in the 1930s, he worked in film, photography, cinema, and painting. His evolving artistic practice, which combined disciplinary and interdisciplinary art, and interests ranging from philosophy, mathematics, and science, to politics, religion, and history, spanned most of the Council’s first sixty years.

2.4 Supporters of Quebec sovereignty during the 1980 provincial referendum on whether the Parti Québécois government should pursue secession from Canada. The referendum results saw a majority of Québécois rejecting the government’s proposal (59.6 per cent opposed; 40.4 per cent in favour).

2.5 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien speaking to a pro-Canada “no” rally in his riding of Shawinigan, Quebec, in the lead-up to the 1995 Parti Québécois government’s referendum on separation from Canada. The proposal was defeated by the slimmest of margins (50.6 per cent opposed; 49.4 per cent in favour).

federalism evolved through successive phases of cooperation, competition, and collaboration, with prime ministers approaching federal-provincial and Ottawa-Quebec relations with differing degrees of centralization (for example, Pierre Elliott Trudeau), collaboration (Jean Chrétien, Justin Trudeau), and decentralization (Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper).8 Canadian society has become increasingly diverse. Immigration helped build the country, but early waves of newcomers hailed mainly from Western Europe, notably France and Great Britain. Immigration in the postwar period has seen the base of countries of origin broaden significantly, with migration from Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa becoming ever more prevalent. In the 1951 census, Canada’s population stood at just over fourteen million people, and almost 80 per cent were of British (48 per cent) or French (31 per cent) origins.9 By the 2011 census (the most recent available), the picture was far more diverse and complex: Canada’s population reached 31.2 million people, over two hundred ethnic origins were reported in the population, almost half of Canadians (41 per cent) reported more than one ethnic origin, and visible minorities, which comprised 16 per cent of Canadians, were the fastest-growing population group, living almost exclusively in cities (96 per cent in census metropolitan areas compared to 68 per cent of the general population).10 Governments responded to these demographic changes in various ways, most notably with the creation of federal “multiculturalism policy” in 1971, followed by the federal Multiculturalism Act of 1988, which aimed at integrating new Canadians into their host society, while enabling them to retain their cultural heritage of origin. This policy approach, along with the enshrinement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution Act, 1982, has given rise to tension between – and at times bitter conflict over – the appropriate balance between majority and minority rights, including the rights of Canada’s founding groups (the Indigenous, French, and British) vis-à-vis the rights of subsequent immigrant populations.11 In addition, there has been growing recognition of past wrongs perpetrated against Indigenous peoples in Canada by governments, churches, and non-Indigenous Canadians.12 Treaties have not been honoured, living conditions on reserves can be appalling, the residential school system stripped Indigenous children from their families and culture and were rampant with abhorrent abuse, and discrimination against Indigenous peoples has been severe, long-standing, and, in many instances, systemic. Indigenous communities have become increasingly vocal, organized, and effective

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2.6 Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau watches as Queen Elizabeth II signs Canada’s constitutional proclamation in Ottawa in 1982, thus patriating the country’s constitution from the United Kingdom. Henceforth, Canada would have the means to amend its constitution without the approval of the UK, and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would form part of the constitution. The changes were never agreed to by the province of Quebec.

at securing better conditions for their peoples and recognition of their inherent and specific rights, whether through heated and at times violent protest, court challenges, negotiation of land claims agreements (modern treaties), greater engagement in the political system, or capacity building in education, governance, and business terms. Accompanying this growing recognition is increasing attention to rethinking relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians.13 Governments have moved – some would say too slowly – toward proactively recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples. Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, formally recognized and enshrined Aboriginal14 rights, and Section 25 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms stipulates that Charter rights do not take away from or nullify Aboriginal rights. Governments have also concluded modern treaties with various Indigenous communities. Through this process, Nunavut was created as a third

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2.7 This iconic photo of a Mohawk warrior and a Canadian soldier captures the tense armed standoff in 1990 west of Montreal over the town of Oka’s decision to expand a golf course on disputed territory of the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. After a shootout with provincial police resulted in the death of an officer, the provincial government called in the army (some eight hundred soldiers). The standoff, which lasted close to three months, was ultimately resolved by cancelling the expansion.

northern territory in 1998, with self-governance capacity that brings it close to “province-like” status (the federal government devolved powers to Yukon and the Northwest Territories as well). That references to the expanse of Canadian territory have extended the original “sea to sea” west-east imagery, to the “sea to sea to sea” west-east-north image reflect this change in consciousness. Other watersheds in Indigenous relations include the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, mandated to recommend ways of resolving relationship challenges between Indigenous peoples, the federal government, and Canadian society. Unfortunately, successive federal governments have not acted comprehensively on the commission’s 440 recommendations. Recommendations of the 2008–2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc) on the residential school

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system, which provided a safe-space for residential school survivors to share their experiences, met with a similar fate when they were presented to the Stephen Harper federal government (2006–15) in June 2015, but the successor Liberal government of Justin Trudeau (2015– ) committed to implementing all of the trc’s calls to action. Time will tell whether the government will live up to this commitment. Adding to these transformations in Canadian society are pervasive changes in social values. Levels of public trust in government, industry, and experts have declined in western industrialized countries,15 as has deference to authority.16 At the same time, people are becoming increasingly concerned about human induced risks17 and have a greater desire to be involved in public decision-making processes that affect them. Societal values have also become more individualistic than communitarian or grouporiented over the years, and there is growing critique of “big business” and the impact of large-scale industrial development on the planet.18 The effects

2.8 Idle No More, a mass grassroots protest movement, was founded in 2012 with the aim of resisting neo-colonialism, asserting Indigenous rights and sovereignty, and establishing a nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the Government of Canada. This 2013 protest in Ottawa was attended by thousands of people.

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of these changes can be far-reaching: citizens may be less likely to trust governments to make fair, unbiased decisions, and they may lack confidence in expert opinion and scientific evidence used in public decision-making processes; “opening up” decision-making processes can generate real and perceived tensions between participatory democracy (citizen involvement) and representative democracy (elected officials taking decisions); people may accord more weight to individual/local interests than to national/group interests and may prefer small-scale locally owned projects over large-scale corporate-backed endeavours; and perceptions of risk may trump realities of risk and risk mitigation in the public, political, and policy spheres. All told, as the Council celebrates its sixtieth anniversary in 2017, governance and political decision-making are far more challenging and far less clear cut than they were at its creation in 1957. But the extent of change doesn’t stop there. Over the last sixty years, the domestic and international economic context transformed with the progressive liberalization of international trade, first through successive rounds of the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (gatt), and then through gatt’s successor body, the World Trade Organization (wto), created in 1995. Regional trading blocs also grew in number and scope, including in the European Union, in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and here in North America. The term “globalization” emerged to capture these changes,19 which led to the gradual dismantling of tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade, the growth of transplanetary connections, and the emergence of global problems like climate change, which require concerted global responses. These transformations have been accompanied by important and contentious debates about the role of the state and domestic sovereignty and culture in an increasingly integrated world.20 Canada lived these transformations most vividly through the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (cusfta) negotiations of the 1980s, which saw acrimonious conflict between so-called economic and cultural nationalists and supporters of free trade, largely those in the private sector.21 The 1988 federal election, dubbed the Free Trade Election, was fought largely over whether Canada should implement the agreement. The Mulroney Progressive Conservative government (1984–93), which had negotiated cusfta, was returned to power, and the agreement, which included the cultural exemption to preserve Canada’s capacity to support its cultural industries, was enacted. The years following cusfta saw increasing integration between the Canadian and American economies, and extension of the agreement to

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2.9 The negotiation and ratification of the Canada– United States Free Trade Agreement by the Mulroney Conservative government was the high point of the controversy in Canada over trade liberalization. Shown here: Prime Minister Brian Mulroney holding a copy of the free trade agreement during the 1988 federal election campaign.

Mexico in 1994 with the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta). These years also saw bitter disputes with the United States over Canadian policy measures to support the cultural industries,22 with the high-water mark being the infamous Sports Illustrated case of the late 1990s. The case centred on “split-run” magazines coming into Canada from the United States. “Split-runs” publish largely the same editorial content in Canada as they do in the United States, but with advertisements targeting consumers in Canada. The US challenged a series of federal policy measures intended to support the Canadian industry in the face of competition for advertising revenue from split-runs. Despite the cultural industries exemption, Canada ultimately lost in a trade challenge launched by the United States through the wto, where the agreement contains no such exemption. The nature of the global and Canadian economies has also evolved over the last sixty years, with the service industries coming to play a larger role alongside the resource and manufacturing sectors. Concepts like the “knowledge economy” and the “creative economy” emerged to capture this shift, and point to the growing importance of education, intellectual capital, innovation, and creativity to economic development.23 For the cultural sector, greater recognition of the role the arts and culture play in supporting creativity, attracting talented workers, and stimulating economic development – epitomized by Richard Florida’s work on the “creative class”24 – has on balance been positive, but it raises concerns that the arts and culture will become a mere instrument for economic ends.

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The prospect of instrumentalizing the arts also intensified with major shifts in thinking about the role of government in society and the economy. The years from the 1950s to the 1970s saw the expansion of the welfare state, Keynesian-grounded counter-cyclical public spending to stimulate growth during economic downturns, and government intervention viewed in the main as a positive force for good. The appearance of “stagflation” in the 1970s – simultaneous economic stagnation, unemployment, and inflation – called the wisdom of Keynesian economics into question and led to the move to monetarist economic policies, which use the money supply and interest rates to keep inflation in check and stimulate economic growth, rather than employing government borrowing and spending to boost the economy when times are tough. This marked a broader shift towards much more critical assessments of government as a frequently unhelpful – rather than positive – force in society and the economy. Skeptical views of government crystallized under the ideological banner of neoliberalism. Starting from the tenet that small government is most conducive to economic development and personal freedom, neoliberal policies reduced the size and scope of government intervention through deregulation, privatization, trade liberalization, contracting out, and eliminating or substantially reducing government deficits and debt. Where governments continued to be involved in the economy and society, they placed much greater emphasis on clearly articulating and measuring outcomes through results-based management. This latter approach to government administration, exemplified by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, President Ronald Reagan in the United States, and Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in Canada, came to be known as the New Public Management.25 At the same time as these social, economic, and ideological changes unfolded, there were dramatic upheavals in geopolitics. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 powerfully marked the turn from the Cold War bipolar Westversus-East, communism-versus-capitalism world order of the early postwar period to the multipolar, emerging-economies, varieties-of-capitalism26 world of today. The relatively stable and centralized threat of communism is no longer the primary fault line in global geopolitics, and has been replaced by a much more complex decentralized and ever-changing environment.27 Now, one of the primary threats to global peace and security is terrorism and violent extremism. This marks a transformation in the nature

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of global threats: from state-based location-specific threats to non-state asymmetrical threats, where offensive strikes can occur virtually anytime and anywhere, and require a small number of people and few resources to carry out, as shocking attacks in Boston, Paris, Brussels, Nice, and Berlin have made horrifyingly clear. Unparalleled transformations in information and communications technologies and declining passenger and freight transportation costs drove or amplified many of the above developments. The last sixty years have seen the invention of personal computers and exponential growth in their computing power, the development and deployment of cellular telephone and other wireless technologies, and the greatest transformation of all, the Internet. The peoples of the world are more connected to one another than ever before, and, along with declining transportation costs, are more mobile than they have ever been. zxzxz

As it celebrates its sixtieth anniversary, the Canada Council exists in a far more demographically diverse, economically integrated, and technologically connected world than it did at its inception. Its contemporary context is more socially fragmented, uncertain, complex, and fast-paced, and government intervention is generally viewed as a last – not a first – resort. How has the Canada Council fared in the context of such widespread change? How have Council leaders defined organizational relevance over the years and how have they interpreted its legislative mandate? How have they balanced the core tensions inherent in its work? The remainder of this chapter explores these questions, tracing the transition at Council from a primary emphasis on the roots of culture to an expanded view more explicitly incorporating the power of art, and placing greater emphasis on pursuing broader aims through the arts and the arts’ impact on – and contribution to – Canadian society as a whole. Along the way, the organization has exercised increasing leadership within and beyond the arts community. Interestingly, in some ways the Council has positioned itself at its sixtieth in ways reminiscent of its original approach to its mandate in 1957. All told, the past may well be prologue when it comes to the transformations highlighted by Council Chair Pierre Lassonde in his remarks reproduced at the outset of this chapter.

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From the Roots of Culture to the Power of Art

The Council’s progression from the roots of culture to the power of art can be traced through four successive periods in its development: its focus on supply during the cultural awakening and effervescence of the 1950s and 1960s; expanding the representativeness of its funding in the 1970s to the mid-1980s; repeatedly defending the organization from funding cuts through the 1990s; and the turn to reinvestment, reinvention, and strengthening of the governance of the Council and of arts organizations in the 2000s. These periods mark an evolution – not a revolution – in organizational leaders’ understandings of the Council’s mandate, and tend to be cumulative and incremental rather than watertight. Leaders’ interpretations of the raison d’être of the organization are remarkably similar as the Council enters its seventh decade to what they were in its first. What differs is how the organization is putting them into operation. Cultural Awakening and Effervescence, 1957–1960s: Roots, Roots, and More (Excellent Western European) Roots!

In the early years of its existence, the Council emphasized supply: supporting and adding to the number and diversity of arts organizations and cultural infrastructure (theatres, dance companies, symphonies, publishing houses, etc.) that were dotting the country, building infrastructure in universities through the Capital Grants Fund, and providing grants to individual artists, scholars, and students to create, research, and study. These were heady times: a period of nation- and culture-building, marked by important moments of national pride and federal focus on culture and the arts, exemplified by Expo 6728 and the country’s centennial celebrations in 1967. A focus on citizen access to the arts emerged and intensified during this stage, and culminated early in the next period with the federal government’s cultural policy of democratization and decentralization under Secretary of State Gérard Pelletier. In its initial years, the rationale for Council activities and an understanding of its mandate were rooted in national identity, domestic cultural development, and the importance of cultural sovereignty, notably vis-à-vis the United States. There was general agreement on the “what” of Council activities – stimulating the supply of artistic and scholarly works – but early Council leaders were finding their way on the “how” of pursuing this aim.

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2.10 Inaugural meeting of Canada Council staff and members, 30 April 1957, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. In the first row appear Eugène Bussière, associate director (far left), Father Georges-Henri Lévesque, vice-chair (fifth from left), Brooke Claxton, chair (sixth from left), Norman MacKenzie, Council member (third from right), and inaugural director, Albert Trueman (far right).

Should it “raise” the calibre of existing supply by providing grants to established organizations and creators, or should it “spread” funding across the country to newer groups and artists? While both aims were ultimately pursued, priority was given to raising the work of traditional repertoire companies and established artists – most of whom were in large city centres, particularly in central Canada – including support for touring from the “metropolis” to the “hinterland” to expand Canadians’ access to the arts. This approach occasioned no small measure of criticism, including from within the Council itself. Norman MacKenzie, president of the University

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2.11 A scene from The Nutcracker, presented by the National Ballet of Canada in 1956, showing David Adams (in white) with artists of the Ballet. Adams was the first male principal dancer at the National Ballet and played an important role in establishing the company.

of British Columbia, former member of the Massey-Lévesque Commission, and inaugural member of the Council, penned a letter in fall 1957 to Albert Trueman, the Council’s inaugural director, decrying the “concentration of interest on Toronto and Central Canada.”29 He stated baldly, “The fact that Toronto has been given the bulk of our grants to date – while not a cent goes west of Winnipeg – is well designed to develop instant bitterness and criticism.”30 Another ballast that tilted Council funding towards central Canada was its relations with the province of Quebec, which, as Woodcock noted, is a province “pas comme les autres” in matters of culture, and where culture is viewed as a channel for political aims.31 Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis (1936–39; 1944–59), whose administration adopted a noncooperative approach with the federal government over jurisdictional matters, was not a fan of the Council’s creation, but did nothing to counter it. The Council attempted to “woo” Quebec artists with grants in its early years, but it took care to do so in a way that wouldn’t ignite tensions

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between Ontario and Quebec, which amplified the existing tendency towards greater arts support for central Canada.32 When Jean Lesage’s Liberals came to power in 1960, the new government created the province’s first ministry of culture in 1961 (le Ministère des Affaires culturelles), and under the leadership of its inaugural minister, Georges-Émile Lapalme, adopted the French humanist approach to culture, with its anthropological and political understandings of the field.33 This marked the beginnings of a much more proactive engagement in the cultural realm by the Quebec government. Where the Council spread support in the sense of creating new offerings of artistic production beyond existing endeavours and beyond central Canada, it tended to do so in a manner described by long-time Council insiders as sprinkling “fairy dust” on the heads of selected artists and arts organizations across the country.34 As explained in Chapter 5, it took some time before the Council established its extensive system of peer review of proposals, a system among the most comprehensive in the world. Of note, even though the Council made some efforts to spread support, the scope of “the arts” during this period was restricted primarily to traditional Western European art forms and practices. But as artistic and scholarly activity grew and thrived, the Council faced a large and growing constituency of current and potential recipients of its funds. It also faced an increasingly diverse artistic community, calling for greater representation in Council decision-making and grant distribution. Canada itself was becoming more diverse, Quebec nationalism was on the rise, gender equity and women’s rights emerged as salient political and policy issues, and, with the patriation of Canada’s constitution and the enshrinement of minority and Aboriginal rights in the text, calls for the Council to expand its definition of the arts grew. As seen earlier, this prompted the organization to request additional funding from the government, and, as sketched out below and detailed in the next chapter, Council leaders began to focus in greater earnest on questions of representation and fairness. This turn marked the beginning of the second period of the organization’s development in the 1970s. From Fairy Dust to Fairness, 1970s to Mid-1980s: Expanding the (Representativeness of the) Root System and Canadians’ Access to It

Throughout the 1970s, the Council continued to focus on supply, but it began to pay more attention to questions of representation in its work, chiefly to gender and disciplines beyond traditional Western European art

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forms and practices. In addition, it began to place more emphasis on Canadians’ access to art. This focus on fairness and access was in step with the federal government’s cultural policies of democratization (supporting access to the arts and culture for all Canadians) and decentralization (regionalizing decision-making across the country) spearheaded by Secretary of State Gérard Pelletier, and was most visibly embodied at Council with creation of the Explorations program, the Touring Office, and the Canada Council Art Bank. The Explorations program, created in 1973, funded artists and arts organizations from different disciplines to come together for interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary activities, including projects that engaged directly with community members (youth, seniors, community groups, etc.) and developed new artistic practices and art forms. The program, examined in greater detail in the following chapter, was juried regionally to increase applicants’ access to it and its capacity to respond to regional interests and concerns. Explorations was much-loved by the artistic community for the freedom it provided to create and explore outside of conventional disciplinary boxes and approaches and for the support it gave to emerging artists and organizations. Many artists describe grants they received through the program as seminal to their artistic development and careers. The Touring Office, for its part, opened in 1973–74 and focused on access. It provided support to enable artists and arts organizations to tour more extensively and broadly than had been otherwise possible in order to expand Canadians’ access to the arts and international audiences’ access to Canadian art abroad. Touring Office staff also helped train and develop the capacity of local arts presenters to present the works in question. As for the Art Bank, it was established in 1972 with a mandate to acquire works of contemporary Canadian art for rent and display in government buildings. The brainchild of a number of Canada Council leaders and senior federal officials, it helped stimulate the Canadian visual art market and the engagement of federal officials, parliamentarians, and Canadians with Canadian art. It has not been without its critics and crises, however, as detailed in upcoming chapters. This shift towards access, representation, and fairness was propelled by a variety of factors. It was a product of increasing demands on and expectations of the Council from a growing, vibrant, and increasingly diverse artistic community. Federal programs in the 1970s, such as Opportunities for Youth, which funded individuals and groups to undertake socially

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2.12 The Canada Council Art Bank was created in 1972 to stimulate the Canadian visual art market and make works available for rental and display, initially in government offices and now to a wide variety of organizations in the public and private sectors (photo circa 1973). The largest collection of contemporary Canadian art in the world, it holds more than seventeen thousand works, worth an estimated $71 million.

beneficial activities, included many job experiences in the arts and cultural sector and created a generation of young people who went on to pursue careers in the arts. The shift was also in keeping with social and value change, including greater cultural diversity and a growing recognition of French language, minority, and women’s rights. Reports of the 1963–69 Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission (the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission) shone a spotlight on Canada’s linguistic and cultural duality and the challenges facing Francophone Canadians both within and outside the province of Quebec. Multiculturalism policy was also beginning to emerge at both the federal and provincial (chiefly Ontario) levels, and the 1982 patriation

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of the Canadian constitution added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to the text. The Council’s juries could no longer be comprised of men hailing mainly from central Canada: gender, ethnic, and geographic representation had to be taken into account. The shift was also in keeping with Secretary of State Gérard Pelletier’s cultural policies of democratization and decentralization. But this period of expansion and consistent federal commitment to the arts and culture was not to last. Neoliberal thinking, with its focus on outcomes, economic liberalization, and reduced state intervention and spending, was fast on the rise, and would sweep across the cultural sector, putting all organizations – including the Canada Council – on the defensive. This shift heralded the next phase in the Council’s understanding and operationalization of its mandate: the organization had to concentrate its attention as never before on selecting its funding priorities and making “the case” for its activities in a public sector environment focused increasingly on outcomes, impact, economic growth, and laissez-faire government policies. On the Defensive, Mid-1980s to 1990s: Making the Case Again and Again … and Again

The mid-1980s to the 1990s were among the most challenging for the Council, with the rationale and federal support for cultural policy, including for the Council, under a microscope as never before. Deficit and debt reduction in the mid-1990s squeezed Council funding to the max, and the organization needed to “make the case” for its activities in new and often economically-oriented ways. At the same time, demands from the artistic community for greater representation in Council decision-making and funding continued, and expanded to racial equality and Indigenous peoples. The Media Arts section was created during this period in recognition that more artists were working outside of existing disciplinary boundaries with new technological tools. In 1986, a one-year one-time Interdisciplinary Fund was put in place, with a budget of one million dollars. Under the leadership of Director Joyce Zemans (1988–92), the Council created advisory committees for racial equality and Aboriginal people and, as detailed in the next chapter, moved towards greater recognition of and support for both groups, including in peer assessment committees. Collectively, these changes were pivotal in the story of enhanced representation and access for more Canadian

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artists to Council support, and marked a move beyond democratization of culture (access) to cultural democracy (representation). They also spurred and reflected debates within the arts community over the ever-shifting boundary of “what’s in” and “what’s out” of professional artistic practice. These developments were not without controversy, as discussed in the following chapter. The overriding story of this period, however, was the widespread change in ideology sweeping across Western industrialized democracies. Neoliberalism was taking root firmly in Canada as elsewhere, with a suite of new policies and thinking about the role of the state instituted by the Mulroney government (1984–93). Crown corporations like Air Canada and PetroCanada were privatized, a wave of deregulation swept across the telecommunications, transportation, and energy sectors, and trade liberalization was high on the government’s agenda with the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement and multilateral trade negotiations in the gatt/wto system. There was ever-increasing pressure to dismantle policy measures put in place over the years to protect, support, and preserve Canadian industries in the face of international competition – including in the cultural sector. The cultural industries mounted a strong and ultimately successful campaign to exclude the sector from the provisions of cusfta.35 Unfortunately, time would reveal the limitations of the exemption: when the United States successfully challenged Canadian policies to support the domestic magazine sector in the 1990s through the World Trade Organization, where the country had no such exemption. All told, appeals to cultural sovereignty and domestic cultural development, so central to the MasseyLévesque Commission’s work, thinking, and recommendations, were beginning to fall on deaf ears. At the same time, Canadian governments were increasingly turning their attention to deficit and debt reduction. Reform Party leader Preston Manning’s consistent refrain in the early 1990s that the federal government “eliminate the deficit” is a vivid reminder of this period, in which the opinion of both leaders and the public turned to the need to address the federal government’s fiscal position. The deficit and debt were at record highs, and credit rating agencies were threatening the country would hit a “debt wall” if it didn’t take serious action – a sure sign that something needed to be done. That “something” became the Chrétien Liberal government’s 1994– 95 Program Review, which reduced government spending by more than ten billion dollars over three years, with virtually all government departments

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and agencies seeing cuts – in some instances losing half of their funding. The Council was no exception: its parliamentary appropriation declined from $99 million in 1994–95 to $91 million in 1997–98.36 This was on top of funding cuts imposed prior to Program Review: Council funding stood at $108 million in 1992.37 Council leaders responded by doubling down on what was seen at the time as the core of its activities: grants to artists and arts organizations in traditional sectors. As explained in Chapter 4, the level of grants was maintained, but Council employees – along with the capacity building services they provided to artists and arts organizations – bore the brunt of the cost-cutting exercise: over the course of the 1990s, a full half the staff was walked out the door (many took early retirement or were reassigned). Some programs and approaches, notably the much-loved Explorations program and support for touring and regional juries, were reduced or eliminated altogether, as is also described in Chapter 4. But the challenge didn’t stop there. Neoliberalism brought with it a focus on outcomes, performance, and results-based management, the likes of which were unprecedented. Under the mantra of the New Public Management, the government required all federal agencies to shift from output- to outcomes-based performance measures. It was no longer sufficient to tally the number of grants awarded to artists or arts organizations, the number of new works acquired by the Art Bank, or the total value of payments made under the Public Lending Right program. The Council had to articulate its performance – ultimately its relevance – in terms of impact. What were the impacts of those grants? Those acquisitions? Those payments? These were very difficult questions to answer: the impact of government intervention in the cultural sector is often qualitative, long term, and “warm, fuzzy.”38 Developing indicators – much less putting them into practice – is a tall order. Little wonder then that, in this context, which also tilted heavily towards economic over social or cultural justifications for government intervention, many cultural agencies, including the Canada Council, opted for economic-based arguments. “The case” shifted in priority from “cultural sovereignty” and “domestic cultural development” to “economic contribution,” with the arts a means to contribute to economic activity, either in their own right or as a spur to creativity elsewhere in the economy.

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2.13 Between the mid-1980s and the end of the 1990s, governments came under growing fiscal pressure, and ideologies about the role of government shifted to greater emphasis on economic growth and efficiency. This sharpened the focus on economic arguments to justify government support for the arts, as this page from the Council’s 1995–96 annual report demonstrates.

Reinvestment, Reinforcement and Reinvention, 2000s: Governance, Public Engagement, and the Road to Transformation

The turn of the century heralded much better financial times for the Council. As the Chrétien government (1993–2003) emerged from the fiscal austerity of the 1990s, and budget surpluses became the norm, support for the arts and culture strengthened significantly. The Council received some new funding in the late 1990s (twenty-five million dollars in 1997 and ten million in 1999), and in the 2000s it received far more substantial ongoing support. Under the feisty leadership of Minister of Canadian Heritage Sheila Copps (1996–2003), the government invested a whopping half a billion dollars over five years into the cultural sector. The flagship Tomorrow Starts Today program, launched in 2001 with great fanfare, glitz, and glamour at a special performance at the cbc Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, included a very welcome twenty-five-million-dollar annual “topup” for the Council. This was followed by a commitment by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin (2003–06) to double the Council’s funding, but, as explained in Chapter 4, the prospect of doubling swiftly disappeared when the Liberals were defeated at the polls by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives in the 2006 federal election. The Harper government (2006–15) augmented funding to the Council, including making permanent the twenty-five-million-dollar annual top-up, one-time lump sums in 2007 (twenty million) and 2008 (thirty million), and making permanent the thirty million dollars in 2008, but the idea of doubling the organization’s parliamentary appropriation was out of the question. The arts and culture didn’t figure prominently among the Conservatives’ priorities, and budget surpluses rapidly dried up as the 2008–09 financial crisis and economic downturn hit. But the doubling idea was not abandoned by those in the cultural sector, and in the 2015 federal election, the Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau committed again to increase the Council’s budget twofold. This time the Liberals won the election and were able to make good on the promise: in their first budget after winning the election, they committed to phasing in an additional $180 million in annual funding to the Council over five years, an unprecedented injection of funds and recognition of the importance of the organization’s work by the government. In this most recent period, in addition to securing much greater funding for its activities, the Council also worked to strengthen organizational

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governance and capacity both within and outside the organization. Strengthening the management capacity of organizations receiving grants from the Council was an overriding priority of Director John Hobday (2003–06). In the face of a number of high-profile financial crises in some major performing arts organizations, he was concerned that the public perception of poor management practices would make it more difficult to secure increases to the Council’s appropriation. Hobday’s first-hand experience in arts organizations and as an arts funder with The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation had shown him how important it was for arts organizations to build their management capacity in financial, human resources, communications, and operational terms. His successor, Robert Sirman (2006–14), prioritized strengthening internal governance capacity at the Council – at the board level, within and between various component parts of the organization (notably the Canadian Commission for unesco, the Public Lending Right Program and Commission, and the Art Bank), and through comprehensive consultative strategic planning exercises. These efforts paid off handsomely: the Council won prestigious awards for its board governance and website, and received a glowing report from the Office of the Auditor General in a Special Examination. These moves were also no doubt pivotal in government decisions to allocate additional funding to the organization. The 2000s also marked a turn to greater emphasis on partnerships at the Council. The organization developed partnerships with other arts funders at the provincial and municipal levels through the Canadian Public Arts Funders network and through trilevel federal-provincial-municipalprivate funder arrangements. Partnerships at the international level were also forged in this period via the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (ifacca). These important initiatives are detailed in Chapter 5. The overriding characteristic of this period, though, was the conscious shift in emphasis at Council from the roots of culture to the power of art. This began under Council Chair Joseph Rotman (2008–15) and Director and ceo Robert Sirman, who were set on putting the organization on a firm governance footing, protecting it from cuts during the financial crisis and economic downturn, and – perhaps of greatest importance – repositioning “the case” for government investment in the arts. Both leaders were intent on shifting thinking about the Council’s value proposition from that of serving artists (a particular sector as “the client”) to serving

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2.14 A scene from La jeune fille et la mort (Death and the Maiden), by Stephan Thoss, presented by Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, 2017. Les Grands Ballets, one of the country’s longest running and most prestigious dance companies, embodies the power of art, notably with its cutting-edge work in dance/movement therapy and health, which combines clinical research, training, and therapy.

Canadian citizens as a whole (the arts and public investment in the arts as contributing to society). At a speech to the 6th World Summit on Arts and Culture in 2014, Sirman stated, “Arts councils will flourish only as long as the public sees arts investment as a public good, and it is our job to make the truth of that connection self-evident.”39 Central to these changes is a much greater focus on “public engagement” with the arts. This concept goes beyond standard understandings of citizen access to the arts (democratization), which tend to view citizens as passive “recipients” of the arts, to a far more active engagement of citizens with the arts and with artists. While public engagement was central to such programs as Explorations as far back as the 1970s, the more recent focus

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on engagement coincides with the progressive shift at Council from emphasizing the “supply” side of the arts in its early years (fostering “production”) to ever-greater attention to the “demand” side of the equation (fostering “enjoyment”). In addition, it marked a move to a more explicit, holistic, and strategic approach to thinking about the role of the arts in society and about the relationships between the various component parts of the Canada Council. Most recently, the Council undertook to transform its program approach from discipline-based funding to activity-based multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary funding programs, with a greater focus on equity, including new programming for Deaf and disability arts, and much stronger emphasis on Indigenous arts. The transformation culminated in the launch of the Council’s New Funding Model in 2015 under Director and ceo Simon Brault (the new approach comprises six programs: Creating, Knowing, and Sharing; The Arts and Culture of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples; Explore and Create; Engage and Sustain; Supporting Artistic Practice; Arts Across Canada, and Arts Abroad). Judging by the artistic community’s mainly positive response and by the government’s strong show of confidence in the Council, evidenced by the commitment to double its appropriation, the Council appears to have struck the right balance between the various tensions inherent in its work. But will this continue to be the case in the future? Is the power of art the right stance for the organization going forward? Is the made-in-Canada arts council model the right one for the next sixty years? The next section and the concluding chapter turn to these questions.

The Past as Prologue: The Model Evolved but the Mandate Endures

At the turn of the century, Stephen Clarkson, one of Canada’s most eminent political scientists and fervent cultural nationalists, boldly asserted that Canada deserves a more prominent place in international political economy than it gets – not because the country is a leading economic, military, or political power, but because “Canada’s political, social and economic reality has been a proving ground for global trends well before they have become clearly observable elsewhere.”40 The country is the epitome of many of the sociocultural, political, and economic changes in the postwar period described above: its federal structure protects regional distinctiveness, its

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constitution enshrines minority rights, its policies seek to respect cultural difference, it is working through historic grievances and the desire for selfgovernance of Indigenous peoples, and it is an open economy, heavily reliant on international trade. On the whole, Canada strives to find balance, unity, and coherence in a context of fragmentation, decentralization, and difference. The Canada Council for the Arts, arguably, has done precisely the same thing in its first sixty years. In its early decades, it helped build and strengthen the roots of culture, and then expanded the representativeness of the root system by recognizing and supporting emerging and historically marginalized art forms (culturally diverse practices, Indigenous art, multiand interdisciplinary art, etc.). In the process, it sought balance and harmony in a context of difference and fragmentation. But, as alluded to above, this process also gradually restricted the organization’s line of sight to the artistic community, and to conceiving of artists and arts organizations as the sector it served – rather than “people,” “the country,” and “national life,” as inaugural chair Brooke Claxton articulated so eloquently in 1957. That Pierre Lassonde, Claxton’s successor sixty years on, would communicate the organization’s focus in such similar terms is indeed striking, but it is entirely in keeping with recent shifts in emphasis at the Council to extend more explicitly beyond artistic production to public enjoyment. Now that Canada’s artistic and cultural landscape is populated with multiple organizations, artists, and art forms, organizational leaders are turning their attention – in greater earnest than they were able to in the past – to fostering the power of art. They can place more emphasis on that part of the Council’s mandate that connects art to Canadian society and to, as Lassonde stated, “the lives of all Canadians.” Art can support healing, unity, learning, discovery, peace, reconciliation, and other contemporary policy imperatives. In this sense, the Council has deftly positioned itself at the heart of governance in the twenty-first century. But what about the next sixty years? Looking forward, is Canada’s federal arts council model the right one for the future? Will focusing on the power of art make sense going forward? The concluding chapter explores these questions in depth. For now, it is clear that the Council’s creators crafted a mandate that endures. It is prescriptive enough to give solid ongoing guidance to Council leaders, but leaves sufficient room for interpretation to enable the organization to remain relevant and responsive over time – as it has done very well to date. The same can be said of the blueprints Council architects set out for its administrative arrangements. The hybrid

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approach provides the organization with the autonomy and flexibility it needs to balance the five tensions at the core of its existence: between art for art’s sake and pursuing broader aims through the arts; between serving the needs of artists and those of Canadian society; between established and emerging art forms; between leadership and followership; and between organizational independence and collaboration with other public entities. Whether promoting the power of art will remain a recipe for success in the decades to come will depend largely on whether the organization reconciles its core tensions in ways that garner social acceptance and support from artistic communities, successive federal governments, and individual Canadians. This will be a delicate balancing act to be sure.

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3 The Canada Council and the Changing Face(s) of Art From “The Disciplines” to Inter-Arts, Equity, Aboriginal Arts, and Beyond1

We believe a non-disciplinary approach to granting, an approach based on artistic interventions, processes and impacts rather than disciplines, will deliver the greatest benefits to artists, arts organizations and audiences. Therefore, before the end of 2016 the Canada Council will be reducing the number of granting programs it offers from 147 to 6 national, nondisciplinary programs that include all fields of artistic practice. Simon Brault, Director and ceo Canada Council for the Arts (2014– ) Canada Council blog, 3 June 2015

In June 2015, the Canada Council announced its New Funding Model. The approach reduces the number of granting programs at the Canada Council from a staggering one hundred and forty-seven, organized largely along disciplinary lines, to a mere six, organized thematically rather than by discipline. The largest program restructuring in the organization’s history, the change marks a paradigm shift in how the Council “thinks” about its work and financial support for the arts. Over the course of its first sixty years, the organization has approached granting mainly through the lens of “the disciplines” (dance, media arts,2 music, theatre, visual arts, and writing and publishing). A number of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and

non-disciplinary innovations were put in place over the years, but this was done largely alongside – and sometimes over the protests of – “the disciplines.” The New Funding Model turns this approach on its head: now, program outcomes are the organizing principle, with the disciplines supported within a broader context of programmatic themes, and what was once marginal and marginalized (for example, Indigenous art) has been brought to the fore in a way that’s unprecedented. How did this transformation come about? What were the drivers of change? What is the story behind the Council’s early decision to approach the arts from a disciplinary perspective? How did new art forms, practices, and communities come to be recognized and supported by Council programs over the years? This chapter explores this terrain, paying close attention to the extent of Council leadership or followership in, first seeing, and then supporting, the changing face(s) of art, and how it has balanced its support for emerging and established art forms in the process. It is a fascinating historical landscape dotted with important moments of leadership within and outside the organization, with changes in society, politics, and technology influencing artistic practice and sensibilities, and with a resolute ongoing commitment on the part of the Council to artistic excellence, to organizational relevance, and to maintaining the support of an ever-growing and diversifying artistic community.

The Original Disciplines

When the Council opened its doors in 1957, it reported on its activities and arts funding along both disciplinary (ballet, literature, music, opera, theatre, visual arts, etc.) and thematic (festivals, touring) lines. As discussed in the next chapter, organizational leaders and individual Council members were directly involved in funding decisions in those early years – the comprehensive peer assessment system it put in place was yet to develop. In its first decade, funding programs and Council structures were not formally organized into “sections” or “disciplines,” as they came to be in the 1960s and beyond, but Council leaders clearly viewed arts funding as being distributed to artistic disciplines, and were attentive to the need to maintain equity between ballet, literature, theatre, visual arts, opera, and music. This approach flowed in part from the Council’s enabling legislation, which lays out that “arts” includes “architecture, the arts of theatre, literature, music,

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painting, sculpture, the graphic arts, and other similar creative and interpretative activities.”3 This listing reflected the dominant thinking of the time, which identified and organized artistic expression in Western European terms. Approaching Council activities through a disciplinary lens also flowed from inaugural leaders’ understandings of the specificities of individual art forms, each with its own set of challenges, issues, and opportunities. A brief look at ballet and theatre in the Council’s early years provides a good demonstration of this. In ballet, as Granatstein points out, the three largest companies of the time – Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the National Ballet Guild of Canada, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet – were all facing revenue shortfalls, with the National Ballet on the brink of bankruptcy and imploring the Council to keep it afloat.4 Rather than leap to the rescue – Council leaders knew they would be petitioned by arts organizations facing dire financial straits and had to be judicious in their response – they took time to consider the request. They ultimately responded with a grant, but made it conditional upon the National Ballet addressing its deficit, launching a sizable fundraising campaign, and contracting for a national tour. But this was just the beginning of persistent challenges in ballet that extended well into the 1960s. Revenues consistently trailed expenses, and the three main companies struggled to make ends meet while strengthening the range and calibre of their offerings. The Council commissioned a number of studies to analyze the situation and advise on appropriate courses of action. Should it support the three main companies on a national scale? If so, should support be distributed equally among them? Conversely, should it aim to consolidate the three companies? Or should it focus support instead on one company, with a view to its achieving world-class status? These foundational questions went to the heart of the Council’s interpretation of its mandate and understanding of its role in a country as geographically large, demographically dispersed, and culturally and linguistically diverse as Canada. Ultimately, as noted in the last chapter and explored further in the next, Council leaders opted to direct funding energies primarily to “raising” the large and established organizations, while “spreading” Canadians’ access to ballet through touring support to the three companies. This choice was informed in large measure by the nature of the art form, which by design is resource intensive: a large company of dancers, an orchestra’s worth of musicians, elaborate sets and costumes, substantial

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3.1 Pierre Collin as Harpagon in Théâtre du Nouveau Monde’s production of Molière’s L’Avare, 2001. The production was staged again by Théâtre du Nouveau Monde almost fifty years to the day after the company inaugurated its activities with L’Avare (TNM co-founder and first artistic director, Jean Gascon, directed and played the lead role of Harpagon in the 1951 production).

touring costs, and the like. Supporting multiple ballet companies across the country was simply beyond the organization’s financial means. In theatre, meanwhile, the Council prioritized “spreading” in the early years by spurring the development of a network of regional theatre companies across the country.5 In 1957, there were very few professional companies: Montreal’s Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and Théâtre du Rideau Vert were just six and nine years old, respectively, the Stratford Festival had been in existence for only four years, and the Shaw Festival had not yet been created. Canadian Players, established in 1954 to enable Stratford actors to tour the country during the off-season, was likely the only exposure

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most Canadians had to professional theatre at the time. And the National Theatre School, which would get off the ground in 1960 thanks to Canada Council funding,6 was yet to be established. Throughout the 1960s, Council support spawned regional theatres in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax, and Fredericton, and festivals in Charlottetown, Stratford, and Niagara-on-the-Lake. But the burgeoning theatre scene was not always accompanied by the development of Canadian plays, playwrights, and artistic directors, a challenge discussed further in the next chapter. Disciplinary specificities characterized literature, music, and visual arts as well, but the development of disciplinary “sections” at the Canada Council, each with their own head and program management staff, only started to take hold in the late 1960s. Annual reports of the time began to list funding and major developments across key disciplinary activities: dance, music, opera, theatre, visual arts, and writing. While a number of changes were made to this list in the intervening years – ballet was combined with dance in 1968–69, opera and music came together in 1971–72, cinema and photography emerged in 1970–71 (to be joined by video in 1974–75; photography shifted to visual arts in 1975–76), and writing became writing and publishing in 1972–73 (translation was added in 1974–75) – this principal disciplinary structure held sway at the Council for the next half a century. But the sweep of changes in technology, artistic practice, values, and society documented in the previous chapter began to exert mounting pressure on this disciplinary approach to organizing Council activities. Over the years, it become increasingly clear that something had to be done – and done on a growing number of fronts.

From the Disciplines to … Explorations, Media Arts, Inter-Arts: From Falling Between the Disciplinary Cracks to Celebrating and Transcending Them

The first area in which the Canada Council formally expanded its funding and programs beyond the original disciplines was in multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and community arts.7 The story can be broken into four broad periods.8 The first – and longest – runs from the 1970s to the

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mid-1990s. It begins with creation of the watershed program Explorations in 1974, which had a mandate to encourage initiatives that weren’t able to benefit from other Council programs (new artistic practices, new disciplines, combining traditional approaches, etc.).9 As Mailhot and Melançon explain in their history of the first twenty-five years of the Canada Council, the program succeeded the Canadian Horizons program and other Council special initiatives of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which were intended to strengthen Canadians’ knowledge of the country.10 Undertaken in the heyday of Canadian nationalist sentiment and the emergence of Canadian studies, these special initiatives supported research on and appreciation of Canada in accessible and often regional terms (local and regional histories, biographies, pedagogical materials, etc.). Grant recipients were largely academics, but some artistic activities also benefited from the funding. Explorations, for its part, targeted the arts exclusively, and supported multi- and interdisciplinary art, “experimentation that blurred or crossed over conventional disciplinary boundaries,” and, of note, extended support to emerging artists, artistic practices, and organizations.11 With an inaugural annual budget of one million dollars (roughly five million in 2016 dollars), Explorations was a poor cousin to the disciplines, which had a total budget of $18.3 million that year (close to ninety million in 2016 dollars). But the program punched well above its financial weight: a full thirty-one pages was dedicated to Explorations in the Council’s 1974–75 Annual Report,12 and all thirteen of the report’s photographs that year – including the cover page – celebrated the activities of Explorations’ grant recipients: everything from artists in schools, to community arts, to documentary photography. Explorations was among artists’ favourite Council programs for the freedom it provided to explore in ways that would have been difficult – if not impossible – in the disciplinary programs. For many artists, the program was pivotal to their artistic development, enabling them to create without the constraints of disciplinary structures. Indeed, in a 2000 Canada Council study examining the impact of Council grants on artists’ careers, many artists stated that Explorations provided “a framework into which all of the ‘newest’ developments could be accommodated.”13 Explorations was followed in 1977 by creation of the Multidisciplinary and Performance Art program. The new program focused mainly on support for video and performance-based art. Within a decade, the Media Arts Section was created as a separate section from Visual Arts. Its inaugural

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3.2 Mullusk by the Evelyn Roth Moving Sculpture Company of Vancouver, featuring performers Gail Haddad and Raila Katona, received funding from the Explorations Program in 1974–75. Roth went on to become an internationally recognized community artist, whose events and exhibits engage people on environmental issues.

1984 mandate was decidedly cross-disciplinary: “to recognize and support research activity by professional artists working outside the boundaries of currently accepted disciplinary categories.”14 This development reflected the emergence and growth of technology-based artistic mediums like video, robotics, and holography. The Council also created a one-time Interdisciplinary Fund in 1986 with a budget of one million dollars, generated by a contribution from each section’s operating budget. But despite these initiatives and Explorations’ popularity, many interdisciplinary art practices continued to fall between the cracks. A seminal 1984 Canada Council discussion paper noted, Council is structured along the lines of pure art forms. Within this structure, programs are developed and eligibility criteria and assessment processes established to advance the major interests of the discipline. In turn, our juries and advisors reflect the nature of their art form and bring to their work a focused sense of responsibility to their given discipline or medium. For artists who choose to work within a single art form, this structure works reasonably well. But for those artists who do not, the Council’s structure is too inflexible. Projects and artists uniting two or more art forms pose particularly great difficulties for the Council; more exactly, the Council poses great difficulties for them.15

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These challenges persisted, and were expressed in similar terms five years on in a 1989 report: “A great deal of activity cannot be readily accommodated within existing programs, particularly when the work proposed transcends the boundaries of art forms or structures recognized by Council programs … The Council has been struggling with this issue for more than 10 years without coming to a satisfactory resolution.”16 Although Council wasn’t responding amply enough to the challenge, this period is nonetheless viewed by many as the “golden era” of Council artistic risk-taking outside of traditional disciplinary boundaries, largely through the Explorations program. The structures weren’t perfect, and Council was recognizing that more needed to be done, but Explorations was meeting some key needs in innovative ways. Of note, neither Explorations nor the creation of Media Arts challenged the Council’s discipline-based approach to funding: Explorations stood outside of the disciplinary sections, and Media Arts was created in the image of a disciplinary section alongside the others. The move at Council from filling in the disciplinary cracks with new programs and structures, to transcending them with non-disciplinary approaches, was still decades away. The second period is relatively short – straddling the mid- to late 1990s – when Council disbanded the Explorations program in a context of extreme fiscal restraint. When Program Review hit in the mid-1990s and the Council had to absorb millions of dollars worth of funding cuts, leaders chose to discontinue Explorations and distribute its funding through the disciplines themselves. Many artists and Council insiders still lament this choice. But the program had its weaknesses. A string of evaluations pointed to its costliness and labour intensiveness – it was juried regionally (including

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3.3 Christopher Neil Wortley in Tremolo, performed by the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre Company of Vancouver, 1981–82. Wortley was a founding member of the company and went on to serve as co-director alongside Anna Wyman, founder and artistic director.

3.4 Opposite Calgary’s One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre’s 1997 production Doing Leonard Cohen, adapted and directed by Blake Brooker. All texts in the play are drawn from Leonard Cohen’s poems and novels, mixed with movement and dance. Shown are Michael Green and Denise Clarke.

in the north) and program officers made regular trips to the regions. The program was also critiqued for lacking rigour and for funding a maximum of three projects per applicant, after which time there was no process in place to continue financial support for the activities or artists involved. While attentiveness to regional aesthetics, needs, and artistic practices was one of the key strengths of the program, it was expensive to administer in relative terms. Explorations was also critiqued for being too distant from the disciplines: the program seemingly flew solo, with limited connection between its program officers and those in the disciplinary sections.

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This lack of organizational rootedness and connection meant that the experience, expertise, and knowledge of Explorations program officers did not find their way into the disciplines, exacerbating real and perceived disconnects between the two. Integrating Explorations funding into the disciplines during Program Review meant that Council was able “to keep the different Sections up to date with developments in the increasingly multiand inter-disciplinary nature of all art forms, and to allow newer ‘cuttingedge’ practices to rub up against, influence, and often enter into the mainstream. Certainly the perceived ‘disconnect’ between Explorations and the disciplinary sections ceased to be a problem in this new structure.”17 Throughout this second period, pressure continued to mount for more extensive and flexible support for artistic activities falling between the cracks of the Council’s mainly discipline-based approach to funding. The Program Review process identified a number of areas for strategic support, including interdisciplinary art.18 In 1997, the organization ran a pilot program on community arts, and it demonstrated the need to do more to

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3.5 The 1999 Interdisciplinary and Performance Art Advisory Committee. Clockwise from bottom left: Haruko Okano, Ahasiw Maskegon-Iskwew, Ron Burnett (not visible), Claude Schryer (arts consultant), Rita McKeough, Robert Faguy, Paul Couillard, Danielle Boutet, Joanne Morrow (Director, Arts Division), July 1999, Ottawa.

support projects connecting professional artists and communities. In response, Council commissioned a review of interdisciplinary arts programs in the Arts Section writ large. The review revealed that many performance artists weren’t feeling understood, and that their art, which was often politically engaged, was not aligning well with existing Council structures. In a by now familiar refrain, the report noted, “The strict boundaries between artistic disciplines have, in fact, dissipated, but the funding structures of the Council have not kept pace with these changes.”19 To be fair, the disciplinary sections were responding within their own ambit to changing artistic practices: “the various discipline sections have themselves repeatedly demonstrated an ability to respond to calls for flexibility with an ever-increasing range of programs designed to recognize hybridity, and new and emerging practices that blur the boundaries of their ‘home’ disciplines.”20 Nonetheless, Council activities, artistic practices, and a lengthening string of research studies were consistently pointing to the need to do more. This ushered in the third period, which began in 1999 with creation of the Inter-Arts Office. This move formally institutionalized, recognized, and valorized Council support for multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and socially-engaged art. The iao’s inaugural mission, “to support multiple, hybrid, and experimental approaches to the creation, research, production, and dissemination of interdisciplinary and non-disciplinary artistic practices that display a critical and/or exploratory attitude,”21 established the office as more than a program. It had program responsibility for multidisciplinary festivals, interdisciplinary and performance art funding, and audience development and publications,22 but was also bestowed with policy

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capacity to undertake research and outreach both within and outside the Council. This enabled the iao to help shape debate, discussion, and thinking about art crossing between or defying disciplinary boundaries. As with the previous periods, however, during this third period, despite creation of the Inter-Arts Office, the Canada Council continued to “think” about its activities largely in relation to discipline-based approaches. It wasn’t until the fourth period, beginning in the mid-2000s and culminating with the New Funding Model in 2015, that Council understanding of its arts funding and support came to transcend discipline-based thinking and conceive of organizational activities in thematic and activity-based terms. A seminal 2007 report prepared for the iao by Rachel Van Fossen fostered a shift away from the idea of “discipline” towards the idea of “multi-arts,” a term that does not use “disciplinarity as a defining feature.”23 The Van Fossen report noted: “Nationally and internationally there is a clear trend among arts funders to recognize and support multiarts, and of movements to design funding programs that de-emphasize disciplinarity as the defining feature for applications.”24 Following the report, the iao reorganized its funding programs into two main streams: integrated arts for individual artists and integrated arts for organizations (the office also became the exclusive funder of contemporary circus arts, which had previously been funded both by the theatre section and the iao). None of the above should be taken to suggest that the story of progressive recognition of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, socially engaged, and, ultimately, integrated arts, was a smooth or easy one. Claude Schryer, inaugural coordinator (1999– ) of the Inter-Arts Office puts it this way, “Inter-arts is a field of many marginal and emerging voices.”25 In a newspaper column in the 1970s, renowned journalist, editor, cultural critic, and essayist Robert Fulford said of Explorations, “Of the Council’s programs, only Explorations is out there at the edge, still slightly suspect, still vaguely kooky in some eyes. The reason is that the Explorations program is designed to do all of the things that the rest of the Council does not do. These things are, almost by definition, not quite respectable.”26 And while the Council is well connected to artistic communities and tries to be responsive to changing needs, Council hears more, in Schryer’s words, “from those who have capacity to influence – so those who are disenfranchised tend to have less access. This means there tends to be a lot of emphasis on traditional art forms.” In his role as iao coordinator, Schryer maintained regular and ongoing relations with the disciplinary sections, but points out,

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3.6 Les Robes de Sainte-Anne by Circus Stella (Artistic Director, Jay Ruby). Shown: Julie Duguay (standing) and Marie-Christine Simoneau. Circus Stella, a non-profit association that promotes circus arts in New Brunswick through training and by creating and producing shows, collaborates with other organizations to develop expertise and links between Acadian, Canadian, and international circus artists.

“There is a particularity to disciplinary structures. We would have meetings where there would be deep critical thinking but little collaboration. People would be protecting [disciplinary] boundaries and not connecting the dots.” Remarking on the process of recognizing new and emerging art forms crossing or transcending disciplinary categorization, he says, “You need to be willing to go to difficult places.” When asked about his greatest achievement at Council, Schryer states matter-of-factly, “Working towards making the Inter-Arts Office redundant.”

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Equity: “Council Had to Change”

The story of inter-arts both within and outside the Canada Council has a number of threads in common with shifts towards recognition and support of non-Western European art forms and traditions, including the art of culturally diverse communities and the art of Indigenous peoples. As the Racial Equality Advisory Committee noted in 1999, “Artists of colour have an understanding of ‘interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary’ arts practices, with a different and longer cultural history in such practices than that of most other artists.”27 But the story of equity cannot be told without raising the name “Joyce Zemans.” Professor Joyce Zemans is one of the foremost cultural policy scholars, educators, and practitioners in Canada and internationally. She has written widely on Canadian cultural policy in domestic and comparative perspectives, was the first female dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University, and was appointed a member of the Order of Canada in recognition of her extensive contribution to the arts and culture in the country. Zemans was also director of the Canada Council from 1989 to 1992. She has a formidable intellect, a meticulous memory, and a no-nonsense personality. This is not someone to trifle with. She doesn’t pussyfoot around conflict or suffer fools gladly: Joyce calls it as she sees it and doesn’t shy away from inconvenient truths. At the same time, she is warm, welcoming, and supportive of those around her, and has a mischievous twinkle in her eye that hints she is great fun to work with. Ask people about Joyce Zemans’s time at the Canada Council and they say “equity.” It was under her leadership that Council began to take racial equality and Indigenous art (for the latter, see below) seriously. As Zemans recalls, “When I was first appointed to the Council, someone advised me not to take any major decisions for the first few months.” Instead, she consulted: “I undertook soundings internally and externally, but I knew that Council had to change. In dance there was jazz, ballet, and modern, but no space for culturally diverse practices. My husband and I were living in Toronto and we saw first-hand the changing face of art and the arts, with more artists and creative works coming from culturally diverse communities and backgrounds. The Council needed to have an inclusive program.”28 Calls for change were also coming from the external community, with increasing advocacy from culturally diverse artists and arts organizations.

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3.7 Joyce Zemans, Director, Canada Council (1989–92). Zemans’s tenure at the Council is often associated with her efforts to expand the representation of programming and grants to Indigenous and culturally diverse communities.

To grapple with this, Zemans began by organizing a meeting of all Council staff. “Staff knew what was happening and that Council had to change,” she says. The question was how to create access, including access for audiences to the works of culturally diverse artists. She created the Racial Equality Advisory Committee to spearhead an extensive consultation process to bring forward the key issues and identify how to address them. “Artists didn’t like the term ‘multiculturalism,’” she recalls, “they wanted to use the term ‘racially diverse’ instead. They also wanted to revisit the definition of professional artist and redefine programs to be inclusive.” But change is rarely easy. It took skillful diplomacy on Zemans’s part to keep things moving at the board and senior staff levels. She worked closely with Council board members to ensure they understood that “this wasn’t a personal issue but an institutional issue that needed to be addressed.” Section heads would say they could expand access to their programs once they got additional funding, but, as Zemans recollects sternly, “it had to be done even in the absence of new money.” But, she continues, “When all the section heads came together and understood that the pie wasn’t going to get bigger, the generosity of their spirit was incredible.” Work on equity continued after Zemans’s tenure came to an end, but was overtaken in part by mounting funding stresses at Council in the 1990s. The position of Equity Coordinator and creation of a formal

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3.8 Alison Sealy-Smith in The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, co-produced by Nightwood Theatre and Toronto’s Black theatre company Obsidian, 2002. The play, written and directed by Djanet Sears, is a comedy-drama about faith, grief, and accepting death.

3.9 France Geoffroy, Thomas Casey, Maxime D.-Pomerleau, and Georges-Nicolas Tremblay in Corpuscule Danse’s Quadriptyque, 2016 (Choreographer, Deborah Dunn). Quebec-based Corpuscule Danse was founded by France Geoffroy in 2000 to develop physically integrated dance.

3.10 Howie Tsui, Bipolar, 2006. Howie Tsui is a Vancouver-based artist who was born in Hong Kong and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, and Canada (Thunder Bay, Ontario). In 2005, he received the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts for outstanding young artist.

structure – the Equity Office – came in the years that followed. Over time, the Equity Office has expanded the number and range of artistic practices supported, including, recently, Deaf and disability arts, a burgeoning field of important, distinctive, and heretofore under-recognized arts. Support for the works of culturally diverse artists also came from the Canada Council Art Bank. In 2008, the Art Bank made an equity special purchase. It issued an open call and, as then-director of the Art Bank, Victoria Henry, tells it, “We tracked down every organization that dealt with new Canadians.”29 The special call received ninety applications,

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and the acquisition included stimulating works by Erika DeFreitas, Sunil Gupta, Will Kwan, Sanaz Mazinani, Abdi Osman, and Howie Tsui. In Henry’s words, “The acquisition made the collection more significant. Work by those artists had not previously been in the collection. At the time [the acquisition] was controversial. It was an important moment in time historically: works by artists from culturally diverse communities were not well known.”30 As Henry noted the acquisition was not without controversy. ThenGovernor General of Canada (and woman of Haitian descent), Michaëlle Jean, exhibited a number of the pieces at Rideau Hall, the residence of the Governor General. The exhibition, entitled diasporart, ignited a fiery public controversy between many members of the visual arts community and National Gallery of Canada ceo Marc Mayer. Mayer, in an interview about the exhibition with cbc’s The National, made statements that numerous artists and curators perceived as dismissive of the work of artists from culturally diverse backgrounds. The incident unleashed a vociferous debate over “excellence” – what constitutes artistic excellence, how it is judged, who judges it – and viscerally demonstrated the sort of heated exchanges that can take place over what “counts” as art, and who or what defines what counts over time.31 “Oh, Marc didn’t like what we did one bit,” recalls Henry. But once the work was in the collection, clients snapped up the cutting-edge pieces, and they continue to be among the most popular in the Art Bank’s collection. Indigenous Arts: “First Art / Last Recognized”32

“It is the first road on your left on the hill and there are four inukshuks that are situated at the start of my driveway,” is how Louise ProfeitLeBlanc guides people to her home in picturesque Wakefield, Quebec. Nestled charmingly along the Gatineau River, the small village is home to artists, the renowned live music venue The Black Sheep Inn, and the historic Wakefield Mill, converted in 2000 into a luxury hotel and conference centre. Wakefield also sits on a large land mass claimed by the Algonquin people. Profeit-LeBlanc is not Algonquin; she is from the Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation from Yukon, but her commitment to Indigenous people in Canada and beyond is undeniable. She is first and foremost a storyteller, but is also a writer, cultural educator, choreographer, and institutionbuilder. She co-founded the Yukon International Storytelling Festival, was

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3.11 Will Kwan, Endless Prosperity, Eternal Accumulation, 2009. Endless Prosperity, Eternal Accumulation is a series of eighty images of hongbao (Chinese envelopes used to give money at special events) produced by transnational financial corporations. It explores, on the one hand, the appropriation of cultural symbols for branding, and on the other, the aspirations of companies to transcend time and cultural differences.

an original member of the Society of Yukon Artists of Native Ancestry, and was closely involved in bringing the Walking with Our Sisters art installation commemorating missing and murdered Indigenous women to Ottawa. She is also a survivor of the Indian Residential School system. To meet her is to meet a force of nature: she is a strong, vital woman with a fierce intolerance for injustice, disrespect, and the cold-hearted underbelly of bureaucracy. This is not to say that Profeit-LeBlanc isn’t personable.

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With her generous storyteller’s spirit, she recounts her experiences as head of the Canada Council’s Aboriginal Arts Office (2001–12). “I had worked for fifteen years in the heritage branch in Yukon … I realized I wanted to do something on the national level,” she recounts. “I looked on the Canada Council website and they were looking for someone to work at the Aboriginal Secretariat.” She applied for and landed the job, but it wasn’t easy: “I was totally computer illiterate, had never managed a large budget and had no experience managing and administering on the national scale,” she remembers. “I had travelled all over the world but my home was Yukon – that’s where my support and family were.”33 But in true Profeit-LeBlanc fashion, she was undeterred. When asked about the obstacles Indigenous people have faced when seeking Canada Council funding, she grabs a rectangular pencil case sitting on the kitchen counter, plops it back down on the counter from mid-air, circles her finger on the countertop at some distance from the case, and says sternly, “If this case were Canada Council funding, Aboriginal artists would be out here,” referring to her finger. Council granting programs have often worked against Indigenous artists: many criteria, definitions, and approaches have excluded them. In Indigenous communities, explains ProfeitLeBlanc, “Art is for honouring your family, beautifying for celebratory activities. Art is a selfless thing for Aboriginal artists and not about selling. They are driven, but it’s not a ‘profession’ in the same sense as the Western approach.” If “professional artist” is defined as dedicating yourself to your art full-time and exhibiting, disseminating, or performing in formal artistic settings (galleries, performance spaces, contracts with publishers, etc.), many Indigenous artists are “defined out” of program eligibility. It is difficult to meet these criteria for an artist who also has extensive subsistence responsibilities (hunting, fishing, securing a basic income). And, in small communities, there are rarely performance spaces and facilities that meet the conventional Canada Council criteria of artistic exhibition and dissemination. “How are people supposed to exhibit when the only public spaces are schools and police stations?” she asks rhetorically. For artists in remote communities, accessing this infrastructure in larger centres can be a hurdle that’s difficult, if not impossible, to overcome. Council application and adjudication processes can also prove problematic. What of artists who cannot – or cannot readily – communicate in written English or French? What of juries that don’t include Indigenous representation? And what of the jury process itself, that “judges” art in

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3.12 Marianne Nicolson, Portrait of Yaxa’tlanis, 2001. Marianne Nicolson (‘Tayagila’ogwa) is of Scottish and Dzawada’enuxw First Nations descent from the Pacific Northwest Coast of British Columbia. Her works use painting, photography, and installations to explore Indigenous histories and politics, with a view to cultural preservation and sustainability.

ways rooted in Western culture that can align poorly with the communal understandings of art and social life of Indigenous cultures? What of reporting processes that require funding recipients to “report on” the activities supported by a grant in ways that can make Indigenous artists, who may perceive these processes as requiring them to “brag,” ill at ease? And what of Indigenous art forms themselves? Are the traditional baskets made from black ash trees by the Mi’kmaw “art”? Are moccasins? Dugout canoes? Storytelling? Murals? Or are they (merely) “craft,” as has often been the implicit or explicit interpretation and categorization of Indigenous art by institutions like the Canada Council, which have been rooted in Western artistic approaches? To be sure, these questions and more were raised long before ProfeitLeBlanc was hired by the Council. As Steven Loft, Profeit-LeBlanc’s successor, tells it, the artistic landscape and the place of Indigenous art within it had been in transformation since the mid-1960s. Key milestones included the Indians of Canada Pavilion in Expo 67, which featured “edgy artists for the time,” the Indian Group of 7 (Jackson Beardy, Eddy Cobiness, Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, and Joseph Sanchez); the burst of attention given to Norval Morrisseau’s work, beginning in the 1960s; the creation of the first Indigenous artist-run centre in the early 1980s; large exhibitions like indigena (1992) and Land, Spirit, Power (1992) at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National Gallery (respectively) in the wake of the Oka crisis (1990); and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996).34 But despite the rise of Indigenous art and artists from the 1960s onwards, recognition that Council programs needed to do a better job of supporting Indigenous art didn’t get fully under way until the late 1980s under Director and ceo Joyce Zemans. Zemans, as noted above, gave priority to making changes at the Council so it could “catch up” and keep pace with its dynamic artistic and cultural landscape. In addition to creating the Racial Equality Advisory Committee, Zemans created the First Peoples Advisory Committee. As she recalls it, the committee was filled with “fabulous people who were willing to invest their time,”35 undertake consultations, and look beyond Canada’s borders at funding practices internationally, including in Australia, where a separate arts board to support Indigenous art had been established. In Canada, although Council’s mandate was to fund contemporary art, Indigenous artists wanted Council to support both traditional and contemporary artistic practice, to revise the definition of

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professional artist, and to redefine programs to be inclusive, says Zemans. For her, inclusion also meant lengthy discussions with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s head of appointments about the need for Indigenous representation on the Council’s board. The next significant milestone was the appointment of Lee-Ann Martin, co-curator of indigena, as the Council’s First Peoples Equity Coordinator in 1994. Creation of the Aboriginal Secretariat followed that same year. The establishment of a separate entity – the Secretariat – focused on Indigenous art, enabled key issues to be brought forward and to be represented at Council with a single voice. The secretariat organized a large national conference in 1995 with some three hundred attendees, many of whom wanted to form a separate Indigenous arts council, but Martin had fostered trust between Indigenous artists, arts organizations, and the Council, so the idea of a separate funding body was not pursued. Instead, the Council committed to hiring Aboriginal program officers in each of the disciplines, a commitment on which it made good over the next few years. This decision was a powerful one and helped strengthen Council’s relationships with Indigenous artistic communities. Louise Profeit-LeBlanc was hired into this structure in 1999. As she tells it, “I saw my role as an educator … I made it my business to befriend staff and made a point of meeting as many people as I could who were interested in advancing Aboriginal presence. Every board meeting, I would sit next to a different board member.”36 She would also exhibit Indigenous art at several board meetings, so that Council members could become familiar with the works. One of her most striking demonstrations in her role as educator was arriving at a board meeting with four ribbons: a white one, a yellow one, a black one, and a very long red one. She laid them across the boardroom table, with the red one trailing off under the table and out the door, continuing well beyond the other ribbons. Her message: people of different colours have been in Canada for many years, but some – Indigenous people, signified by the red ribbon – were here long before the others, and this is how long their arts have been practised in Canada. Like those who came before and after her, she worked as an agent of program change: “Whenever there was a big block [to Indigenous artists or groups applying for funding], I made it my business to unblock it: people who can’t write should be able to video or record their funding applications, people who are monolingual [in an Indigenous language] shouldn’t be prevented from applying.” This also included pushing the limits of fund-

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ing activities, as First Peoples’ coordinators before her had done: for example, providing small financial contributions from discretionary budgets to activities that would not ordinarily receive Council funding. In ProfeitLeBlanc’s case, this included support for mural and painting courses for Indigenous women in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, led by a female Indigenous artist who had lived in the downtown east side, and support to a Yukon-based initiative to teach at-risk Indigenous youth the art, songs, and stories of their people through building a dugout canoe. Profeit-LeBlanc also dedicated considerable time and effort to building capacity within Indigenous artistic communities for arts administration, funding an annual arts administration conference in different locations across the country. The meetings were held in local communities and integrated local practices, ceremonies, and locales. Louise recalls fondly: “one of the meetings was held in a huge tent with a stove at both ends and spruce, so it smelled beautiful … Every community brought in their own food, song, artists, and family.” At the same time as Profeit-LeBlanc was working to sensitize and revise Council programs and activities – including bringing regular smudging ceremonies to Council offices (“at first the Canada Council was concerned we would set off the sprinklers but eventually it was okay!” she jokes wryly) – others within and beyond Council were also doing their part. Suzanne Rochon-Burnett was the first Indigenous Council board member, serving from 1998 to 2004. Tom Hill, an Iroquoian artist, curator, and arts administrator from the Six Nations Reserve at Brantford, Ontario, creator of a ceramic mural for the exterior of the Indians of Canada Pavilion in Expo 67 and Council member from 2004 to 2012, worked closely with Council Chair Joseph Rotman to enhance his understanding of Indigenous art and culture. And Victoria Henry, former director of the Canada Council Art Bank, Indigenous art expert, and founding director of the Ufundi Gallery of Indigenous art prior to her Art Bank appointment, invested considerable effort to enhance the representation and exhibition of Indigenous art in the Art Bank’s collection. This included, notably, a special purchase of Indigenous art in 2003–04, which brought pieces by some of the most important artists of the time (and beyond) into the collection: Mary Anne Barkhouse, Bob Boyer, Rande Cook, Walter Harris, Marianne Nicolson, Annie Pitsiulak, Arthur Renwick, Connie Watts, and many others. Of note, the jury of this special acquisition was comprised almost entirely of Indigenous members. The pieces became among the collection’s most popular, and, in 2007, Henry organized a special exhibition of a number of the works at the

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Museum of the American Indian in Washington, dc, complete with a trip to Washington with many of the artists. These important milestones paved the way for the even-more-substantial changes that were to come. Steven Loft, a Mohawk of the Six Nations with Jewish heritage, a multimedia artist, prestigious Trudeau Foundation Fellow (2010–12), and former curator-in-residence of Indigenous art at the National Gallery of Canada, was in some ways an unlikely successor to Louise Profeit-LeBlanc. His art, interests, and research seek to foster critical dialogue on Indigenous art, culture, and aesthetics in ways that resist categorizing Indigenous art in Western terms and that “develop a new language of art history that is located in Indigenous cultures, [and that creates] radical, critical, and culturally dynamic discourses that respond to, and engage with, an Indigenous cultural sovereignty.”37 Accepting a position at the Canada Council was not an easy choice for Loft. As he says, “It was a huge shift. It changed my relationship to the [Indigenous] community. The history of the public service for Aboriginal people is not good: they take the best and the brightest and co-opt them rather than have them becoming activists.”38 But Loft felt strongly that he could make change at the Council – and that he did, more rapidly than he ever imagined. In and around the time of his appointment, there was a watershed change in thinking at the Council about Indigenous art. In Loft’s words, from “a parochial attitude of ‘here’s a problem we need to solve’ – and with all good intent it’s still a power relationship to ‘the needy’ – to a relationship of nation-to-nation, with self-determination, cultural sovereignty, authority, and agency, [and where] Aboriginal programs are developed in parallel to all other programs.”39 The Council’s New Funding Model comprises only six programs, one of which is focused exclusively on Indigenous art: Creating, Knowing and Sharing: The Arts and Cultures of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples. The program expands eligibility, so that artists need not meet conventional definitions of “professional” at the Council: an elder who is a storyteller in an Indigenous community will qualify for funding, for example. And even before the New Funding Model was announced, the Council was spearheading important changes in this direction, with programs like {Re}conciliation (a partnership with The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada), which supports the creation and exhibition of works that bring together Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists. The

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appointment of Loft as the first Indigenous director at the ex (executive) level in the Council’s history was also a pivotal change. In addition, the Canada Council was specifically mentioned in the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s 2015 final report. The commission called on the Council to prioritize funding “for Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to undertake collaborative projects and produce works that contribute to the reconciliation process.”40 Naming the Council reflected the commission’s overall strategy of calling on federal public agencies to contribute to the process of reconciliation.41 It was viewed by Council leaders as a meaningful recognition of the role that the Canada Council could play in Canadian society on this seminal policy and political issue.

3.13 Connie Watts, Play, 2001. Connie Watts, of Nuu-chah-nulth, Gitxsan, and Kwakwaka’wakw ancestry, is a mixed media artist and designer whose work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout Canada and the United States. Her Thunderbird sculpture, Hetux, can be seen at the Vancouver International Airport.

Many would say that the Council’s full recognition and comprehensive support for Indigenous art was a long time in coming. “It took them fifty years to open up their eyes,” says Profeit-LeBlanc. But now that the Council has its eyes open, the organization may well be at the forefront among federal organizations in its approach to Indigenous relations in Canada. Asked whether the Council can be a leader, Loft asserts, “Yes it can in a nation-to-nation relationship. We must create the relationship and conciliate.” zxzxz

Organizations like the Council are often said to be microcosms of the communities they represent and serve, or of trends in their fields of endeavour. While this is true in some respects for the Council – as seen in its efforts to grapple with tensions and dynamics between established and emerging artists, art forms, and organizations – in others, the Council is more than this. As the only pan-Canadian arts council in the country, the Council has the unique capacity to “see” the Canadian arts ecosystem as a whole and to both understand and foster the ways in which that ecosystem is more than just the sum of its regional, linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary/ interdisciplinary/inter-arts parts. Through its program and funding decisions, it makes important statements about where the arts in and across Canada have been, where they are now, and where they are going. The New Funding Model, which transforms the Council’s program arrangements from disciplinary to non-disciplinary, and vastly reduces the number of funding programs, is a decisive statement by the Council about the evolution and future of the arts in Canada, and the organization’s role therein. The new approach places artistic activities and themes at the fore. This is made plain in the names of the new funding programs, which speak to activities, not disciplines: Creating, Knowing and Sharing: The Arts and Culture of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples; Explore and Create; Engage and Sustain; Supporting Artistic Practice; Arts Across Canada; and Arts Abroad. The change also highlights the sort of impacts the organization seeks to achieve, not the art forms receiving the funding, and is in keeping with the Council’s shift from the roots of culture (fostering production/supply and building the disciplines) to the power of art (fostering enjoyment/demand and the arts’ impact in society).

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It was not a foregone conclusion that the Council would come to this place of transformation. The road to this point was not a smooth or straight one; there were many bumps, twists, and turns along the way. Organizational change is never easy, particularly when long-standing funding recipients depend on those funds – in many instances, profoundly. Expanding the number and range of funded activities is politically challenging, for those within and outside the organization who believe they stand to lose may vocally oppose change on pecuniary or aesthetic grounds, fearing that new approaches will reduce their funding, “water down” their discipline, or diminish the very concepts of “art,” “excellence,” or “professional artist.” That the Council has forged ahead in the face of actual or potential resistance is testament to its desire to remain relevant in the context of technological, demographic, and sociocultural change, as well as its rootedness in and understanding of the ever-evolving boundaries of and practices within the artistic community. To be sure, the process has not been perfect. The Council has been slow at times to respond to the need for change (for example, in the time taken to adapt programming to the emergence and evolution of multi- and interdisciplinary practices), and changes haven’t always been implemented in ways that dovetail with existing structures (as seen in program arrangements like Explorations, which operated in isolation from the disciplinary sections). Nonetheless, the organization has kept pace with the changing faces of the arts in Canada – and of Canadian society – over time, shepherding change in ways that aim to balance new and emerging with traditional and longstanding art forms, artists, and organizations, and that strive to assess excellence in culturally, regionally, and aesthetically meaningful ways.

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4 Too Close or Too Far for Comfort? The Canada Council as Crown Corporation: Leadership, Money, and Navigating Political and Bureaucratic Waters

The scholar and the artist, like the scientist, require the wide horizon of freedom as the only border within which they can do their best work. The organizations and the individuals do need some assistance and encouragement in the tasks already in hand. It is this encouragement to perform the tasks already in hand which it should be our purpose to provide, but without undue interference. Prime Minister Louis St Laurent announcing creation of the Canada Council in the House of Commons 18 January 1957

While the Council supports the principle of full accountability to the government, Parliament, and the people of Canada, it opposes the imposition of additional controls by the government on the Council. Timothy Porteous, 4 May 1984 Director, Canada Council for the Arts (1982–85)

[T]he arm’s length relationship is not a barrier to but a basis upon which to relate with the government. Joyce Zemans, 10 March 2015 Director, Canada Council for the Arts (1989–92)

When the Canada Council for the Arts was created in 1957, as seen earlier, it was established as a body at arm’s length from the government. The rationale was clear: as Prime Minister Louis St Laurent stated in his speech to the House of Commons announcing the Council’s creation, “Governments should, I feel, support the cultural development of the nation and not attempt to control it.”1 While successive governments have remained committed to the core principle of arm’s length, how the concept has been interpreted over the years by the government of the day and by the Council itself has varied. Some Council leaders have ardently defended the organization’s autonomy and independence – critics might say in ways that pushed it too far away from government – while others have adopted much closer collaborative relations with the government – some might say too close. Should the Council see itself as part of “the federal family,” contributing to overall government priorities? Or should it defend its autonomy to determine its strategic directions, activities, and funding decisions independent of government orientations? Should it try to do both of these things? What are the dangers of being too close or too far from the government? More to the point, why should anyone care about answering these questions? At first blush, these issues might seem purely academic at best or small “p” political-bureaucratic at worst: in this view, disputes over Council autonomy are mere kerfuffles, petty internecine squabbles between government and Council leaders over territory, resources, and prestige, driven more by ego, zero-sum thinking, and self-interest than by principle. But these matters are far more than semantic quibbling or small-minded carping. They strike at the very heart of democracy: if the Council is too close to the government, it risks opening the door to partisan political influence on its operations or attempts to instrumentalize its activities for broader political or policy ends. As Prime Minister St Laurent affirmed, governments should support cultural development, not control it. If governments try to control culture and the arts, they jeopardize fundamental democratic values – freedom of expression, freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, of belief, or of association and equality without regard to race, nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, age, or disability. These values, rights, and freedoms have been hard fought for and hard-won over many years, including, notably, in the Second World War, the vicious international backdrop to the story of the Council’s origins. Those in the arts and cultural sector who defend the arm’s length principle rarely do so for trivial reasons.

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Ultimately, they do so to defend fundamental democratic rights and freedoms – and sometimes at great personal or organizational cost. At the end of the day, however, the Canada Council is a public agency supported by taxpayers’ dollars. It cannot conceive of itself as hermetically sealed off from the government. It must strike a balance between safeguarding its autonomy and relating to the government on a variety of interests and priorities – be they shared, complementary, or divergent. What is too close or too far for comfort? Where the right balance lies is fundamentally a judgment call informed by the political, policy, and administrative context on the one hand, and leaders’ pre-existing views of the arm’s length principle on the other. While controversies over works of art supported by Canada Council grants have triggered high-profile altercations with politicians – “Taxpayer dollars funded that?!” – disputes over interpretation of the arm’s length principle itself have also sparked heated exchanges. They even led to the very public departure of a Council director in the mid-1980s, a defining story recounted below. In recent years, however, the Council has adopted a much more collaborative approach with the government. There have been no high-profile controversies – at least not in the public domain – and the organization seems to be singing from the same song sheet (or at least the same song book) as the government, and vice versa. Government confidence in the Council and in the importance of its activities were underscored vividly in 2016 when the Trudeau Liberal government committed to doubling the Council’s parliamentary appropriation, an unprecedented increase in funding to the organization. How did this collaborative approach come about? Does it attest to a gradual maturation of Council and government understandings of the arm’s length principle? Or is it a confluence of shared visions and interests between the two parties, combined with a happy absence of controversy over Council grants? Going forward, are there risks to the Council in being too close to the government? Can it retain its decision-making autonomy? Or will it find itself gradually delivering more and more on governmentwide or partisan – rather than artistic – priorities? This chapter addresses these questions against the backdrop of Council experiences as a Crown corporation over its sixty-year history. It examines the relationship between the Council and the government over time, exploring how the arm’s length principle has been interpreted, the extent to which the Council sees its role as an “advocate” for the arts (and when it does, whether it advocates “inside” or “outside” the government system), and

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how closely it has collaborated – or not – with the government. The story is rich and lively, and underscores the many factors that shape the nature of Council-government relationships: Council funding levels and organizational governance; government appointments and orientations to the arts and broader cultural sector; and growing government attention to accountability, impact, and control in recent decades.

Navigating Political and Bureaucratic Waters: Between Autonomy and Collaboration

The Canada Council Act conferred on the government the authority to appoint the head of the Council, along with its chair and board, stipulated that its annual financial statements be audited by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, and obliged the organization to report to Parliament annually on its activities through a designated cabinet minister. The power of appointment is a crucial one. Council leadership has a determinative impact on organizational direction, orientations, and functioning. The choice of the Auditor General as auditor was also seminal. Rather than placing responsibility for auditing the Council’s books in the hands of the government itself via the Treasury Board or another internal-to-government audit function, the Act placed responsibility in the hands of an independent parliamentary agency – the same agency that audits the government’s finances on behalf of parliamentarians. The Council is required to prepare an annual report on its activities and submit it to the responsible minister, who then tables it in Parliament. These arrangements continue to the present day, and are complemented by many others. Indeed, the Council has multiple points of contact and channels of interaction with the government, irrespective of the tenor and dynamics of its relationships with political leaders at any given time. Most importantly, now that revenues from the Council’s endowment account for a slim proportion of its annual budget, the government effectively decides what the Council’s funding levels will be each year through parliamentary appropriations. This has the greatest material impact on the organization’s activities – at the end of the day, the Council needs money to finance its operations, and the extent of its impact is directly related to funding. Former federal culture minister Flora MacDonald bluntly stated that the government can “lengthen” or “shorten” its arm’s length relationship with cultural agencies

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4.1 Michael Snow, Bees Behaving on Blue, 1979. Toronto-based Michael Snow is a sculptor, photographer, painter, musician, and filmmaker, who explores creative ways of representing time and space. Snow created Bees Behaving on Blue when he discovered hundreds of dead bees upon returning to his cabin in Newfoundland and Labrador one spring. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and retrospectives nationally and internationally, including at the Venice Biennale and the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

through funding increases or decreases.2 The government also touches the Council through the minister and line department responsible for culture and the arts (at time of writing, the minister of Canadian Heritage and the Department of Canadian Heritage) and through central agencies with government-wide administrative and policy mandates like the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Privy Council Office. On matters of broader political or policy importance, or high-profile controversies involving the Council, the government interacts directly with the organization at the ministerial, cabinet, and even prime-ministerial levels.

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That these points of connection exist is entirely appropriate – the Council is a public body after all. The question is whether they have been used in ways that compromise the organization’s autonomy and its capacity to fulfill its mandate free of political interference. In the main, as attested to below, the government has respected the arm’s length principle. That said, there have been a number of crucial moments where the government could – and sometimes did – attempt to influence Council activities unduly. While there have been relatively few public clashes with the government, when public rows erupted, they readily garnered rapt attention within and beyond the arts community. More often, however, clashes with the government have been private affairs, played out behind closed doors with no media or public scrutiny. In hindsight, as recounted below, a number of these conflicts tilt more to tragicomedy than tragedy, and those recounting the stories get exuberant – even giddy – when telling the tales. Entertainment aside, individually and collectively, these incidents shaped Council and government understandings and interpretations of the arm’s length principle over the years. Other factors have also informed conceptions of the arm’s length principle. When it comes to the government, these include the profile of leaders it appoints to the Council, the level of funding it provides to the organization, and its orientation towards and level of attention to arts and cultural policy. When it comes to the Council, in addition to leaders’ views on arm’s length, the organization’s internal governance capacity and strength also shape its conception of the arm’s length principle and general approach to the government. Finally, ongoing trends in public administration towards greater centralization and accountability in decision-making and management since the 1980s3 also influence Council-government relations and interpretations of arm’s length. The cumulative effect of these factors over the years helps to explain why the Council has been able with confidence to approach forging closer, more collaborative, relations with the government in recent times. The Early Years (1957 to the late 1960s): Relatively Smooth Sailing

For more than a decade following the Council’s creation, the government did not try to influence its work unduly. Frank Milligan, long-time staff member at the Council and associate director in the 1970s, went on to publish scholarly articles critically analyzing the organization. He attributes

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limited interest from politicians in the Council’s early years in part to the fact that it was not receiving annual appropriations from the government at the time. Milligan notes, “in the absence of any annual demands on the government’s expenditure budget, and of any items to trigger parliamentary debates, the politicians had little cause to interest themselves in the Council’s operations, and from 1957 until 1965 it functioned essentially as a private foundation.”4 When the Council began requesting additional funding in the early 1960s, and the government responded at first with a lump-sum payment and then with annual appropriations (see Chapter 1), Council leaders were concerned that receiving funding directly from the government would open the door to political interference. But the organization retained control over how the funds were spent. Inaugural Director Albert Trueman said of the first lump sum received, “the Government, to my considerable surprise, came through with an appropriation of ten million dollars, and left the Council free to spend it in a single year or over as many years as it saw fit.”5 However, once annual appropriations were part of the mix, the Council had to submit annual expenditure projections to the Treasury Board to substantiate its funding requests. As Milligan affirms, whatever funds were ultimately allocated to the organization were disbursed on the understanding that “Treasury Board would accept the unqualified right of the Council to determine how the sum appropriated was actually to be applied.”6 The one exception was the distribution of expenditures between scholarship and the arts, where the Treasury Board had final say on the apportionment of funding between the two. It calculated the relative amounts for each purpose by looking at annual appropriations to the Medical Research Council and the National Research Council on the one hand (funding for social sciences and humanities), and to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the National Film Board, the National Arts Centre, and national museums on the other (funding for the arts). This is not to suggest relations were always smooth or completely free of partisan influence. In a move that might astound contemporary readers, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Diefenbaker (1957–63) limited a salary increase to inaugural Director Trueman to one thousand dollars, because Trueman had Liberal connections. The prime minister reportedly explained his decision to then-Council Chair Douglas Weldon (1961–64) as follows: “Trueman’s a Grit [Liberal], and his son Peter’s a Grit, and writes columns in the Montreal Star criticizing me and my government.

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4.2 Inaugural Canada Council Director, Albert W. Trueman (1957–65). In the early days of the Council, before peer assessment was applied across all programs, Council members and the director were personally involved in evaluating grant proposals.

Why should I raise Trueman’s salary?”7 Diefenbaker also considered replacing Norman MacKenzie as one of the Council’s first members, given his connections to the Liberal Party and to then-Opposition Leader Lester B. Pearson. But British Columbia Conservative mp Leon Ladner dissuaded the pm from this course, informing him that MacKenzie, then president of the University of British Columbia, did not get along well with bc Social Credit Premier W.A.C. Bennett (an advantage) and was well liked by Conservatives from bc in Ottawa (another advantage).8 Conversely, in this period, Council appointments were critiqued by those in the arts and scholarly communities on the basis of merit – or lack thereof. While the inaugural slate of members possessed solid expertise and experience – including former Massey-Lévesque commissioners GeorgesHenri Lévesque and, as just noted, Norman MacKenzie – over time, membership composition varied. Writes Milligan, “There was sometimes an

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unfortunate tendency among ministers to base their nominations on no apparent grounds other than the rewarding of political loyalty.”9 Even Council Chair Claude Bissell (1960–62) tactfully described the Council of the early 1960s thus: “I can’t honestly say that the Council collectively is as wise and informed as it is handsome and amiable.”10 While government appointments to the Council were by no means perfect in subsequent years, the appointment process became much more professionalized and emphasized the appointment of members who, in addition to representing the regional, linguistic, cultural, gender, and disciplinary breadth of the country, also met organizational requirements in terms of skills, expertise, and experience. This is discussed further below. Into the Eye of the Storm: 1970s to Mid-1980s

The Council’s funding autonomy changed in the early 1970s, as the government began to earmark funds allocated to the organization. In some instances, like the creation of the Art Bank in 1972 and support for Canadian publishing, the request for funds dedicated to specific purposes originated from the Council, and was not, therefore, viewed as problematic by its leaders. In other cases, however, the government itself identified the purposes of earmarked funds, including, “thrust funds” in 1977 to provide special support to the humanities and social sciences “to correct regional imbalances, encourage multi-disciplinary effort, or address problems of national concern.”11 The government also invited the Council to propose arts activities in support of national unity in the same year. These initiatives were undertaken in the context of mounting federal-provincial and interregional tensions, notably with the province of Quebec, which culminated in the (unsuccessful) provincial referendum on sovereignty in 1980. While the Council administered the thrust funds and proposed some program activities to support national unity, the government’s actions occasioned grave concern on the part of Council leaders. The importance of providing funding to the Council without political strings – and by extension support without strings to artists – was expressed in no uncertain terms by then Chair Gertrude Laing (1974–78) in the organization’s 1977–78 annual report: “The willingness to fund ‘national unity’ through the arts, but not adequately to fund the arts themselves, is evidence of an attitude to cultural policy that gives me great concern.”12 Laing continued, “The arts are products of the human spirit of free individuals, and will best flourish when

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cultural judgements and their financial consequences turn only on artistic criteria applied by knowledgeable people.”13 She was clearly referring to the Council’s peer assessment process. The government also sought to direct Council funding in 1979–80, when it withdrew funding for new acquisitions to the Art Bank. In response, the Council redirected funds from other programs to continue supporting the acquisition program – including some of the additional funding received for national unity.14 But this was by no means the last clash between the Council and the government over the arm’s length concept. In fact, the greatest battle was yet to come. And come it did in the early 1980s, when the government sought to bring the Canada Council under the purview of the Financial

4.3 Germaine Koh, HIGH NOON, or “ritualized meeting in the central business district of Toronto,” sitespecific performance art at the intersection of University Avenue and Front Street, 13 May 2004, noon, twenty minutes. Jade Rude (left) and Germaine Koh (right) arrived from separate directions at the site, a concrete pad ringed by metal chains and posts, and sparred three rounds.

Administration Act (faa). This seemingly innocuous administrative change sparked the largest public showdown between the Council and the government in its sixty-year history. It also marked a watershed in the understanding and operationalization of the arm’s length principle. By the late 1970s, the proportion of Council funding accounted for by proceeds from its endowment had declined to a mere 15 per cent: parliamentary appropriations represented a full 85 per cent of Council funding.15 Total Council funding, however, was relatively low in the overall scheme of government spending. Council Chair Mavor Moore (1979–83) put it starkly in a speech for a tour of Canadian Clubs in 1981: “The only way for Canada, as for the world, to allow the arts to perform the role for which they are pre-eminently suited, is to give them the tools and stop harping on the relatively modest cost. The entire arts-support budget of the Canada Council, even now, is less than the cost of a single fighter plane.”16 But government attentions were turning in earnest to financial control and administration in the wake of the energy crises of the 1970s that set oil prices skyrocketing, economies into stagflation, and, ultimately, led to mounting federal deficits and debt. Expenditure management and restraint were becoming the watchwords of the day and, in the early 1980s, governments introduced a host of measures to strengthen financial management and control. Among these was a move to bring Crown corporations under the purview of the Financial Administration Act. The faa spells out the authorities of Treasury Board when it comes to financial and human resources, along with the powers and responsibilities of government departments and agencies for matters like internal audit, contracts, financial disbursements, and debt. Part 10 of the Act, which applies to Crown corporations, was introduced by the Trudeau Liberal government (1980–84) in 1984 because of “[s]ignificant failures and financial crises in Crown corporations.”17 The Council was not one of the bad performers, but it was nonetheless swept up in the net. Then-Council Director Timothy Porteous (1982–85) became a visible and vocal opponent of the proposed change, which was to apply to all Crown corporations, including the Canada Council and other federal cultural agencies like the National Arts Centre, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and Telefilm. Porteous spoke out publicly against Bill C-24, the bill proposing revisions to the Act. He had many concerns, as detailed in a 1984 Canada Council background paper bearing his name:

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4.4 Canada Council Director Timothy Porteous, 1982–85. Porteous’s tenure is best known for his ardent defence of the Council’s arm’s length independence from the government.

While the Council supports the principle of full accountability to the government, Parliament, and the people of Canada, it opposes the imposition of additional controls by the government on the Council … Bill C-24 will significantly increase government control over the Council, thus destroying the independence of the Council established by Parliament. Essential control over the Council’s policies, programs, priorities, and budget will pass from the Council to governmental officials and Ministers. This will mean a deterioration in the quality of judgments made about needs and priorities in the arts, and it may seriously diminish the freedom from political and bureaucratic interference which has allowed the Council to be an effective and credible organization supporting the arts.18

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Further on, the paper noted, there is nothing in the legislation which would prevent the government from altering the structure of Council decision-making so that peer group evaluation would become merely advisory to some other authority or subjected to overriding policy constraints. Reassurances that the government would not make use of the controls set out in the Bill have no basis whatsoever in the legislation. Any undertaking that they would not be applied to the Council would not be binding on any future government. The only reliable protection against the imposition of these controls is exclusion of the Council from the Bill.19 Government officials reportedly warned Porteous not to speak out against Bill C-24, but he forged ahead, and was supported in his efforts by Council Chair Maureen Forrester and nac Chair Pauline McGibbon, who testified jointly before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Broadcasting, Film, and Assistance to the Arts, and threatened to resign if Parliament placed new financial restrictions on their organizations.20 The advocacy ultimately paid off: in the final version of the bill passed into law, the Canada Council, the nac, Telefilm Canada, and the cbc were all exempted from Part 10 of the faa. And in the years following, with the exception of certain measures related to human resources, record-keeping, and audit, they remained exempt from the legislation.21 Indeed, the need to insulate cultural agencies like the Council from direct government control remained in good currency with the government. In a Treasury Board Secretariat 2005 review of the governance framework of Crown corporations, the government noted, “The most common variation from the standardized governance, control, and accountability regime in the faa is to exclude the corporation from the obligation to submit annually a corporate plan for government approval. This measure, which applies mainly to several cultural corporations, was adopted to shield the explicit mandate assigned to the organization by Parliament against potential political interference.”22 People close to the Council acknowledge that Porteous paid a steep price for his actions. His friction with the government continued well after passage of Bill C-24 and carried on after the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney came to power in the fall of 1984. The following year, on 2 July 1985, he stepped down as Council director, stating that the government planned to terminate his employment.23 In a prepared speech

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delivered upon this announcement, he critiqued then-Minister of Communications Marcel Masse for not taking the Council’s advice or meeting with its chair to discuss the organization’s future.24 He also expressed grave concern over the level of Canada Council funding – which had seen declines in real terms over the previous decade – and over the government’s direct funding of arts organizations. Porteous noted, “The real issue is not a cutback in arts funding. It is how the cuts have been applied. At the same time as the budgets of the arts agencies have been cut back or frozen, the arts funds which are directly controlled by the Minister have been increased.”25 Indeed, as discussed in Chapter 2 and detailed further below, beginning in the late 1960s, the federal government became increasingly active in the arts and the broader cultural sector. This included the Expo 67 celebrations, the actions of the secretary of state for cultural development (notably Gérard Pelletier’s policy of democratization and decentralization), the Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission, the emergence of multiculturalism policy, the creation of other cultural agencies like Telefilm and new national museums, along with the updated Broadcasting Act and the introduction of Canadian content requirements. The 1980 Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee (the Applebaum-Hébert Committee) also attested to the government’s growing interest in cultural policy. The committee’s 1982 final report underscored the continued importance of arm’s length status for the Canada Council. Given the federal government’s growing interest and attention to the arts and culture, it was probably inevitable that the Council would come into conflict – or at least tension – with the government. But it was not inevitable that the organization would fight for and successfully retain its arm’s length status. This era is crucial in that respect. But this was far from the end of challenges to the organization. While the Council emerged from this period with its autonomy intact, it was about to be tested to the limit financially. Mid-1980s to Late 1990s: Wind Gusts and Lots of Financial Chop, but Calmer Waters in Council-Government Relations

In the last decade and a half of the twentieth century, the Council’s relationship with the government over the arm’s length principle was much less fractious than it was in the decade before. Instead, funding cuts dominated organizational attention. Canada’s fiscal situation grew ever more dire

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moving into the 1990s, and cuts to Council funding mounted year over year. Figure 1 shows the Council’s parliamentary appropriations and revenues from its endowment in constant and current dollars and on a percapita basis every five years over its sixty-year history. As the figure shows, parliamentary appropriations have consistently been on the rise, with the notable exception of the expenditure cuts in the 1990s, described below. As for proceeds from the endowment, they increased slowly over the years and experienced some variability due to market performance, but, overall, they represented an ever-smaller proportion of Council funding. In the late 1960s, proceeds from the endowment were on par with the first approprations the Council received, but, beginning in the 1970s, the gap between the two widened rapidly. In the 1980s, endowment proceeds accounted for about 15 per cent of the Council’s budget, and by the 1990s, they comprised less than 10 per cent of organizational funding. In the 2000s, the figure dropped to about 5 per cent, and, with the promised doubling of the Council’s appropriation between 2016 and 2020, they will drop to their lowest proportion yet. While the overall message of Figure 1 is one of revenue growth in both current- and constant-dollar terms, if Council funding is calculated on a per capita constant-dollar basis, the picture is somewhat less rosy. Per capita funding grew from $2.51 in 1969–70 to a high of $6.11 in 1989–90. It dropped substantially with the cuts of the 1990s, rebounding in subsequent years, but never returned to the high of 1989–90. The good news, of course, is that if the government follows through on its commitment to double the Council’s parliamentary appropriation between 2016 and 2020, this will boost its funding to the highest level by any measure in the coming years. Figure 1 shows Council funding every five years. A look at Council funding year-over-year in the late 1980s and early 1990s reveals the organization experienced cuts totalling some fifteen million dollars in this period. This forced the organization to cut programming, including closing its regional offices. But the Goliath of expenditure reduction stormed in with the Chrétien government’s 1994–95 Program Review. As noted in Chapter 2, Program Review reduced overall federal government spending by more than ten billion dollars over three years, with virtually all departments and agencies facing cuts – in some instances, losing half their funding. The Council was no exception; it had to participate in the process. The director at that time was Roch Carrier, beloved author of The Hockey Sweater, the iconic children’s book that tells the childhood story of rural-Quebec-born

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Millions of Dollars

Dollars, Per Capita Parliamentary Appropriatioin

Budget of the Canada Council for the Arts (1957–2015)

Figure 1 Notes: The figures reflect the current mandate of the Canada Council for the Arts. Amounts for the social sciences and humanities are not reflected in the figure. Appropriation and endowment proceeds data taken from annual reports published in the calendar year in question (e.g., 1965 is Annual Report 1964–65 published in 1965). Given this, parliamentary appropriations only begin in 1970 (first appropriation was in the 1965–66 fiscal year). From 2000 onward, interest and dividends on endowment include endowments beyond the original $50 million fund, e.g., the Killam endowment (annual reports do not separate the various endowments as of 2000). Constant dollar figures for 2016; calculated using Bank of Canada inflation calculator. Available online at: http://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/ inflation-calculator/. Sources: Appropriations figures from: Canada Council for the Arts, Parliamentary Appropriation and Canada Council Arts Funding, 1957–58 to 2014–15, n.d. Available online at: http://statsandstories. canadacouncil.ca/_pdf/2014/EN/SS_Parlam_Appropriation_FINAL_2014-15_EN.pdf. Endowment proceeds from: Canada Council for the Arts, Annual Reports. Population figures from: Statistics Canada, Estimates of Population, by Age Group and Sex for July 1, Canada, Provinces and Territories Annual. CANSIM, Table 051-001. Available online at: http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26.

Carrier’s ill-fated receipt of a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey sweater from the Eaton’s catalogue, instead of the expected Montreal Canadiens jersey. The tale brings to life anglophone–francophone tensions, Canadians’ shared love of hockey, and what it was like to grow up in rural Quebec in the mid-twentieth century.

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4.5 Independent dancer and choreographer Sarah Chase in the autobiographical work muzz, which has toured extensively in Canada and internationally, 2001–02.

But Carrier was not selected to head the Council for his storytelling abilities. He was appointed by the Chrétien Liberal government for his reputation as a solid manager and someone who had direct management experience in the cultural sector, including as member of the board and then chair of the Salon international du livre de Montréal and secretarygeneral of the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. As Carrier tells it, the first time he met Prime Minister Chrétien following his appointment was at a reception at the Governor General’s residence. The prime minister pulled him aside and growled, “Roch, either you do something at the Council or I close it!”26 Carrier had heard the government was dissatisfied with the Council, but now he knew just how serious things had become. He began exploring the organization’s financials and was disturbed to see that administrative costs were in the order of thirty cents on the dollar for each dollar of grants awarded. His aim: to reduce administrative expenditures in order to position the organization to “get the money back.”

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With the task of reducing expenditures at Council by more than ten million dollars, Carrier, in collaboration with Council Chair Donna Scott (1994–98), approached the challenge in classic Canada Council fashion: by consulting with artists and arts organizations across the country. The Council arranged a pan-Canadian tour in December 1994, with townhall-style stops at seventeen cities across the country, starting in British Columbia and moving east. At the time, this approach must have seemed eminently reasonable to Council leaders. After all, what better way to identify how to administer cuts than by consulting the community affected by them? And what better way to position the Council to “get the money back” than with a cross-country tour with good media visibility? In hindsight, however, the process – not so affectionately dubbed “The Roch and Donna Show” by critics – was an unmitigated disaster, in the short term at least. Carrier recalls, “I began in Vancouver. After starting my brief introductory speech – I had spoken for about a minute and a half – someone stood up making noise with his chair, crossed the room, and went outside, slamming the door. I learned later when I was back in Ottawa,” he continues with a wry chuckle, his warm eyes wrinkling with a mischievous smile, “that he phoned then Minister [of Communications Michel] Dupuy to demand my resignation!” He continues with a bemused expression on his face, “That was my first meeting. We crossed Canada, and it was just the beginning. It got worse as we went from meeting to meeting to meeting,” he says with a sharp burst of laughter, “because word got around!” Carrier, like the storyteller he is, finishes the tale with a bang, recounting a final moment that comedically captures how bad things got. “The last meeting we had was in St John’s, Newfoundland. We were at a hotel at the edge of the ocean.” He recounts, “The meeting in Newfoundland was absolutely incredible – it was like a boxing ring but with words!” And then he tells the story: “All of a sudden there was a moment of silence,” he lowers his voice to a whisper and says slowly, “and no one was speaking.” He pauses, turns his head as if looking out the window and recalls, “I turned my eyes and I hadn’t yet looked at the ocean that was there on the other side of the window – and there were icebergs! I said ‘Despite everything, the icebergs are beautiful here.’” He bursts out laughing and continues: “A woman says,” and he imitates her yelling in a loud voice, “We are fed up here in Newfoundland with all you people from Ottawa coming to tell us that we have

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beautiful icebergs! We want money!!!” His voice gets quiet and he finishes the tale, saying slowly and sombrely, “I want money too.” But while the cross-country tour was difficult and acrimonious, from Carrier’s perspective, it served the desired purpose: he was playing the long game. In the wake of “the Roch and Donna Show,” Carrier was contacted by members of Parliament and senators who had heard about the cuts to the Council from their constituents and, in the process, had become aware of the support their communities and regions were receiving from the organization. This put the Council on the government’s radar in a meaningful way, positioning it well for Carrier to “get the money back.” The high point of Carrier’s long game came in 1997, with the fortieth anniversary of the Council. A celebration was organized on Parliament Hill and attended by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Guests of honour included Father Georges-Henri Lévesque (a leading member of the Massey-Lévesque Commission and inaugural vice-chair of the Council), distinguished Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker, National Ballet of Canada founder Celia Franca, Quebec author and playwright Marie-Claire Blais, visual artist Takao Tanabe, and filmmaker Atom Egoyan. This event proved pivotal in securing a “reinvestment” of monies into the Council from the Chrétien government: twenty-five million dollars in 1997 and a further ten million in 1999. In the short term, however, Carrier and Scott had to act. The results of the consultations and internal Council discussions were reflected in the March 1995 document A Design for the Future, which laid out the Council’s plan for dealing with the cuts. The main aim was to preserve grant dollars for artists and arts organizations by reducing costs at Council, including closing the Art Bank, reducing administrative costs by almost 50 per cent, transferring funding responsibility for pre-professional training to the federal government, and, as noted in the last chapter, closing the Touring Office and integrating the Explorations program into the disciplines. The decision to close the Art Bank was ultimately reversed following a vociferous outcry from the visual-arts community over the continued need for and relevance of the program, along with serious concerns that deacquisitioning the Art Bank’s extensive holdings would flood the art market, depressing the value of Canadian visual art. Instead, the Council engaged former Art Bank head Luke Rombout to identify other means of addressing the situation. His recommendations included renting less-expensive storage space, reducing staff, and lessening outreach activities. Through

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4.6 Canada Council Director Roch Carrier, 1994–97 (left) and Chair Donna Scott, 1994–98 (right), with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, 1993–2003 (centre), at a celebration of the Canada Council’s Fortieth Anniversary in 1997. Carrier and Scott worked together to implement the Chrétien government’s cuts to the Council due to fiscal restraint, but were successful in securing additional funding when the fiscal situation improved.

these sorts of measures, the program’s annual operating deficit was reduced from $2.1 million to $450,000, and it was henceforth operated on a costrecovery basis (as discussed in the concluding chapter, this business approach to the Art Bank has had a lasting impact on its capacity to engage in activities beyond art rentals). While the Art Bank decision was reversed, the Council held firm on the other cuts it announced. Staff were particularly hard hit. To make the point to the government (and the arts community) that the organization placed emphasis on its support to the arts and not on its own administrative establishment, over the course of three years the administration reduced salary costs from $11.7 million to $9.1 million and roughly one in three staff members were walked out the door. Carrier recalls solemnly, “I even had to take a course to learn how to fire people. It was a difficult time.” And these staff cuts were in addition to prior reductions in the wake of funding declines in the early 1990s. All told, between 1992–93 and 1996–97, the Council cut the number of staff positions by almost half: from 268 to 138.27

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In total, over the course of the 1990s, Council appropriations (current dollars) declined from a high of $105.5 million in 1991–92 to $99.3 million in 1993–94, down to $97.9 million in 1995–96, and down even further to $91.1 in 1996–97.28 This was a close to $15 million cut (14.2 per cent) in five years. On a constant-dollar basis (2015–16 dollars), the decline was even steeper, at just over 20 per cent (20.5 per cent). In fact, on a constantdollar basis, real cuts to the Council’s budget date to 1989–90, when constant-dollar appropriations stood at $173.2 million, declining to $128.3 million in 1996–97, a drop of more than 25 per cent (25.9 per cent). As noted above, however, the Council was “rewarded” for its fiscal performance in Program Review, securing a reinvestment of $35 million in the latter half of the 1990s. But despite the rancour and organizational upheaval over Program Review and the cuts of the early 1990s, the Council’s relations with the government over the arm’s length principle were less fraught than they had been in the 1980s. Neither were they played out in the public domain. This was in part because of new leadership at the Council. When Joyce Zemans was appointed director in 1989, she worked to rebuild relations with the government in the wake of the mid-1980s’ conflict over arm’s length. This is not to say that all was calm in Council-government relations during this period, or that the government left the Council entirely to its own devices, but things did improve. Zemans describes her first meeting with Marcel Masse, minister of communications under the Mulroney government. “He said two things to me. First, ‘You know arm’s length is not a French concept.’ Second, he said, ‘Outside my door are bags of mail advocating for government support for the arts – but with the return address of the Canada Council on them.’”29 Apparently, the Council had supported an advocacy campaign for the arts and had helped with mailing costs. She continues, “Masse said to me, ‘I listen to constituents – but not lobbying like that.’” For Zemans, “This was an important lesson in lobbying and advocacy. The Council can provide policy advice and advice based on the arts community and arts advisors, but it shouldn’t do outright lobbying in that way.” As noted in the epigraph at the outset of this chapter, Zemans’s view was that “the arm’s length relationship is not a barrier to but a basis upon which to relate with the government.” And when it came to the Mulroney government, she explains, “We were able to develop good relationships with [Minister

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4.7 Artist Mendelson Joe in 1992 with his portrait of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (1984–93) from his series Liars, which received funding from the Canada Council. The prime minister was rumoured to have seen the piece and decided against providing additional funding to the Canada Council that year.

Masse’s] staff; they were supportive of the arts writ large, and we could make our case and he would listen.” But the arts can provoke, offend, or embarrass. And that they did in a rather unfortunate but humorous way during Brian Mulroney’s tenure as prime minister. In the late 1980s, Minister of Communications Marcel Masse began to provide supplementary increases of eight million dollars to the Canada Council’s base funding each year. However, the amount was never permanently added to the organization’s budget, so was not guaranteed year to year. At one point in the early 1990s, when the government had not yet confirmed the supplementary funding, reclusive Canadian visual artist and political activist Mendelson Joe unveiled Liars, a series of paintings supported by the Canada Council, depicting various politicians in highly unflattering ways. One of the pieces had the prime minister in its crosshairs. The painting, with Brian Mulroney’s unmistakable broad jaw, forehead, and side-swept hair, replaced the prime minister’s face with a

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hairy, gaping anus. John Goldsmith, senior staff member at the Council at the time, can barely contain himself when he tells the tale. “Mendelson Joe!” he begins, laughing heartily. He continues between chuckles, “It was rumoured Mulroney saw a story on that piece via satellite feed while on holiday in Florida,” he pauses, then delivers the punchline: “And that was the end of supplementary funding to the Council that year!”30 The Governor General’s Literary Awards (gglas) likewise spurred tensions between the Council and the government. During the rise of the nationalist and separatist movement in Quebec in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, a number of Québécois authors, including novelist Hubert Aquin, playwright Michel Garneau, and poet Fernand Ouellette, who won awards, rejected them and made statements against the government (intellectual Fernand Dumont accepted the prize in 1968, but donated the money to the separatist Parti Québécois31 ). Leonard Cohen also famously rejected the award in 1968, although the precise reasons why have never been entirely clear. The Council was asked by the government to select only award winners who would accept the honour, but the organization refused, standing firm behind the jury process designed to recognize literary excellence without regard to political beliefs. Interestingly, as political stands and contexts changed, both Ouellette and Garneau accepted a ggla in subsequent years.32 The government also had its own ideas about the Council and how best to organize support for the arts and creativity. In 1992, for example, the Mulroney government proposed “re-merging” the Council with sshrc (as described in the following chapter, the bill was ultimately defeated in the Senate). And the Chrétien government, in addition to imposing financial cuts on the Council – as it did to all federal organizations – reduced the number of Council members from twenty-one to eleven in 1994–95. The Chrétien government also became much more active in the cultural sphere through the Department of Canadian Heritage, as described in the following section. But the key characteristic of the 1990s will remain budget cutbacks. Canada Council Chair Jean-Louis Roux (1998–2003) dubbed the years 1993 to 1998, “the dark period.”33 And eminent cultural critic Robert Fulford, reflecting on the “financial chop” at Council, described it as follows, “The fourth decade of the Canada Council’s history has been a painfully instructive period, a time of dodging and ducking, when mere survival became a kind of triumph. Everyone connected with the Council

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has a sense of living through a peculiar moment in our cultural history, a moment best expressed 125 years ago by Lewis Carroll, when he had the Queen tell Alice in Through the Looking Glass, ‘It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.’”34 2000s and Beyond: Mastering the Art and Science of Sailing?

The first decade and a half of the twenty-first century marked a decided shift at the Canada Council to a stronger, more confident and nuanced approach to its relations with the government. This played out along three interrelated tracks: relations over government policy and programs in the arts and cultural sector; quiet (below the radar) advocacy for greater financial support from the government, while contending with the latter’s increasing focus on financial control; and enhanced attention at the Council to internal governance capacity and program impact. Across all of these areas, Council leaders continued to enhance their understanding of the arm’s length principle and how to put it into effect. Notably, they came to a place where they more consistently viewed the arm’s length principle, as Joyce Zemans insightfully pointed out, not as a barrier to but as a basis for the Council’s relationship with the government. With respect to the first track concerning policy and programs, when asked what drives tension between the Council and the government, former Council Director Robert Sirman (2006–14) replies, “Challenges in the Council’s relationship with the government often relate to the extent to which the government engages in conscious cultural policy work.”35 The early years of the 2000s saw the federal government much more engaged in the arts and cultural policy sector, with substantial financial, political, policy, and program commitments in the 2001 Chrétien Liberal government’s flagship Tomorrow Starts Today (tst) program. Tomorrow Starts Today was a $560-million five-year “investment” in the arts and culture – or rather, re-investment, since the dollar figures were similar to the amount cut from the sector in the 1990s.36 The new spending included a twentyfive-million-dollar annual “top-up” for the Canada Council, an additional sixty million dollars for the cbc/Radio-Canada, funding for arts training, publishing, and sound recording, and new funding to support cultural infrastructure, arts festivals and other cultural events, digital content, cultural trade, and built heritage. Of note, over 70 per cent of the new spending (more than four hundred million dollars) accrued to the Department of

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Canadian Heritage, which sparked fears in the cultural sector and beyond that the new funding would be open to political interference.37 From the Council’s perspective, while the annual twenty-five million dollars was welcome news, the creation of new arts programs administered directly by the government – notably festival funding – raised concerns. When former Council Director John Hobday (2003–06) is asked about missed opportunities or disappointments in the Council’s history, festivals are on his list. “The case could have been made for Council to take on this role with more funding. Non-artistic festivals could have been left to the Department of Canadian Heritage. But the Minister [Sheila Copps] saw this as an incredible opportunity for her in terms of where the audiences were.”38 Hobday’s successor, Robert Sirman expresses a similar view: “This was not a moment of closer [government] relations with the Council. They [the government] had ambition to give direct grants … The government wasn’t conscious of doing something that was competing [with the Council]. They were conscious of the profile to be gained by direct granting – especially profile at the community level.”39 Hobday believes that, had the Council taken on responsibility for festivals, it would have made a difference to how the organization is perceived by Canadians. Instead, the Council adjusted its operations to focus on touring and creation, leaving festivals to the Department of Canadian Heritage.40 While these moves raised concerns at Council over the government’s interpretation of the arm’s length principle and its role in the arts, trepidation over the government’s approach to money and its administration – the second track – dwarfed these fears. The 2000s continued the trend towards greater government focus on accountability, financial control, and, at times, budgetary restraint. In 2007, the Harper government (2006–15) instituted the “Strategic Review” process, which required federal organizations to review their operations with a view to reallocating 5 per cent of their funding from “lower priority” to “higher priority” activities, including priorities outside the organization. This meant organizations could lose funding in the process. Each year, the government selected a group of organizations to undertake a Strategic Review. In 2009, the Canada Council’s Strategic Review number came up. This raised a thorny question: could the government require the organization to complete a Strategic Review, given its exempt status in the Financial Administration Act? To reflect on the matter, Sirman commissioned a legal opinion, which found that,

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The type of report that the Strategic Review will generate if the Canada Council agrees to prepare one, could potentially provide the Government with information which it could use to decide specifically how the Canada Council is to spend its appropriation in the future. This is because a key element of Strategic Review is the requirement that the organization provide a 5% reallocation proposal. We note that the government literature specifically describes the Strategic Review in terms that do not appear consistent with the unique statutory nature of the Canada Council and how it operates independently of Government control.41 The analysis concluded there was “no specific authority in the Financial Administration Act that would compel the Canada Council to provide the information requested in the Strategic Review.”42 The Council’s response to the government attested to the start of a more collaborative approach to the arm’s length issue. Instead of arming itself with the legal opinion and denying the order to complete a review outright, it first confirmed with a subsequent legal opinion that voluntary participation would not affect its exempt status under the faa, and then went on to voluntarily conduct a Strategic Review. Of note, the review did not lead to a reduction or reallocation of its funding. Instead, the government affirmed in Budget 2010 that the Strategic Review demonstrated the Council’s programs were “aligned with the priorities of Canadians.”43 This marked the beginnings of an important turning point in the Council’s approach to its relations with the government. It began to adopt a more collaborative style, in which it aimed to be a good corporate citizen and member of “the federal family” – albeit a member with a unique arm’s length status and role in the Canadian arts milieu. Collaboration is not always easy, however. In a candid piece published in the Literary Review of Canada shortly after his mandate came to an end, former Director and ceo Robert Sirman notes that the atmosphere in Ottawa during his tenure (2006–14) was marked more by secrecy and risk management than by transparency and high-level strategic conversations.44 This relates to the third place where relations became more collaborative: the Council’s efforts to strengthen its internal governance capacity with a view to underscoring its bona fides as a good corporate citizen, capable of effectively carrying out its mandate. These efforts were spearheaded by Council Director and ceo Robert Sirman (2006–14) and Council Chair

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Joseph Rotman (2008–15), and carried on by their successors Simon Brault (2014– ) and Pierre Lassonde (2015– ). Indeed, Sirman focused much of his energies on building the Council’s internal governance capacity during his eight-year mandate through comprehensive strategic planning processes, stronger internal auditing, and the quest for greater clarity in governance arrangements within the Council for semi-autonomous entities and programs like the Canadian Commission for unesco, the Public Lending Right Program and Commission, and the Art Bank (discussed in the next chapter). In keeping with greater government focus on impact and outcomes over the years, the Council also focused intently on defining and measuring its impact, and being more proactive and positive about the process. Claire McCaughey, who was at Council for some three decades and rose to the position of Head of Research and Evaluation (2008–14), describes the organization’s early orientation to economic impact evocatively, “When I first joined [the Council], collecting data on economic impact was viewed by Council staff as a necessary evil.”45 Over time, the organization became much more proactive about measuring the artistic, economic, social, and cultural impacts of its programs, recognizing that demonstrating its impact is an important way of underscoring its relevance and importance for the government. But measurement is a challenge. As inaugural director, Albert Trueman, wrote in the Council’s third annual report, “The Council’s terms of reference ensure that its activities will be concerned almost exclusively with that which cannot be weighed on the scales, measured by the footrule, or calculated with the assistance of the tables at the back of the book.”46 In order to assess impact, the Council needed to structure its programs in ways that enabled it to do so. In the early 2010s, it strengthened its evaluation capacity, undertaking a thorough review of programs to ensure they had clear objectives, that effort was deployed to discern how to measure program aims, and that application and reporting forms provided the organization with the information required to assess impact. Impact also began to be discussed in narrative terms, including the use of personal stories from funding recipients posted in blogs and in other forms on the Council’s website. These efforts to bolster evaluation and the Council’s impact are at the heart of the organization’s New Funding Model, announced in 2015 and discussed in Chapter 3. In referring to the New Funding Model, Council director and ceo Simon Brault puts it explicitly: “The results of

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program transformation at Council will enable the organization to demonstrate its impact.”47 Rotman, for his part, with a lengthy and successful career in the private sector, brought with him a more business-oriented approach to board meetings and governance. He wanted the board to be a working board, highly engaged with the Council’s activities at a strategic level.48 This meant shorter board meetings but greater use of subcommittees and working groups, board training on governance in the public sector, and greater attention to conflict of interest.49 Council members also began to be selected with more focus on expertise and experience beyond the arts, and when it came time for new appointments to be made, the Council advised the government of the kinds of expertise and experience needed (financial, management, legal, arts, etc.). This eye to experience is particularly important given the size of the Council. When the organization was first created, Director Trueman pointed out: “there were only twenty-one members to represent all of Canada.”50 Sixty years on, there are only eleven members in total. Government processes to select the Council’s director and ceo have also been formalized substantially over the years, moving from relatively informal appointment processes – Trueman was offered the job over the phone by Prime Minister St Laurent,51 and Zemans also received a surprise call from the minister’s office – to far more formal approaches, including search committees, search firms, and structured interviews.52 Sirman, reflecting on his time and priorities at Council, refers to his efforts to strengthen organizational capacity as “opportunity-based planning.” The mid-2000s were a time of budgetary restraint in the wake of the 2008–09 global financial crisis and economic downturn. The former director describes governance capacity building as “setting things up to take advantage of the next political platform. It’s about trust, credibility, being straight, open, consultative and fair, delivering, and being cost effective. It’s asking do you fit within the range of value expectations in terms of good government?”53 Kelly Wilhelm, former Head of Policy, Planning and Partnerships, describes the approach in similar terms, “The Council has worked very hard to be a good citizen … It has submitted itself to processes even when it didn’t have to – and we often do better than line departments … Trust is about being well run.”54 These efforts continued under Pierre Lassonde, Rotman’s successor as chair (2015– ), and Council Director and ceo Simon Brault (2014– ), who, as vice-chair of the Council from 2004

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to 2014, participated actively in the board-level and internal governance efforts. Both leaders view the Council as part of the federal family. As Brault explains it, “I have a policy of ‘no surprises.’ I keep the department and minister up to date on our activities and plans.”55 By all accounts, the Council succeeded with its efforts, winning the prestigious Excellence in Governance Award in 2013 from the Governance Professionals of Canada56 against stiff competitors Bell Canada Enterprises, Telus, and the Royal Bank of Canada. It also emerged with flying colours from a rigorous special examination of its governance and management practices by the Auditor General of Canada in 2008. But most of all, the government’s 2016 commitment to double the Council’s budget attests to the organization’s success in demonstrating the value and importance of its work. The Council had been advocating quietly for budget increases for years. Following the cutbacks of the 1990s, the government gradually reinvested in the organization in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Through a series of increases, the Council’s parliamentary appropriation grew from $91 million in 1996–97 to $127 million in 2000–01.57 Then, as noted above, it received an additional $25 million per year in the 2001 Tomorrow Starts Today program. This was followed by one-time additional funding of $20 million in 2006–07, $30 million in 2007–08, and permanent ongoing additional funding of $30 million thereafter, bringing the Council’s total parliamentary appropriation to just over $180 million from 2007–08 onwards. The pinnacle of Council efforts to increase its parliamentary appropriation was the campaign to double the organization’s budget. This got going in earnest in the mid-2000s under Council Chair Karen Kain (2004–08) and Vice-Chair Simon Brault (2004–14; Brault would go on to become director and ceo of the Council in 2014), with substantial behind-the-scenes support from Director John Hobday (2003–06), who worked closely with senior Council staff and officials at the Department of Canadian Heritage to “make the case” to double the Council’s budget. But the public faces of the campaign at Council were Karen Kain and Simon Brault. Kain is one of the country’s best-known classical dancers, a cherished household name for her time as principal dancer at the National Ballet of Canada, and renowned internationally for her award-winning performances and celebrated appearances as guest artist at an array of leading companies in France, England, Austria, and Russia. Appointed artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada in 2008 (she resigned as Council chair soon after taking on the role), she is celebrated for bringing the

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4.8 Canada Council Chair Karen Kain, 2004–08 (right), and Vice-Chair Simon Brault, 2004–14 (left), hold a photo of themselves with Minister of Canadian Heritage Liza Frulla, 2004–06, at the 2005 announcement doubling the Council’s budget. The funding was not to materialize, as the government fell on a vote of confidence shortly thereafter and lost power to the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper, which did not follow through on the commitment.

company to new heights. To meet Karen Kain is to meet exquisite poise, calm intelligence, elegant humility, and considered intention. One has the sense that Ms Kain has a finely honed capacity to control her physical, intellectual, and emotional faculties, and she deploys them with dedication and precision to attain her objectives. In a joint meeting with Simon Brault, she recalls their efforts to double the Council’s funding from the government. “I took the chair position in order to increase the Council’s budget. We were coming forward with ‘The Big Ask’ with the 50th anniversary of the Council [coming up in 2007] … The ask needed to be big and bold enough to be truly national, to make a difference, to transcend differences.”58 The support from the arts community was enthusiastic, widespread, and dedicated. The Canadian Conference of the Arts worked in close collaboration on the file with the Canadian Arts

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4.9 Jamie Thompson and Christian Vezina in The Heart Beats Ecstatic by Michèle Moss, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, 2002–03.

Coalition, the latter created with the sole purpose of lobbying the government to double the Council’s budget. Kain continues, “It was gratifying to see how the whole country got behind this – everybody could agree on it.” Together with Brault, she approached the minority Liberal government of Prime Minister Paul Martin (2003–06). With budget surpluses becoming the norm in the 2000s and Minister of Canadian Heritage Liza Frulla enthusiastically committed to the arts and culture (Frulla had been culture minister in Quebec prior to her move to federal politics, and became chair

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4.10 Celebration Box, bird’seye maple and walnut, Diane Gaudreau. Awardwinning Prince Edward Island–based woodworking artisan Diane Gaudreau creates household and office items from hardwood.

of Culture Montréal in 2016), Kain and Brault’s timing was auspicious. In fall 2005, the efforts paid off: the Minister of Canadian Heritage was going to announce that the budget of the Canada Council would be doubled over three years. But, as is often the case with big government decisions, those waiting on them are often told to “hurry up and wait.” This case was no different; the Council received very short notice that the government planned to make the big announcement in Montreal. Says Kain, “I packed as fast as I could and dragged [award-winning Canadian actor and founding artistic director of Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company] Albert Schultz with me!” Said Brault, “Some people weren’t in Montreal, so they jumped in their cars and drove as fast as they could!”59 But then disaster struck. The minority government fell in 2006 on a vote of confidence on a supply bill – and the doubling was in peril. If the Liberals didn’t win the next election, a new government would be unlikely to keep its predecessor’s promises. And as history knows, the Liberals lost

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power to the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper, and the new government did not double the Council’s budget. Instead, it committed to an increase of fifty million dollars over two years, a sizable sum to be sure, but nowhere near the amount the arts community and the Council had been expecting. And while the Conservative government maintained funding to the Council following the 2008–09 global financial crisis and economic downturn – an impressive feat as the budgets of many national arts councils were slashed in this period – the government came nowhere near doubling the Council’s funding over its ten years in power (2006–15). But the idea didn’t die. The Canadian Arts Coalition and other arts groups continued to lobby the government to this end, and when Canadians returned to the polls in 2015, the Liberal Party under the leadership of Justin Trudeau committed to doubling the Council’s budget in its election platform. Liberal mp and culture critic Stéphane Dion, along with his advisor (and former head of the Canadian Conference of the Arts) Alain Pineau, were pivotal in these efforts. When Canadians elected the Liberals with a solid majority, the new government made good on its electoral promise in its first budget in 2016, committing to doubling the Council’s parliamentary appropriation over five years.60 The success was ten years in the making, but a considerable achievement given the dollar figures involved. zxzxz

In the early postwar period, Vincent Massey published On Being Canadian, his treatise on Canadian cultural nationalism. In hindsight, not surprisingly, it called for creation of a federal arts council. Massey was clear on the need for government intervention in the arts and culture, but was also clear on the dangers of state control of what he referred to as “things of the mind.” He wrote, “No state today can escape some responsibility in the field to which belong the things of the mind. Totalitarian governments, as we know too well, do not neglect this sphere. Their tactics strengthen the argument that democracies should be watchful and diligent in such matters.”61 Massey’s views on the importance of government support for – but not control of – culture and the arts carried on in his work on the 1949–51 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences. The Massey-Lévesque Commission explicitly called for creation of an arm’s length arts council, rather than a traditional government

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department directly under the control and responsibility of a minister. That the Council should be accountable for its work and expenditures as a public agency was not in question, as the commission’s final report made clear: “We should … consider it a misfortune if this Canada Council became in any sense a department of government, but we realize that since this body will be spending public money it must be in an effective manner responsible to the Government and hence to Parliament.”62 The “effective manner” of being responsible was spelled out in the legislation creating the Council: as detailed above, it consisted of government appointments, annual reports, and audits by the Auditor General. But the Council’s creators couldn’t know how this arm’s length relationship would play out over time, and how it would come to be interpreted in light of experience. Sixty years on, a few things become clear. First, overall, federal commitment to the arm’s length relationship as a basic principle has been – and continues to be – robust. In the main, governments, regardless of political stripe, have respected the autonomy and arm’s length status of the Canada Council. Second, where there have been disputes over the arm’s length relationship – as with the Financial Administration Act and Strategic Review – these have often been in connection with broader government initiatives in which the Council gets swept up, and public or “quiet” advocacy by the Council and the arts community has tended to be effective at “reminding” the government about the importance of arm’s length and respecting arm’s length. Third, governments and politicians don’t like to be embarrassed in the public square – and certainly not by a federal government agency, one of their own – so “quiet” advocacy within the federal system is generally the best first resort for the Council. Fourth, autonomy doesn’t preclude collaboration with the government. Recent decades, and in particular the Council’s sixth decade, have shown that the organization can see itself as part of the “federal family,” while preserving its programming and decision-making autonomy. Demonstrating its relevance and effectiveness in a context continually focused on accountability and value-for-money all but requires it. But, as seen in recent years, this can be done in a way that preserves and respects the Council’s autonomy. In addition, solid internal governance and a compatible alignment of perspectives, orientations, and objectives with the government facilitate a collaborative approach. Michelle Chawla, who has been a Canada Council staff member for over two decades, rising to the rank of Corporate Secretary and Director of Strategic

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Initiatives (1995–2015), sums it up succinctly: “We try to protect [the organization] where arm’s length is crucial but for other things we can align administrative and fiscal policies with government policies.”63 Fifth, all of this said, the price of liberty – or in this case autonomy – is eternal vigilance. As a funder of the arts, the Council is a funder of creative expression, and, by extension, a guarantor of fundamental democratic values: freedom of expression, of conscience, of thought, belief, or association; of equality without regard to race, nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, age, or disability. By virtue of its mandate and enabling legislation, the Council has a responsibility to ensure that individual funding decisions are made based on artistic criteria – not on partisan political or bureaucratic bases. Looking forward, the political and bureaucratic waters the Council navigates in the years ahead are likely to test its sailing prowess as never before. Further centralization of government decision-making may result in more frequent challenges to the Council’s autonomy. And greater levels of collaboration with the government, could, over time, blur the line between collaboration and political interference. What’s more, if the government cuts the Council’s budget in future years – as it undoubtedly will if fiscal waters get choppy – the organization will need to deftly sail through this “chop” with one eye to steadying things for the arts in the midst of cuts, and the other to safeguarding its autonomy in the long term. The Council will always need to be asking itself, “Are we too close or too far for comfort?”

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5 A Seat at the Table The Canada Council as More than Arts Grantmaker

We need a new frame in which to position the value of art to give culture a “seat at the table.” ([T]his is an expression I use to reference a position of significance seated beside representatives of other policy sectors like health, trade, the environment, and national security.) And here I mean “positioned as an equal,” not as an “amenity that offers some external benefits.” Joseph L. Rotman, Chair (2008–15) Canada Council for the Arts Remarks to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, 2011

Entering the late Joseph L. Rotman’s offices at Roy-L Capital Corporation in tony midtown Toronto, one is struck by the surroundings. They are not ostentatious, lavish, or showy, but subdued, modest, and unpretentious. Given Rotman’s business success and status as one of the country’s most generous philanthropists, this might come as a surprise. Sitting in the reception area, however, one begins to see things in a different light. Is that an original Lichtenstein hung casually on the wall? “Yes it is,”1 confirms Rotman’s widow, Mrs Sandra Rotman, as she explains that she and her husband met Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein in the early 1960s when the couple lived in New York City. Mr Rotman attended Columbia University’s business school, and Mrs Rotman studied fine arts at Barnard College. “I have a Warhol I got for five dollars,” she comments matter-

of-factly, “a poster that’s now worth at least fifty thousand.” Breathtaking pieces are displayed liberally throughout the offices, gracing the walls in the boardroom, hallways, and meeting rooms. It’s a feast for the eyes. “We’ve always believed in the arts,” she explains. “They enhance a person’s life.” Both she and her late husband were involved in the arts for many years as philanthropists and cultural leaders. Among Joseph Rotman’s numerous contributions was his service as a board member (1991–2000) and chair (1993–96) of the Art Gallery of Ontario and as a board member of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards (1996–98). He was appointed chair of the Canada Council in 2008 by the Harper Conservative government (2006–15). “We were very excited about it,” shares Mrs. Rotman. “Joe wanted to bring business skills to the position.” Rotman, as attested to in the epigraph above, believed firmly that the arts deserve “a seat at the table” in discussions of public policy – that they can make a meaningful contribution to decision-making on matters of national significance. Indeed, the theme of a “seat at the table” may well be one of Rotman’s lasting legacies at the Council, and is a phrase used frequently by Director and ceo Simon Brault (2014– ). The idea is not to oversell what the arts can bring to policy discussions, but rather, to reshape thinking about the arts and culture. An organization like the Canada Council, by virtue of its expertise and experience, can bring a unique and valuable perspective to policy discussions of national significance. This chapter explores the proposition in contemporary and historical terms, looking at ways in which the Council has been, and continues to be, involved in policy fields beyond the arts over the course of its sixty-year history. It begins by bringing to the fore the Council’s unique status and its role as a federal arts body with pan-Canadian responsibilities across a large regionally and culturally diverse country, and with federal-provincial relationships – and politics – to navigate. This section also examines the role of peer assessment committees (pacs) in the grant evaluation process, and the tremendous network and source of legitimacy, information, and artistic and cultural exchange they represent. The discussion reveals that the Canada Council is not only a microcosm of the arts in Canada, it is a microcosm of Canada itself – its cultures, politics, and societies – and is a remarkable non-partisan forum for working creatively through the tensions inherent in a diverse and multifaceted federation. The Council is more than arts grantmaker. Its activities span a wide variety of arts issues and policy fields beyond the arts, including education,

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scholarly research, and diplomacy. By virtue of its unique positioning in Canadian governance, it is akin to a bellwether when it comes to the state of the country’s politics, culture, and society. It is capable of seeing issues, challenges, tensions, and opportunities as they emerge and take shape – in many instances long before they manifest in tangible ways in national politics, debate, and policy. It’s no accident that the Canada Council has been on the cutting-edge of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in Canada. Working proactively on these issues in the arts brought them to the fore at Council long before they gained the kind of traction – and action – they have come to attract in recent years on broader political and policy agendas. With governing becoming ever more multifaceted, decentralized, balkanized, and demanding, this kind of expertise, insight, and experience could prove invaluable to Canadian governance and policy-making in the years ahead. Indeed, the Canada Council is uniquely positioned to understand the country in all of its regional, cultural, and social diversity, and to contribute to public policy discussions on issues beyond the arts, like education, research, diplomacy, and reconciliation. The Council has developed this expertise and capacity over its six decades, through the wide range of its activities in the arts, through the Canadian Commission for unesco (ccu) and the Public Lending Right (plr), and through its early years supporting scholarship in the humanities and social sciences. Recent organizational changes at the Council to bolster and clarify the internal governance arrangements for entities like the ccu and the plr Commission not only strengthen the Council and its constituent parts in their own rights, but position the organization to more readily capitalize on its expertise to participate in national discussions as an “equal,” not an “amenity” – as Joseph Rotman advocated.

The Canada Council for the Arts: An Invaluable Bellwether in a Diverse, Decentralized Federation

The Council’s embodiment of Canadian culture(s), politics, and values in all their richness and diversity is rarely fully appreciated. It is also one of the reasons the organization has the potential to make profound and distinctive contributions to broader questions of Canadian public policy and governance. This capability flows from four organizational characteristics.

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5.1 Canada Council Chair Joseph L. Rotman, 2008–15. One of Rotman’s lasting legacies is the turn at Council towards securing “a seat at the table” for the arts as an equal alongside other policy sectors in discussions of leading issues of the day.

Individually, each trait is perhaps unexceptional, but, collectively, they give the Council a unique lens on Canadian governance. First, representation, one of the fundamental tenets of Canadian politics, is deeply embedded in the Canada Council’s DNA. As detailed in Chapter 1, the Council was established in 1957 with a unique funding model: a federal public body with a foundation-style endowment to support grants to the arts, social sciences, and humanities. Over the years, the organization moved closer to the British arm’s length arts council model than to its American foundation-style origins, but one thing did not change: the Canada Council for the Arts remained a federal public body. As such, it cannot behave – nor could it ever behave – as a private organization might, supporting creative activities without regard for the broader public interest. It necessarily needed to strike a balance between art for art’s sake and the broader needs of Canadian society. Representation and fairness across Council operations have always been paramount, and reflect the most

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5.2 Inuit throat singer and artist Tanya Tagaq, 2015. Tagaq won the Polaris Prize for best Canadian album in 2014 for Animism. Her self-described “aggressive” music and lyrics powerfully explore Indigenous rights, women’s rights, the horror of residential schools, and the dangers of climate change.

prominent fault lines of Canadian politics: equity and representation along geographic, regional, gender, linguistic, and, more recently, ethnocultural, Indigenous, and Deaf and disability lines; balancing regional and provincial distinctiveness with the quest for national unity, leadership, cohesion, and inclusion; and balancing the country’s predominantly north-south economic geography with its east-west political institutions.2 In addition, as a federal public body, the Council’s history is marked deeply by its efforts to identify and support pan-Canadian interests not served by private patronage or by subnational arts councils. When it comes to private patronage, Shirley Thomson, much-loved Canada Council director (1998–2002), summed it up succinctly in an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail during her tenure: “Canada is fortunate in its private patrons – many of whom show great discernment – and we would be better off with

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more. The fact remains, however, that private patronage leaves gaps.”3 Private support tends towards the mainstream, the traditional (Western), and arts with mass appeal, often leaving emerging, marginal, or “risky” art with lower levels of support, a tendency that eminent US cultural policy scholar Kevin Mulcahy provocatively terms “Cultural Darwinism.”4 Public patronage, in contrast, incorporates considerations of the broader public interest and polity. In the Canadian context, this means, chiefly, representation, as noted above and detailed in Chapter 3. Second, over its sixty years, the Council has developed a finely honed capacity to navigate federal-provincial relations with skill, nuance, and collaboration – a critical success factor in Canadian politics and policy. The Council operates in the context of Canadian federalism, with all its complexity and variety, vagaries and intricacies, bumps and warts. Questions of constitutional jurisdiction over culture and related areas like education are sensitive touch-points and impose explicit or implicit parameters on the scope of Council activities, requiring the organization to carefully and skilfully manage its relationships with the provinces and territories. What’s more, the Council has done this in an environment that lacks a clear division of constitutional responsibilities. The arts and culture are a sphere of shared jurisdiction: the word “culture” is not directly mentioned in the constitution and it is generally regarded as a sphere of joint responsibility.5 Concurrent jurisdiction has given rise to federal-provincial disputes in the cultural sector over the years, notably with the province of Quebec, which called for devolution of Council funding to the province in the 1960s as grants to the arts expanded in the organization’s early years.6 In its overall relations with the federal government on matters of culture, Quebec has developed legislation, regulations, policies, programs, and institutions to affirm and promote its identity, language, and culture, often with the express intent in whole or in part of countering, matching, or besting federal intervention.7 The province has also actively sought constitutional change to affirm provincial jurisdiction in the cultural sector, including in the 1992 Charlottetown Accord, which, had it been adopted, would have amended the constitution to give provinces exclusive jurisdiction over culture within their borders. But despite these sometimes thorny constitutional realities, the Council has been able to develop mostly positive relations with the province, as discussed below. Education, in contrast to culture in the Canadian constitution, is an area of exclusive provincial jurisdiction. When the federal government has sup-

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ported education, it has tended to do so at the post-secondary level, drawing on its spending power to support research and capital infrastructure (grants to scholars, research chairs, buildings, laboratories, equipment, etc.). The Canada Council has understandably given a wide berth to matters of education in this constitutional context, with the notable exceptions of the fifty million dollars in capital grants to universities disbursed in its first decade and grants for social sciences and humanities research prior to the creation of sshrc in 1977 (the Killam awards to outstanding scholars, discussed in the next section, remained with the Canada Council when sshrc was created). That said, as seen below, the Council has played an important role in education domestically and internationally through the Canadian Commission for unesco. However, until recently, there have been relatively few efforts to leverage synergies between its activities and those of the Council. Third, operating as a national arts funder in a federal system means the Council monitors equity in the distribution of its funding across the provinces and territories, but it does not use funding formulas to guarantee outcomes – instead, it strives for equity and legitimacy in its decisionmaking processes. Table 1 shows the regional distribution of Council funding over the period from 2003–04 to 2014–15. As the figures reveal, the province of Quebec has tended to have much higher application and grant levels than population figures alone would dictate, while Ontario, much of the West, and Atlantic Canada have had lower participation rates and grants than their population sizes would prescribe. This has led to criticism at times – notably from politicians or members of the arts community in jurisdictions with lesser relative levels of support. Canada Council Chair Karen Kain (2004–08) shares a blistering example. One of the first times she crossed paths with Prime Minister Stephen Harper (2006–15) was at a formal reception: “Once he realized who I was, he shook his finger in my face, snapping, ‘I want more of that money going to Alberta!’”8 But rather than impose provincial/territorial funding formulas on grant distribution, the Council has sought to address regional imbalances in a variety of ways over the years, including with regional offices, enhanced support to applicants from lower-funded areas, the Explorations program, and targeted funding programs. Regional offices were established in Atlantic Canada in the early 1970s, but, as noted in the previous chapter, these were cut in the early 1990s as part of budget cutbacks. To provide enhanced support to organizations without incurring the cost of opening

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Table 1: Regional Distribution of Canada Council Funding, 2003–04 to 2014–15, Selected Years Province/Territory

2003–04 Grants, $

2009–10

% of Cdn

% of

Grants $

% of Cdn

(% of Cdn

population,

total

(% of Cdn

population,

total

total)

2003

grant

total)

2009

grant

applications Alberta

7,789,789 (6.18)

British Columbia Manitoba

6,107,718

New Brunswick

1,756,171

(4.85) (1.39%) Newfoundland & Labrador Northwest Territories

(0.13) 4,163,511

Nunavut

311,095

(3.31) (0.25) Ontario

41,692,700

Prince Edward

363,232

Island

(0.29)

Quebec

39,004,464

Saskatchewan

3,071,446

(33.10)

(30.97) (2.44)

13.03

15.97

10.93

7.82

(14.29)

13.2

16.1

3.62

2.76

2.22

1.39

1.51

1.15

0.13

0.22

2.78

2.82

0.10

0.21

38.74

31.54

0.42

0.29

23.2

33.44

3.05

1.79

0.10

0.48

100

100

6,568,630 3.68

2.93

(4.53) 2,015,550

2.37

1.54

(1.39) 1,666,595

1.64

1.30

(1.15) 197,365

0.13

0.22

0.14% 4,304,427

2.96

2.90

(2.97) 457,500

0.09

0.27

(0.32) 47,778,321

38.70

30.12

(32.98) 379,245

0.43

0.53

(0.26) 46,256,455

23.66

32.72

(31.93) 3,536,871

3.15

2.18

(2.44) 524,510

0.10

0.45

125,957,452 (100)

(7.23) 20,704,507

421,400 (0.33)

TOTAL

6.02

157,665

Nova Scotia

Yukon

10.06

1,350,063 (1.07)

application 10,469,130

18,478,825 (14.67)

% of

(0.36) 144,859,106

100

100

(100)

Province/Territory

2014–15 Grants, $

% of Cdn

% of

(% of Cdn

population,

total

total

total)

grant

2014

applications

11.6

5.06

13.03

16.68

Alberta

8,012,492

British Columbia

20,166,897

(5.65) (14.23) Manitoba

6,739,427

New Brunswick

1,936,143

(4.76) (1.37) Newfoundland & Labrador Northwest Territories

(1.09) (0.17)

Nunavut

438,916

(2.95) (0.31)

1.35

1.48

1.04

0.12

0.25

2.65

2.84

0.10

0.14

38.49

33.58

0.41

0.41

23.11

33.51

41,411,300 (33.46)

Island

2.12

244,401 4,182,863

Prince Edward

3.11

1,544,083

Nova Scotia

Ontario

3.61

336,634 (0.24)

Quebec

47,130,969

Saskatchewan

3,103,716

(33.26) (2.19) Yukon

457,985

TOTAL

141,705,826

(0.32) (100)

3.17

1.59

0.10

0.46

100

100

Note: Totals exclude Public Lending Right payments to Canadian authors and grants outside Canada. Sources: Canada Council for the Arts. “Funding to Artists and Arts Organizations: National Overview, Provincial and Territorial Profiles,” Funding for 2009–2010, National Overview, “Table 5: Canada Council for the Arts Grants by Province and Territory, 2009–2010: Comparison with Population, Artists, Grant Applications and Peer Assessment Committee Members,” 24, no date. Available online at http://canadacouncil.ca/~/media/files/ research%20-%20en/profiles%20of%20canada %20council%20funding%20to%20artists%20 and%20arts%20organizations%20%20national%20 overview%20provincial%20and%20territorial%20pr ofiles/2009-10-nationaloverviewen.pdf. Canada Council for the Arts. Overview of Canada Council Funding and External Arts Statistics, no date. Available online at http://statsandstories.canadacouncil. ca/_pdf/2014/EN/SS_Overview_Table_2014-15_ EN.pdf; Canada Council for the Arts. 2012–13 Funding to Artists and Arts Organizations: National Overview Provincial and Territorial Profiles. Ottawa: Canada Council for the Arts, 2013. Population figures from: Statistics Canada, Estimates of Population, by Age Group and Sex for July 1, Canada, Provinces and Territories Annual. CANSIM, Table 051-001. Available online at: http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26.

regional offices, the Council created the Flying Squad Program in the late 1990s to help arts organizations strengthen their management capacity.9 The program, open to organizations across Canada, was especially useful for those in smaller centres and remote areas, where expertise for organizational development is less readily available. The Council has also established targeted funding programs. For Alberta, it crafted the Alberta Creative Development Initiative. With an annual budget of one million dollars (matched by the government of Alberta, for a total of two million in funding), the 2008 three-year program was intended to increase application and granting rates in the province. These sorts of measures have reduced imbalances to some degree (albeit temporarily in the case of Alberta, as the table suggests), but there are real limits to their potential to permanently eradicate asymmetries. Each province and territory has its own distinct history, culture, and approach to supporting the arts,10 and past efforts by the Council to redress regional inequities in jurisdictions with lesser levels of provincial, territorial, or municipal support or weak “cultures of application” have not proven successful. As such, the Council continuously strives for legitimacy in its decisionmaking processes. Peer assessment committees are central in these efforts. Over the years, says former Director and ceo Robert Sirman (2006–14), the Council has developed a peer assessment process that is “more extensive and sophisticated and complex than any other national funding body.”11 The pacs bring together representatives from arts communities across the country to adjudicate applications. Not only does this enable the Council to maintain close ongoing relationships with artists and arts organizations, but it confers a vital stamp of legitimacy on Council funding decisions. Grant applicants have greater confidence in decisions, knowing that their peers assessed their proposals on artistic merits. The assessors are not government employees, who may be removed from the realities of artists’ daily lives and craft or who may substitute bureaucratic, political, or partisan criteria for artistic merit. The pacs also provide an invaluable opportunity for artists and arts organizations to interact in ways they might not otherwise. The jury process brings them together with counterparts from across the country and keeps them abreast of the latest creative developments. In a country as large and as regionally, linguistically, and culturally diverse as Canada, this mutual exchange, learning, and understanding is an underappreciated dimension and outcome of the pac process. This is not to say the process is perfect – committees and staff

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bring their own preferences and biases to the process. Says Director and ceo Simon Brault (2014– ), “There is no perfect system [of evaluating proposals], but it is the least imperfect one.”12 But grant proposals were not always evaluated by juries. In its first years of operation, the director, council, and program officers played much more direct roles in grant decisions.13 J.L. Granatstein writes, “in the early years every request for money carried [inaugural Director Albert] Trueman’s assessment, his yea or nay.”14 Trueman himself said, “From the start I was closely involved, not only in over-all administration, but in the judgment of applications.”15 David Silcox, distinguished art critic, art historian, senior cultural official, and visual arts officer at the Council from 1965 to 1970, described it this way, “Things were flexible in those days … We tried to base decisions on the work itself … Most of the [assessment] work was done internally.”16 He continues with a laugh, “I can remember the [1970s’ Vancouver-based pioneering conceptual art collective] N.E. Thing Co. got a cheque within twenty-four hours!” Silcox winces at the formality of the system now. “The Council has become very bureaucratic,” he says. “I can remember Council meetings back then,” he continues. “It would usually take about a day to get through everything.” Then he chuckles, “the chair would wait until after lunch when people had had a glass of wine at the Château [Laurier] before getting into debate over individual applications. It went better that way!” But by the 1980s, juries became formalized and systematic, and by the 1990s, virtually every grant program was juried. Program officers play an invaluable role in this process, attending carefully to balance and representation in jury composition, in terms of such things as regional distribution, gender, Indigenous presence, linguistic variety, and expertise. Jury members, for their part, commit to the task seriously. Council Director Peter Roberts (1985–88) gives an insider view. “Attending jury meetings as a silent observer, which I do when I can, I see dedicated artists putting a total effort into making the best possible collective judgment about a work of art or a performance. I see a high level of professionalism and integrity. I see often a remarkable coincidence of views among artists who may not even have met before. I hear some of the best talk about books, music, theatre, that I have heard anywhere.”17 In the process, they learn a great deal from one another and from the applications as well. And the jury system confers invaluable legitimacy on Council decisions. Anna Porter, award-winning author, Canadian publishing icon, and Canada Council

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member (2008–16) affirms that a grant from the Council is about more than just the invaluable financial support. “It’s a stamp of approval from the country. It’s hugely important.”18 Fourth, as a national funder in a federal system, the Council increasingly plays a pivotal role as thought leader and convener in its relationships with public, private, and non-profit arts funders at the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal levels – but it strives to do so as an equal, not an autocrat. In its early years, the Council was virtually the only public arts funder in the country, but the intervening decades marked the successive entrance of provincial, territorial, municipal, and other federal funding agencies. In 2009–10, the year for which the most recent figures are available, government expenditures on culture (libraries, heritage, cultural industries, and the arts) totalled $10.1 billion (current) dollars, with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments accounting for some 60 per cent of the total ($6 billion) and the federal government for the remainder ($4.1 billion).19 In the same year, total funding of the Canada Council stood at $158.7 million,20 a mere 3.8 per cent of the federal total, or 1.6 per cent of total government expenditures on culture. While the $10.1 billion includes expenditures beyond arts activities supported by the Council (for example, libraries, broadcasting, and certain heritage activities), the dollars the Council brings to the table in the overall arts and cultural sector nonetheless account for an ever-smaller proportion of total government expenditures on culture. In this context, in addition to working to maximize and measure the impact of its expenditures (as discussed in the last chapter), the Council has progressively developed its capacity for thought leadership and worked collaboratively with provincial, territorial, and municipal counterparts to convene leaders from across the country on shared concerns, opportunities, and challenges. This has bolstered its understanding of the country, along with its capacity to help bring federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal voices together in productive ways. Chief among these efforts are the Canadian Public Arts Funders (cpaf) network and Tri-levels. In 2004, under the leadership of Director John Hobday (2003–06), the Council collaborated with provincial and territorial counterparts to establish cpaf, a network that unites and serves the chairs and executive directors of federal, provincial, and territorial arts councils. It enables arts councils to exchange information, work together on internal capacity building, and collaborate in areas of mutual interest. Meetings are held several times yearly, rotating

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regionally throughout the country, and include annual meetings of chairs and executive directors, annual strategic development meetings for executive directors, and professional development activities for program staff. The cpaf network enables federal, provincial, and territorial arts councils to share best practices, to spot trends and new developments in funding levels, purposes, and approaches, and to work collaboratively to identify and address key challenges and opportunities in the short, medium, and long terms. The Canada Council provides the secretariat for the network. As would be expected, federal-provincial dynamics and tensions are part and parcel of these discussions – Quebec has been known to approach cpaf meetings in a fashion akin to international relations.21 But participants have generally been able to rise above the issues while remaining sensitive to the broader political environment, and have worked towards developing strong relationships based on collaboration and partnership – not competition.22 This is due, in part, to the Council’s approach to the meetings, where from the outset under Director John Hobday it has tried to work as a peer rather than adopting a “patronizing approach.”23 The Council has tried to avoid what federal agencies have often been criticized by subnational governments for doing: arriving with a paternalistic, authoritarian attitude that “Ottawa knows best” and is unwilling to listen. Tri-levels, which emerged as early as the 1970s in western Canada, bring together public and foundation arts funders at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels for collaboration, coordination, and exchanges on topics of mutual concern. The New Brunswick Tri-level, for example, includes the Canada Council for the Arts, the federal Department of Canadian Heritage, the New Brunswick Department of Tourism, Heritage, and Culture, artsnb (the provincial arts council), the New Brunswick Foundation for the Arts, the Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation, and a number of municipalities (principally Saint John, Moncton, Dieppe, Riverview, Sackville, and Caraquet). Meetings are held several times yearly and provide a unique opportunity for information exchange on important arts developments, challenges, and opportunities. While tri-levels are directed and developed by the provinces and cities, the Council has been an active participant since their inception. Of note, in cpaf, the Council is the only participating body bringing a national perspective to the table (the Department of Canadian Heritage also brings a national perspective in tri-levels). This has facilitated the development of pan-Canadian approaches to arts funding, including the creation in 2008 of Canadian Arts Data/Données sur les arts au Canada

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(cadac), a database of financial and statistical information on arts organizations applying for funding from federal, provincial, and municipal funders.24 This was originally an initiative piloted in Ontario by the Toronto Tri-level [the Intergovernmental Roundtable of Arts Funders and Foundations (iraff)]. The Council promulgated the concept within the cpaf and tri-level networks, ultimately taking on cadac administration under the oversight of a nationally representative committee of arts funders. zxzxz

The Council pays careful attention to representation and equity, to legitimacy in its decision-making processes, to navigating federal-provincial relations in informal-but-effective ways, and to leading and convening around emerging issues in the pan-Canadian context. This positions it ideally to identify areas of shared opportunity or challenge, and to foster joint efforts with public, private, and non-profit agencies at the federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal levels. This collaborative approach is precisely the kind of governance called for in the twenty-first century. Indeed, it has become an imperative, notably in federal political systems. Scholars of federalism have traced the shift in intergovernmental relations towards greater levels of collaboration in recent years. They use the term “collaborative federalism” to capture this approach, in which federal, provincial, and territorial governments work together as equals on common objectives in areas where jurisdiction is overlapping or shared.25 Richard Simeon, the venerable dean of federalism scholars, stated it this way: “the pervasive interdependence of governments faced with common policy problems means that neither level, on its own, can fully address them.”26 In this context, the Canada Council is something of a master of Canadian politics, uniquely suited to contribute to this networked approach to public policy-making – and, as Joseph Rotman advocated, deserving of a seat at the table.

The Canada Council and Education, Research, and Diplomacy

The Canada Council tends to be thought of as an arts grantmaker, but this is a simplistic and narrow view. The organization has long been involved in areas beyond the arts and arts granting, including education, research, and

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diplomacy, notably via the Canadian Commission for unesco, its initial capital grants to universities and research grants to scholars, the Public Lending Right, continuing scholarly grants through the Killam Program, and efforts to bolster cultural diplomacy and international exchange with its counterparts worldwide. These efforts have rarely been thought of in holistic terms, however, and, as noted below, the Council’s role internationally has tended to play second fiddle to its domestic activities. But this was not always so. The government’s original alignment of the arts, university capital funding, scholarly funding for the social sciences and humanities, and Canada’s engagement with unesco flowed in large part from the recommendations of the Massey-Lévesque Commission. As noted in Chapter 1, the commission saw the arts, scholarship, and international relations in unesco as a holistic trilogy of artistic, scholarly, and educational/scientific/cultural activities at home and abroad. This view was shared by the cultural and artistic elite of the time, as also seen in Chapter 1. Indeed, the arts community itself, via the Canadian Arts Council, advocated for the establishment of the Canadian Commission for unesco as early as 1945.27 But over the years, the arts/scholarship/cultural alignment withered: capital funding and research grants were dropped from the Council’s activities once the fifty-million-dollar capital fund was spent and sshrc was created in 1977, and the ccu, for its part, operated increasingly autonomously. And when the Public Lending Right Program and Commission – which had the potential to forge strong links for the Council with education – were created in 1986, they too operated in an increasingly autonomous fashion. The same could be said of the Killam Program for outstanding scholars across all disciplines. What follows below sketches out the Council’s engagement in research, education, and diplomacy through these entities and activities. Given space limitations, the discussion is necessarily brief and does not do justice to the rich histories and breadth of activities in each area. The aim is to underscore how the Council has worked in fields beyond the arts and arts granting over the years, but that, up until the mid-2000s, there was limited thinking at Council about the possibility that the whole could be greater than the sum of its parts. In fairness, there are administrative and practical realities to forging stronger links and synergies between the various constituent parts of the organization, and in some periods other matters, such as the cuts of the 1990s, dominated Council energies. Recently, the turn to

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seeking a seat at the table, to scaling up the organization’s impact (as seen in the last chapter), and, more generally, to focusing on the power of art, have inspired more holistic thinking at Council. The Council carries out substantive activities in education, research, and diplomacy through the Canadian Commission for unesco (education is often referred to as “learning” in the ccu to minimize tensions with the provinces, given their jurisdiction over education in the Canadian constitution). The original Canada Council Act provided that “The Governor in Council may assign to the Council such functions and duties in relation to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as he considers desirable.”28 And this the government did in 1957, creating the Canadian Commission for unesco in the same year it created the Canada Council. The ccu operates under the aegis of the Canada Council, but the government established it using a separate order-in-council, and it has its own constitution, bylaws, and governance structure. The latter includes a seventeen-member executive committee comprised of government and nongovernment representatives, including senior executives from the commission and the Canada Council. The ccu also has its own president and secretary-general (akin, respectively, to a chair and to a chief executive officer), and operates autonomously from, but in conjunction with, Canada’s permanent delegation to unesco in Paris (which is headed by an ambassador appointed by the government). The ccu’s mandate includes coordinating unesco programs in Canada and Canadian participation in unesco programs abroad, proposing new unesco programs, and advising Canada’s foreign ministry (at time of writing, Global Affairs Canada) on various financial and administrative matters relating to unesco.29 To undertake these tasks, the commission works closely with its members, which comprise over three hundred individual and institutional academic, research, government, and civil society participants. It also participates in Canadian delegations to unesco’s General Conference. Canada’s strong commitment to internationalism and the UN system have often meant that the ccu is relatively better staffed and funded than its counterparts internationally.30 This can give Canada a prominent place in the unesco system, according to David Walden, the commission’s secretary-general from 1999 to 2013: “Other countries turned to the Canadians because they knew there were bodies there. We were always asked to be on working groups.”31 And because many countries can’t afford to send national commission members to Paris to stay abreast of unesco gover-

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nance, “We got to know a lot of people in the [unesco] Secretariat as a result, which meant we had access and credibility. It was a virtuous circle.” That said, Walden notes that unesco and the ccu have not always evolved as they might. As the imperative of peace diminished in the years following the Second World War, “increasingly, advocating for world peace became trite,” he says, “increasingly it didn’t resonate … The [ccu] mandate was okay, but it was more about how it was being interpreted.” Tensions grew between those who wanted the organization to be primarily academic and those who wanted it to be results-oriented and more visibly relevant beyond academia in its networks and activities. The ccu undertook extensive strategic planning exercises to forge its future course, and emphasized a more practical approach in its 1999 and 2014 Strategic Plans, including more interdisciplinarity, a stronger focus on culture, communication, and information, and the rejuvenation of its membership and networks. This coincided with a reinvigoration of unesco itself in the 2000s, as both the United Kingdom and the United States returned as members (in 1997 and 2003, respectively), an important development symbolically and financially, as it boosted unesco’s budget.32 unesco also increased its cooperation within the UN system and focused its efforts on areas where it had a comparative advantage, including the Millennium Development Goals (to address the needs of the world’s poorest peoples), Education for All (to expand access to education for children, youth, and adults), multiple conventions on culture (underwater and intangible cultural heritage, diversity of cultural expressions), and several world conferences, including the World Conference on Arts Education. But Walden concedes the commission “wasn’t terribly successful at establishing itself within the Canada Council.” Katherine Berg, long-time Council employee and former staff member at the commission, notes that collaboration between the Council and the ccu has taken place chiefly on arts education, equity, and Indigenous issues, and through the Council’s partnerships office, but it “requires ongoing effort.”33 Former Aboriginal Arts Coordinator Louise Profeit-LeBlanc (2001–12), who worked with the commission on a number of projects, said that, in relation to the Council, the ccu operated “like this satellite waaaaay out there.”34 Berg and former ccu staff member Terry O’Grady refer to the Council-ccu relationship in the period prior to the mid-1990s as one of “benign neglect.”35 However, closer relations developed from the mid-1990s forward through the efforts of both Council and commission leaders, including Shirley

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5.3 Wanda Koop, Stack, 2008, Green Zone series, acrylic on canvas. Winnipeg-based Koop’s work explores urbanization, industrialization, and technology’s intersection with nature. Leading museums and private organizations, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Reykjavik Museum in Iceland, the Shanghai Museum of Modern Art, and the Caldic Collection in the Netherlands hold major collections of her work.

Thomson (secretary-general of unesco from 1985 to 1987 and director of the Canada Council from 1998 to 2002), Max Wyman (a Council member prior to becoming president of the ccu in 2002), SecretaryGeneral David Walden, and, most recently, Council directors Robert Sirman and Simon Brault. In addition to its role in education and research through the ccu, historically, the Council was also a lead player in post-secondary education. It provided invaluable capital support to build Canada’s university infrastructure in its first decade, along with research grants to the social sciences and humanities that not only strengthened Canadian scholarship, but enhanced

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the country’s knowledge of itself and supported the emerging field of Canadian studies through programs like Canadian Horizons, noted in Chapter 3. But the Council was not as attuned to the scholarly community as it might have been, and dissatisfaction mounted to the point that researchers felt their needs would be better served by a separate organization.36 As seen in Chapter 2, advocacy to separate grants for scholarship from those for the arts was ultimately successful, with the creation of sshrc in 1977. But in the early 1990s, in a mounting context of fiscal restraint, the two organizations were slated to “remerge.” In 1992, the Mulroney government tabled Bill C-93 to bring the two councils together again, along with the International Cultural Relations program of the then-Department of External Affairs. This move proved controversial with both the arts and scholarly communities, and in particular with sshrc and academic researchers. Numerous high-profile scholars and organizational leaders testified before a Senate committee, opposing the change. Nonetheless, the two organizations began to gear up for the merger, including renting shared office space. But when the bill hit the Senate, things began to turn around, and it was ultimately defeated in 1993. Keith Kelly, then national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts was in the thick of things, and said, “The bill was killed in the Senate the day of Mulroney’s send-off [for his retirement as leader of the Progressive Conservative party] … I had [then–Minister of Communications] Perrin Beatty in my office complaining!”37 The idea to “remerge” the two entities has not taken root again since. But the Canada Council still has a hand in scholarly research through, notably, the Killam Program. When sshrc was established in 1977, this program was not transferred out of the Council. The Killam Prizes were created by Dorothy Killam, the widow of Izaak Walton Killam – the businessman whose estate succession duties helped enable the creation of the Canada Council in 1957. The awards recognize, reward, and support outstanding scholarly achievement. Mrs Killam’s intention that the Canada Council administer these prizes was explicit. She took great care before her passing to establish the administrative arrangements for the awards, even organizing an anonymous donation to the Council to “dry run” the organization’s capacity to effectively operate the program.38 She clearly found the Council’s performance satisfactory, naming it the administrator of the awards and donating an additional $4.5 million (over $35 million in 2016 dollars) to the Canada Council in the years before her death in 1965.39

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5.4 Rita Letendre, Sunset, 1971. Rita Letendre is a painter, muralist, and printmaker from Drummondville, Quebec. Closely associated with the Automatistes in Quebec and well-known for her mural projects, Letendre’s award-winning work has been exhibited worldwide, and is collected by leading museums, private collections, and corporations.

Dorothy Killam’s will established six trusts: five at Canadian universities and institutes and a sixth at the Canada Council for recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement. In total, the Killam Trusts are worth an estimated $425 million, with the Canada Council component valued at approximately $55 million.40 Each year, the Canada Council awards five Killam Prizes, valued at $100,000 each, in recognition of outstanding career achievements, and multiple Killam Research Fellowships (in recent years, between five and eight), valued at $70,000 per year for two years, to professors with an outstanding reputation in their area of research.41 The awards are among the most prestigious in the country, and are often presented at an official ceremony at Rideau Hall, the governor general’s residence. The fellowships program is the longer-standing of the two, with close to six hundred fellowships awarded since the program began in the late 1960s.42 Via the Killams, the Council retains a close connection – and visibility – in the scholarly community across all disciplines, not just the humanities and social sciences. The Council also has links to education through the Public Lending Right Program’s close connections with the public library system. The plr Program was created in 1986 to provide support to Canadian authors whose books are in the collections of public libraries (unlike the majority of plr systems in other countries, Canada’s payments go exclusively to Canadian authors). The thirteenth such program in the world and the only one in the Americas, it was put in place by the Mulroney government after substantial advocacy on the part of writers’ organizations, notably by successive Writers’ Union of Canada chairs Andreas Schroeder and Matt Cohen (Schroeder would go on to become the inaugural plr Commission chair). The plr is an explicit recognition that authors deserve compensation for readers’ access to their books through public libraries. While the direct recipients of plr payments are authors (including illustrators and photographers) – they receive a cheque once per year – the administrative apparatus behind the program brings the Council into contact with public libraries across the country. When plr was established by a cabinet memorandum sponsored by then-minister Marcel Masse, its governance structure saw the creation of the Public Lending Right Commission, on which sit representatives from various components of the writing, publishing and reading world (authors, publishers, librarians, etc.), and the Public Lending Right Program to administer the initiative.

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5.5 Public Lending Right Commission Vice-Chair Claude Le Bouthillier and Chair Andreas Schroeder, with Minister of Communications Flora MacDonald, in 1987, issuing the first cheques to authors following creation of the Public Lending Right Program in 1986.

Over the years, the commission developed an increasing level and sense of autonomy from the Canada Council. This was in part due to the commission’s existence in the first place, the creation of which suggested the program had a status apart from the Council. In fairness, this was needed to ensure its smooth and effective functioning, given the variety and complexity of interests at stake. As noted above, the program was also funded separately by the government, with an initial budget of three million dollars allocated to the Council to establish and administer a plr program and commission. And, given the advocacy involved in persuading the government to set up the program, strong relationships had developed between the sector and the government right up to the ministerial level. Commission members were used to communicating directly with the minister if and when needed, and when the first cheques were issued to authors in 1987, the moment was celebrated jointly by plr Commission leaders and thenMinister of Communications Flora MacDonald. But when the Program Review budget cutbacks hit in the mid-1990s, a public row erupted between the Council and the commission. The Council’s senior management turned to the plr to contribute financially to the

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5.6 Internationally renowned Canadian author Margaret Atwood credits the Canada Council for having a tremendous impact on her career when she was first starting out as a professional writer. In 1969, she received a grant from the Council that enabled her to continue writing at a time when she would not otherwise have been able to do so.

cost-cutting exercise. The reaction was swift, public, and vocal. Says Peter Schneider, plr program manager and executive secretary to the commission (2012– ), “Writers went outside the Council and appealed in the media about the budget cuts. The commission members felt that the money was authors’ money. It got very heated, with Margaret Atwood saying the Council should get its hands off writers’ money. Council management had to back down.”43 From that point forward, the commission was looked at as a “hot potato” by Council, but the incident was a symptom of the broader challenge of uncertainty in the relationships between the program and the Council. The distance between the two was administratively all too clear in four-year agreements signed by both parties, stipulating who would do what, the administrative “goods and services” the Council would provide to the program (office space, phone lines, supplies, etc.), and at what cost. The topic came to a head when Director and ceo Robert Sirman (2006–14) was asked to approve a new administrative agreement and hesitated to sign it on the basis that no other program required assurances of

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5.7 Leonard Cohen giving his acceptance speech upon receiving the 2012 Glenn Gould Prize, awarded once every two years to an individual in recognition of their contribution to the human condition through the arts. Cohen donated the fifty-thousand-dollar award to the Canada Council, expressing his deep gratitude to the organization for its support, without which, he stated, he would not have written The Favourite Game or The Spice Box of Earth.

office space. The Council’s internal auditors confirmed that plr was indeed a Council program and had no separate legal identity, and, as Sirman puts it, “you can’t make an agreement with yourself.”44 The era of administrative agreements was over. Administrative foibles aside, the program, which provided roughly $9.8 million worth of support to more than seventeen thousand authors in 2015–16 (the Council plans to increase this amount by 50 per cent in 2018–19),45 serves an essential role in writing and publishing, underscoring the value of writers’ creativity to Canadian society. While the average and maximum value of annual cheques is modest ($568 average payment and $3,556 maximum payment in 2015–1646 ), it provides a much-needed boost to many authors’ incomes, along with important recognition of their contri-

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bution to national cultural life. The plr also contributes to the Council’s international presence by participating in meetings with counterpart entities throughout the world. The Canada Council has also been active internationally in its own right. In the early years, as noted in Chapter 3, the organization’s main focus was building Canada’s roots of culture domestically. At that time, however, many artists looked beyond the country’s borders for inspiration. David Silcox describes those first few years sardonically, “At that time, to get a grant you had to leave the country – because the assumption was that there was no culture here.”47 Indeed, Canadian cultural icon Leonard Cohen came under fire for using his first grant from the Council in 1958 to travel to Europe, where he wrote his first novel, The Favourite Game, principally at a house he bought on the Greek island of Hydra.48 Cohen would later donate his fifty-thousand-dollar 2012 Glenn Gould Prize to the Canada Council, stating, “The truth is without the help and encouragement of the Canada Council I would never have written The Favourite Game or The Spice Box of Earth. I am profoundly grateful.”49 The Council has also played a role internationally through support for touring and artistic exchanges. Explains Joyce Zemans, former director, “The Council wasn’t constrained by ‘priority countries.’ We could go where it was good for artists. We could work with the [then] Department of External Affairs. The Council worked from an artistic perspective and the department from a government priorities perspective.”50 Likewise, the organization took steps to establish international relations by creating international literary prizes with foreign counterparts and organizations. Many of these prizes were established in the 1970s, but discontinued in the 1990s, including the Canada-French Community of Belgium Literary Prize, the Canada-Switzerland Literary Prize, the Canada-Australia Literary Prize, and the Canada-Scotland Writers-in-Residence Exchange (the last two were established with the Australian and Scottish arts councils). The Canada-Japan Literary Awards, which are still in existence, are awarded to Canadians for producing works on Japan or works that promote mutual understanding between Canada and Japan, either written in Japanese or translated from Japanese into English or French. Council Director Shirley Thomson (1998–2000), in particular, saw the value of international engagement, and worked towards creating the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (ifacca), a global network of arts councils and culture ministries from more than

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5.8 Royal Winnipeg Ballet Principal Dancers Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine won Gold and Bronze medals at the World Ballet Concours in Japan in 1980. They appear here in Belong, 1980.

seventy countries. Established in the early 2000s with Thomson as its founding chair, ifacca hosts the prestigious annual World Summit on Arts and Culture, along with mini-summits and regional events; supports a variety of research, news, and advocacy tools and activities for arts and cultural policies; and strengthens management in public agencies in the arts and cultural sector. But Council commitment to international outreach ebbs and flows with the priorities of its directors and board, funding levels, salient issues of the day, and the federal government’s own level of cultural engagement internationally. It is one area where the Council, sometimes for obvious reasons and sometimes for not-so-obvious reasons, has missed opportunities.

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Missed opportunities or unrealized synergies are in part why the organization began to look more closely at its internal organizational structure and governance arrangements with a view to developing a more holistic approach to its work. A Re(new)ed Organizational Structure: The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its (Satellite) Parts

“It was discomforting at first,”51 confesses Barbara Burley, when asked about her appointment to the Canada Council in 2007. As she settles into her chair, she explains, “I wasn’t an artist, I wasn’t known.” Burley spent the better part of her career in the public service, retiring at the prestigious rank of assistant deputy minister (adm) from the government of Nova Scotia. Within moments of meeting her, it is clear that Burley is personable, careful, inquisitive, and a quick study, traits that must have served her well in the public service – and surely did at the Canada Council over her two terms on the board (2007–15). More than anything, Barbara Burley is an organizer, a management professional who gets things done, and someone who naturally gravitates to organizational governance and capacity building. But it wasn’t until her retirement that she directed these energies to the arts and cultural sector. “During my working career I was very busy at the adm level … I didn’t have much time to volunteer.” So, when she retired and moved from Nova Scotia to St Andrews, New Brunswick, things opened up: “I wanted to volunteer in a place beyond my comfort zone.” And that she did. She was asked to join Sunbury Shores, a centre that brings together art and nature in unique ways. Then she joined the New Brunswick Choral Federation – “I would literally feel uplifted!” she shares. Following that, she was approached to join the Ross Memorial Museum of decorative arts, and she quickly became the museum’s chair, and worked to strengthen the board. Then she got active with Jeunesses Musicales, which supports young artists and young audiences through classical music, and founded a Jeunesses Musicales in St Andrews. Following her appointment to the Canada Council, it was no surprise that she honed in on governance and organizational capacity building. And there was no shortage of work to be done. Director Robert Sirman (2006–14) was intent on strengthening organizational governance at the Council, and his attention soon fell on the Canadian Commission for unesco, the Public Lending Right Program and Commission, and the

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Art Bank (discussed further below). Over time, as seen above, the ccu and the plr grew increasingly distant from the core activities of Council, and, along with the Art Bank, were even referred to as “satellite organizations,” “sub-units,” “sub-brands,” or “associated entities” by people in and around the Council.52 While a level of autonomy is required or even legally mandated for these entities’ operation, the distance prevented the Council from fully realizing synergies with and among the various components of the organization. In brief, there was a limited sense at Council that the whole could be greater than the sum of its parts. Sirman set about changing that. But making change is rarely easy. It requires great care, attention to detail, and above all, skillful diplomacy, tact, and collaboration. Enter Barbara Burley. The process began when internal audits of the ccu and plr revealed a lack of clarity in roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities. The Council decided it should undertake a legal review of the Council’s bylaws and governance policy, as well as the constitution, bylaws, and governance of the ccu and plr. The review revealed that the executive committees of the ccu and plr were, in Burley’s words, “functioning quite independently, even though the Canada Council board was responsible for them.” The intent of the governance review was not to disempower the ccu and plr. Says Burley, “We didn’t want to take the organizations over. We wanted to develop stronger working relationships with them.” But, she says, “There was some anxiety with both groups as we brought forward the governance review. We worked in a consultative manner.” Burley, along with the Canada Council’s corporate secretary, met with the chairs and vice-chairs of the ccu and plr (separately), and developed a decision-making framework that specified, for each kind of decision, “who was accountable (who approves), who endorses (if required), and who should be consulted or informed.” On that basis, bylaws were revised and a formal accountability framework was appended to each entity’s bylaws. Burley recalls, “In some cases there was concern over loss of power and authority, but the consultation process and language provided assurance that the Council wasn’t interested in taking over, but that [the change] was necessary from a legal perspective to be clear on where ultimate accountability rested … It was a very respectful process.” As for the Art Bank, while it was never constituted as a separate organization with a board, executive committee, or commission like the ccu or plr, it had been operating as a separate entity since the mid-1990s’

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5.9 Walter Ostrom, Fish Vase with Greek Pot, 1990. Ostrom, a Nova Scotia–based ceramic artist, revived ancient techniques of Chinese ceramics.

Program Review, when it had begun to operate on a cost-recovery basis.53 Although this facilitated financial administration, at the end of the day, the Art Bank was still one of many programs at the Canada Council – albeit one with quite a distinct purpose. In the context of program transformation at the Council and the shift from focusing on the roots of culture (supply) to focusing on the power of art (demand), organizational thinking about the Art Bank began to transform as well. The original rationale for creating the Bank in 1972 – stimulating the Canadian contemporary art market and making the works available for display in government offices – was beginning to give way to a greater focus on public engagement and to expanding Canadians’ access to works in the Art Bank’s collection.54 This included, notably, exhibitions at Âjagemô, the three-thousand-square-foot exhibition

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space on the main level of the Canada Council’s new offices in Ottawa. To foster greater synergies between those elements of the Council focused on public engagement with the arts, prizes (including the Killam Prizes), the plr Program and Commission, and the Art Bank were placed under the auspices of a single director at the Council. Tara Lapointe, the inaugural director under this new structure, describes it this way, “The challenge is how to leverage plr, the Art Bank, and Prizes.”55 She notes with excitement the opportunity of connecting the Governor General’s Literary Awards (gglas) with plr and with Âjagemô (indeed, the latter was used to profile the eightieth anniversary of the gglas in 2016). The aim of this internal governance review and restructuring, at the end of the day, was twofold: to clarify governance arrangements and formal accountabilities and to build a re(new)ed organizational structure at the Council, capable of seeing the whole in the sum of its (formerly satellite) parts and finding new synergies and opportunities between them. It is an important thrust of the broader transformation under way at Council in its programs, funding, and organizational arrangements, and, as discussed in this chapter, to give the arts a seat at the table. Sirman’s successor, Simon Brault (2014– ), stated it explicitly in his fall 2015 report to the Council: “The reorganization of the Council seeks to achieve a clear, explicit, and shared objective: that the arts are taken into greater consideration in all of the policies and major decisions that shape Canada’s development.”56

From Bums in Seats to a Seat at the Table

For public funders in the arts, it’s a well-recognized fact that counting “bums in seats,” while an important indicator of an arts organization’s vitality, is no longer a sufficient measure of the impact of government funding. Increasingly, organizations are looking for different ways of measuring impact and of contributing to the societies, economies, and polities of which they are a part. The Canada Council is no different in this respect. Where it is different, though, is in its approaches on this front, and the potential of the directions in which it’s moving. The theme of a “seat at the table” is an important one, and deserves serious consideration from those “setting the table.” The Canada Council, by virtue of its experience, expertise, and orientation is a unique bellwether of Canadian politics. Its extensive expertise in

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5.10 To mark the Council’s 50th anniversary in 2007, fifty of the country’s leading artists came to Ottawa for a Day of the Arts on Parliament Hill to underscore the value of the arts to Canada. Bottom row, left to right: Marc Djokic, Mary Pratt, Micheline Beauchemin, Menaka Thakkar, Anita Majumdar, Antonine Maillet, Judith Marcuse, Marie-Josée Lord, Nicole Brossard. Second row: John Murrell, John Estacio, Alanis Obomsawin, Simon Brault (then vice-chair), Karen Kain (then chair), Robert Sirman (then director), Walter Boudreau, Yann Martel, Yi-Jia Susanne Hou. Third Row: Andrew Dawes, Howard J. Dyck, Takao Tanabe, Sara Diamond, Françoise Sullivan, Jean-Louis Roux, Arnaud Maggs, Albert Millaire, Roch Carrier, Dionne Brand, John Shnier. Fourth Row: Barry Doupe, Tracee Smith, Jean Grand-Maître, Stéphane Lemelin, Vera Frenkel, Gary Clement, Rudy Wiebe, Guillaume Labrie. Fifth Row: Lucie Idlout, Wendy Lill, Zacharias Kunuk, Jeffery Thomas, George Bowering, John Gray. Back row: Kim Barlow. Absent: Phyllis Lambert, Edith Butler, Martha Henry, Mavis Staines, John Alleyne, Marie Chouinard, Wanda Koop, Michael Ondaatje, Djanet Sears.

representation, equity, legitimacy in decision-making, federal-provincial relations, and thought leadership, position it to effectively navigate increasingly complex policy and political terrains. It is more than an arts grantmaker, and with its experience in education, research, and diplomacy, it has begun to position itself to better capitalize on that experience and contribute to Canadian governance writ large. At the Council’s 2015 annual public meeting, Director and ceo Simon Brault summed it up clearly: [I]f we want the enormous contributions made by the arts to be recognized, we need to have a seat at the table where the decisions shaping the future are being made. This seat at the table is not a given – it must be earned. Sometimes, we have to invite ourselves in and politely insist on being given a chair. And when we are invited, we must contribute by offering a perspective that resonates and that is informed by the constant exchanges we have with the artists of this country. By giving proof of this relevance and generosity, we will be invited more and more often to take a seat at the table, and the Canada Council will be given more responsibilities, and the means to carry them out, for the greater good of society.57

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Conclusion The Canada Council for the Arts: Reflecting on the Past, Looking to the Future

As Canada celebrates the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017, and the Canada Council for the Arts celebrates its sixtieth, there are signs that politics and governance may be set for tectonic change. In a move that defied leaders’ expectations, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a national referendum. And in a move that defied the world’s expectations, the United States elected Donald Trump as its president. In both cases, “the facts” seemed to matter little to the outcomes, and ruling elites were shocked and shaken to their core. How did political leaders, the media, public opinion pollsters, pundits, and the chattering classes get it so wrong? Do these developments signal a move away from globalization, trade liberalization, evidence-based decision-making, and democratic pluralism towards globalized “anti-globalization,” economic protectionism, “post-truth” politics, and nationalist populism? While only time will answer these questions, it seems clear that governance and politics are becoming ever more fragmented, decentralized, unpredictable, polarized, uncertain, and complex. Effective leadership and decision-making increasingly hinge on careful attention to balance, to forging durable consensus, to legitimacy in decision processes (not just outcomes), and to the capacity to detect new political tendencies and trends sooner rather than later. Governance will require far more decision-making “tables,” with more people, perspectives, and aptitudes around them. Boundary-spanners, connectors, discipline-transcenders, and holistic, creative thinkers will be in high demand.

In this context, the Canada Council’s efforts to secure a seat at the table couldn’t come at a better time. With its long-standing expertise and experience in representation, its close connection to leading-edge creative expression and innovation, its collaborative and networked approaches to decision-making, and the experience it’s gaining as a thought leader and convener, the organization is solidly positioned to contribute to the defining policy and political discussions of the day. What’s more, as a microcosm of Canada – its politics, culture, society, and diversity – it is an invaluable bellwether of emerging trends, issues, and challenges. The Council developed these faculties over its rich sixty-year history. As attested to throughout this book and summed up below, its history is one of evolution, not revolution, but this doesn’t mean it’s been complacent or ineffective in addressing the challenges of the day. Rather, it continuously strives to achieve a workable balance among the five core tensions inherent in its work. This is no small feat given the extent of change over the past sixty years. Remarkably, in 2017, organizational leaders are interpreting the Council’s mandate in ways reminiscent of their predecessors in 1957, placing much stronger emphasis on the organization’s contribution to the arts, to Canadian society, and to national life writ large, and doing so with a holistic and integrated approach to the various components of the organization. While it is too early to predict the outcomes of this renewed approach, as explained below, to date, the Council has deftly navigated this unprecedented transformation. That said, there are some pivotal issues to which the organization will need to pay careful attention in the years ahead.

Looking Back: The Model Evolved but the Mandate Endures: From the Roots of Culture to the Power of Art

When the federal government established the Canada Council in 1957, it created an arts-council model unique the world over: an administrative hybrid of the British arm’s length and American private foundation approaches to arts funding, with a mandate resembling a French humanist attitude to the arts, with the inclusion of areas like education, research, science, and culture. That Canada would reflect British, American, and French characteristics is not surprising given the country’s close ties to and history with these nations. The country’s “made in Canada” arts-council model

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arguably takes the best of the British, French, and American systems: arm’s length from the British to protect against political interference, a more anthropological conception of the arts from the French, enabling the organization to engage in areas beyond the arts, and the perpetuity and stability of an endowment from the United States. In the main, the model has stood the test of time, with two notable exceptions: the removal of scholarly research from the organization’s mandate and the addition of parliamentary appropriations to fund its work. That said, Council leaders and successive federal governments have remained committed to the idea that Canada needs an arm’s length arts funding body at the federal level. This is remarkable given the extent of social, economic, political, and technological change over the last sixty years, notably the rise of outcome-based, economically driven, “government-light” policy prescriptions, which have a tendency to catch arts spending in their crosshairs. At the same time, Canadian arts and scholarship flourished, the Council went from being virtually the only funder to one of many, Canadian society became more diverse, individualistic, cosmopolitan, and pluralistic, Quebec nationalism surged and gained traction, Indigenous peoples achieved increasing recognition and rights, globalization, trade liberalization, and privatization became a fact of Canadian life, and global geopolitics transformed. All told, Canada would be scarcely recognizable to the Council’s architects and founders. That a federal arts council survived – even thrived – in this context is a testament to its leaders’ successful efforts to maintain the organization’s relevance. These efforts are most visible in the changes over time in how leaders have interpreted the Council’s mandate, with the overarching shift from the “roots of culture” to the “power of art” in its first six decades being the primary characteristic. This shift was propelled in part by the Council’s own efforts to foster the country’s intellectual and artistic life, but also by the broad sweep of changes in Canadian society, economy, policy, and politics. Over time, leaders saw that the Council had to do things differently. They extended their gaze beyond the organization’s initial primary focus on artistic creation and on serving primarily the needs of artists and the artistic community, and began to encompass broader public policy aims and Canadian society as a whole in their thinking. In the cultural awakening and effervescence of the 1950s and 1960s, the Council focused on supply, strengthening the intellectual and artistic roots of the country. Beginning

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in the 1970s, it focused in greater earnest on expanding the representativeness of the beneficiaries of its funding. These efforts intensified in the 1980s and beyond in recognition of the changing face(s) of art and of Canadian society. In the 1990s, leaders repeatedly defended the organization from funding cuts in the context of fiscal restraint, and modified “the case” for government support for the arts and culture from the early focus on cultural development and cultural sovereignty towards economic impact and outcomes. The 2000s marked a shift to reinvestment, reinvention, and a strengthening of the governance of Council and arts organizations, and a broadening of “the case” to more explicitly focus on public engagement, enjoyment, and the power of art. The history of the Council can be characterized as an evolution – not a revolution – in leaders’ understandings of its mandate. Successive periods in the organization’s development are cumulative and incremental, informed and shaped by what has come before. Expanding the organization’s focus to more consciously emphasize the power of art doesn’t mean ignoring the roots of culture, but, rather, extending and reframing how the Council “thinks” of its role and place in Canadian society. Evolution over time also attests to the continued relevance of the organization’s mandate. Council architects crafted a mandate that endures. It enables the organization to be flexible, responsive, and proactive, adapting to and navigating its everchanging artistic, political, economic, technological, and social environments. Needless to say, adaptation and change do not always come easily. In its first sixty years, Council leaders struck various balance points among the five tensions at the core of its work in ways they felt would meet the needs of the arts and the expectations of government. The Council will forever be at the heart of relationships between the state and the arts, and there will always be healthy tensions between the two. Council Director Peter Dwyer (1970–72) described it eloquently: “Government councils are the servants of two masters – the artists themselves and their public, and the politicians who with good heart provide the funds. Like Janus we face two ways, up the footpath of the spirit and along the autobahn of efficiency.”1 At no point was this more evident in the Council’s first sixty years than during the funding cuts of the 1990s. The continuing emphasis on accountability and financial responsibility in recent years also underscores seemingly incompatible artistic and bureaucratic imperatives. That said, Council leaders have approached these

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6.1 Kent Monkman, Rebellion, 2003. Kent Monkman is of Cree ancestry and works in a variety of mediums, ranging from painting, to film/video, performance, and installation. His work, which critically explores Canada’s colonial past, often with brilliant satire and campy humour, has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and internationally and can be found in public museums in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

tensions with equanimity – even optimism – in recent years, adopting the stance that administrative strength and good governance will inspire greater confidence and support from the government. This seems to be paying off handsomely. When leaders expanded their emphasis from the supply or “production” side of the Council’s mandate to the “enjoyment” or demand side, they expanded thinking in conscious ways about the “clientele” and beneficiaries of the organization – from artists, arts organizations, and the artistic community to Canadian society writ large. Inaugural Council leaders rightly

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focused on building Canada’s artistic and intellectual infrastructure in the first few decades of the organization’s existence, but as the number, diversity, and demands of Canada’s burgeoning artistic communities grew, the organization, perhaps understandably, developed a client-based approach focused mainly on artists’ needs. The contributions of the arts to Canadian society weren’t entirely obscured – at the end of the day, artists and art connect with audiences – but the needs of Canadian society were less explicitly addressed. In recent years, Council leaders returned to the organization’s early thinking about its contribution to Canadian society and national life, but given the vibrancy of the Canadian artistic scene, both production and enjoyment are being given greater pride of place in the organization’s transformation. Where the appropriate balance-points have been struck over the years was ultimately a judgment call, informed by the political, social, and artistic context of the time.

Enduring Tensions, Creative Tensions: Balancing the Needs of Diverse Publics in Ways that Foster Confidence in the Council

Between “art for art’s sake” and pursuing broader social and economic aims through the arts. In a democracy, artists must have creative freedom: their art and creative processes must not be instrumentalized for or quashed by partisan political purposes or state propaganda. This is the main reason the Canada Council was established as an arm’s length agency in the first place: the arm in question is that of politicians, who, if arts funding were directly under their control, could be tempted to substitute partisan political criteria for artistic excellence in decision-making. That said, there are legitimate, continual, and healthy debates over the proper rationales for public support of the arts. Do artists have a right to state support simply because they are artists? Is state support justified only where the arts serve a broader public interest? If so, what is that public interest, how has it evolved over time, and are there areas where it’s vulnerable to being operationalized in ways that use the arts as a tool for other purposes? This tension is increasingly at the fore in a political, social, and administrative context that prioritizes minimal, measurable, and impact-driven state intervention. Over its first sixty years, the Council has moved closer to the right-hand side of this tension in keeping with the shift from the roots of culture to the power of art. Making “the case” for the

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Canada Council’s work in a way that is compelling but that doesn’t harness the arts to other ends is among the most delicate balancing acts facing the organization now and into the future. Between the needs of the artistic community and the needs of Canadian society as a whole. In the Council’s first decades, its primary focus was on artistic supply: supporting the production of works in the visual, performing, and literary arts, along with the cultural infrastructure to develop and showcase the works produced (theatres, publishing houses, training schools, concert halls, etc.). The same could be said of the Council’s early activities in post-secondary education, where it distributed millions of dollars to universities for capital projects, along with research grants to faculty and students. Given the Canadian artistic and post-secondary context of the time, prioritizing production made eminent sense. But as Canadian artistic and intellectual production and infrastructure flourished and took root, emphasizing other components of the mandate – notably promotion and enjoyment – became possible, some would say imperative. This change was a gradual evolution, with subsequent Council leaders placing greater emphasis on activities like arts education, outreach, and capacity building. The shift reached its zenith following the 2008 appointment of Joseph Rotman as chair of the Canada Council. As chair, Mr Rotman pursued his staunch view that the Council, funded as it is by taxpayers’ dollars, exists to serve all Canadians, not just those in the artistic community, and that the organization should assess the entirety of its activities through this lens. Current transformations under way at Council are clearly inspired by this approach. Between established and emerging art forms, practices, and organizational arrangements. In the first three decades of its existence, the Council focused mainly on Western-influenced arts and arts practices, with an understanding of “professional” derived from Western European artistic practice. Over time, its focus evolved in response to emerging art forms and societal transformations to include more equitable representation of women, non-Western artistic forms, artists from diverse cultural communities, Indigenous art, and multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary arts. These changes have sometimes been controversial, as they question and destabilize understandings of art, arts practices, and the role of the Council in the arts world(s). But in hindsight, they were essential for the Council to remain relevant and in touch with evolving societal expectations and artistic practices.

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Between organizational autonomy and collaboration. The Canada Council’s autonomy is among the highest of any federal agency. Autonomy is pivotal to its work: the Council’s granting decisions must be free from partisan political meddling. That said, there are dangers to interpreting its autonomy in ways that distance it unnecessarily from the government of the day and the broader “federal family” of other government entities. The Council is a public body supported by taxpayers’ dollars, after all, and governments have a legitimate right to expect that all federal organizations will in some fashion contribute to advancing their overarching policy aims. Clearly, this does not mean the Council should abandon its autonomy in relationships with governments and government agendas, but it does mean striking a balance between collaborating with the government of the day and other federal bodies, and ensuring it retains the autonomy it needs to function with credibility. Leaders have struck different balance points between organizational autonomy and collaboration with the government over the years. Over time, Council interpretations of arm’s length matured, and there is increasing recognition that it can collaborate with the government of the day and other federal agencies on broad questions of the arts, public policy, and administration, while maintaining autonomy over its priorities, programs, and grants. Balancing also means that the Council must be strategic in how it interprets the arts promotion dimension of its mandate. On the one hand, promotion means raising the public’s awareness of the arts and encouraging Canadians to engage with the arts in their daily lives. On the other, it can be taken to mean advocating on behalf of the arts and the artistic community. If the latter, the Council must be careful about who it identifies as the target of advocacy, who should do the advocating, in what ways and with what messages. At some points in its history, the Council has advocated directly and publicly to the federal government for the arts. While all federal bodies approach the government of the day for additional resources, expanded mandates, or greater prominence, this is normally done through the channels of “quiet diplomacy,” outside the public sphere. Public advocacy should be a last – not a first – resort. In recent years, the Council has eschewed the role of public advocate for the arts in favour of quiet diplomacy and closer collaboration behind the scenes with the government and other federal agencies to advance its organizational aims. Between leadership and followership. The Council is solidly rooted in Canada’s artistic and arts policy communities, and has in-depth knowledge

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of the needs, concerns, trends, and opportunities in the arts. This gives it an invaluable capacity for informed leadership. But risk is always inherent in leadership. If the Council takes directions it believes are in the long-term interests of the arts, but in the process, runs counter to the views of artists and arts organizations, it could isolate itself in unhelpful ways from the artistic community. The same applies when it comes to leadership with its provincial, territorial, and municipal counterparts and with the government of the day. Relationships with the former can be particularly thorny when it comes to Quebec, where the province has contested federal jurisdiction in the cultural sphere at various times over the years, even calling for the devolution of Canada Council funding to the province. With the latter, the Council must be careful not to get too far out ahead of the government of the day on sensitive issues. Conversely, followership can generate clientelism (focusing on the needs of those it most closely serves to the detriment of the broader public interest), rigid approaches, a gradual narrowing of organizational objectives and priorities – or worse, organizational irrelevance. Over its first sixty years, the Council has exercised both leadership and followership. It has been a leader in the Canadian context on issues like reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and its transformation from discipline-based to activity-based programming, but it took some time for it to “catch up” in the 1980s and 1990s to growing ethnocultural diversity and art forms spanning or transcending traditional (Western) artistic practices or genres. It tilted towards clientelism as its relationships with arts communities intensified, and it took some time to recalibrate thinking. In a similar way, the balance between emerging and established art forms tilted to the latter in the Council’s early and middle years as the organization fostered traditional art forms and organizations in its first decades. Recent years witness more emphasis on emerging art forms, art practices, and organizations. Indeed, one of the key elements of the organization’s new funding programs is to extend funding to those who have never had it before. Maintaining relevance all but demands this sort of change. zxzxz

The balance points Council leaders have struck over the years reflect their views about how the organization should focus its work to maximum relevance and garner the support of artists, arts organizations, and the government. As it marks its sixtieth year, the Council’s overarching trajectory has

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6.2 Sanaz Mazinani, Woman Reading on Bus, Tehran, Iran, 2006. Sanaz Mazinani was born in Tehran and lives in San Francisco and Toronto. She works mainly in photography, video, and large-scale installations, and her work has been exhibited worldwide and appears in public museums and private collections in Canada and the United States.

been to move closer to the right-hand side of the first four tensions, and closer to the left-hand side of the fifth. Judging by increasing government support to the Council in recent years, the approach is paying off. But it’s not without risks. Looking forward, a number of issues merit close monitoring.

Looking Forward: The Right Model and Approach for the Future?

As the Council celebrates its sixtieth year, leaders’ interpretations of the raison d’être of the organization are remarkably similar to what they were in its first. It is not difficult to imagine Council leaders in 2017 coming readily to a meeting of the minds on “the big questions” with their counterparts from 1957 – the contribution of the arts to the country’s life, the importance of the Council’s rootedness in the broader political and policy system, and the fundamental value of the arm’s length principle. They would likely diverge over the shift from disciplinary to non-disciplinary programs and the emphasis on emerging art forms, artists, and arts organizations, but inaugural leaders might come on side as they came to appreciate the extent of change in the artistic, cultural, and social landscape over the last six decades. Early leaders would likely lament the removal of scholarship from the Council’s mandate, but they would surely rejoice over the size of the organization’s budget: that the Council went from an initial $3 million per year in endowment proceeds in 1957 dollars to the recent commitment to phase in a $360-million annual parliamentary appropriation over five years (over $40 million in 1957 dollars) is astonishing. What a change. Looking forward, given current drivers of change, does the Canada Council have the right model and approach for the future? Does Canada still need an arm’s length body to distribute funding, or would a government department do the trick? Does it still need its endowment fund, or will it come under pressure to dissolve it? And what of the transformation and New Funding Model? How are those likely to pan out? On the matter of the arm’s length principle, dismantling the Council and folding its granting programs, activities, and entities, such as the Public Lending Right Commission and the Canadian Commission for unesco, under the umbrella of a government department (at time of writing, the Department of Canadian Heritage) could potentially achieve some efficiencies

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through economies of scale with existing departmental program administration. But these efficiencies, which would likely be slight, would be far outweighed by the resulting loss of artistic communities’ and the broader public’s confidence in the integrity, credibility, legitimacy, and independence of the grant decision-making process. As part of a department directly under the control of a minister, decision-making would be vulnerable to political interference, and even if measures were put in place to guard against political meddling, suspicions that granting decisions, acquisitions to the Art Bank, or decisions at plr or the ccu were made on bases other than their substantive merits would forever dog the system.2 All told, the rationale for the Council’s arm’s length status is as crucial as ever. As a funder of the arts, the Council is a funder of creative expression, and, by extension, a guarantor of fundamental democratic values – freedom of expression, of conscience, of thought, of belief or association; equality without regard to race, nationality, ethnicity, colour, religion, sex, age, or disability. These values, rights, and freedoms were fought hard for and hard-won, and understandably were top of mind when the Council was created in the aftermath of the Second World War. As the organization celebrates its sixtieth year in 2017, they are becoming top of mind again. Freedom of speech and expression are at risk in the context of security concerns over terrorism, nationalist populism, cybersecurity, social fragmentation, and governments’ sometimes tenuous capacities for leadership and public confidence in the twenty-first century. The arts, which by their very nature critique, dissent, and question the status quo, are especially vulnerable to political interference. In this context, an arm’s length funding body that takes funding and program decisions based on its artistic and cultural mandate – not on partisan political or bureaucratic aims – is an essential guardian of core democratic values. With respect to the Council’s initial fifty-million-dollar endowment, given the scant contribution of endowment proceeds to overall organizational revenues and the relatively limited contributions to its initial endowment over the years, does the Council still need its endowment or should it spend down these monies or transfer them as smaller endowments to arts organizations? It’s important to recall that the endowment was a twist of fate and some skilful political choreography by those advocating for the organization’s creation. Theoretically, it isn’t an institutional design feature that’s necessary for the organization to fulfill its mandate effectively and

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with credibility. In light of the government’s commitment to doubling the Council’s parliamentary appropriation and the relatively weak performance of markets in recent years, Council leaders would do well to have an answer at the ready if questions are raised about whether funds in the endowment could be better deployed. While it would not be possible to spend down endowments that the Council administers from bequests (like those supporting the Killam Awards, for example), when it comes to the Council’s initial endowment, this is a legitimate question. Should or could these monies be structured differently to increase the Council’s impact – and by extension the government’s – on the arts sector? This may well be worth exploring. When it comes to the Council’s turn to emphasizing “the power of art,” and the program transformation and New Funding Model that accompany it, it is too early to tell how the change will play out, but early signals suggest organizational leaders have developed a recipe for success. The approach clearly has the support of the government (as can be seen in its commitment to double the Council’s funding over five years), and, in the main, has garnered support from Council staff, despite some initial misgivings and concerns.3 To date, it also enjoys mostly support in artistic communities and in broader society as well. On the effect on society writ large, a poignant example comes from the Canada Council Art Bank. In spring 2015, the Art Bank worked with the Canadian Forces at Garrison Petawawa’s Joint Personnel Support Unit and Integrated Personnel Support Centre to exhibit art works in conjunction with the military’s efforts to assist returning soldiers who are ill or injured. “Art is very therapeutic for the soul and is a tremendous source of wellbeing for people,” Canada Council Director and ceo Simon Brault said at the exhibit’s opening. “Our Art Bank collection is a public asset and can play a valuable role in many areas of society. The Council is particularly honoured to make some of the collection’s works available and thereby offer spaces of tranquility, inspiration, and positive thoughts for Canadian soldiers returning from combat.” The installation was in large part an idea that had been advanced by Joseph Rotman, chair of the Canada Council (2008–15). Mr Rotman passed away in January 2015, and the exhibit was dedicated to his memory. At the opening of the installation, Mr Rotman’s widow, Mrs Sandra Rotman, said, “As passionate art enthusiasts and collectors, we’ve always

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6.3 Canada Council member and Sun Life Financial’s Quebec president, Isabelle Hudon, 2013–17 (left), Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, 2015– (centre), and Council Director and CEO Simon Brault, 2014– (right), announcing the Arts and Culture Welcome Refugees program. The program, funded jointly by the Council and Sun Life, provided support to arts organizations so they could offer free access to their activities to Syrian refugees coming to Canada during the Syrian refugee crisis.

believed that the arts can inspire and motivate. I’m delighted to know that, through this partnership, soldiers rebuilding their health can appreciate this installation.” Positive stories like these can inspire deep enthusiasm, but the Council exposes itself to a number of risks with the new approach. Will the focus on the power of art gradually harness art, artists, and arts organizations to purposes they do not support? The Art Bank, for example, because it operates on a cost-recovery basis, would find it difficult to support multiple projects of the sort noted above. If resources become scarce, will the organization have to choose between acquiring new pieces of art (the roots of culture) or leveraging its existing collection for the power of art? One would hope this could be avoided. The New Funding Model, for its part, may challenge the Council’s ability to sustain artistic excellence if additional criteria around broader social

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or economic contributions are added to funding program guidelines. And the laudable desire to extend more of the new funding received in the 2016 budget to first-time recipients also bears risks when it comes to the calibre of applications received. In addition, there is concern among some in the artistic community that the New Funding Model will centralize more decision-making power in the hands of Council staff. If these fears are realized, artists could feel reticent to criticize the Council or Council priorities if they worry this will have an impact on funding decisions that affect them. Similarly, it may be challenging for Council to constitute peer assessment committees that possess the diversity of expertise and experience to evaluate both disciplinary and non-disciplinary proposals from a wide diversity of applicants. Will closer collaboration with the government gradually undermine the Council’s autonomy in reality or perception? Greater levels of collaboration with the government of the day could blur the line between collaboration and political interference. This could be especially problematic if successive governments hold policy priorities and views that don’t align or align poorly with the Council’s. Once a culture of collaboration has been developed, it might be difficult, politically and institutionally, to change the course. If trends towards centralization of government decision-making continue, this could amplify the challenge. Given this, it would be advisable not to institutionalize – or at most lightly institutionalize – mechanisms and channels of collaboration with the government of the day. Will the focus on the power of art blind it to emerging or existing issues that need attention? The Council will need to ensure that new organizational structures and approaches are flexible, nimble, and adaptive. Scaling up its operations with substantial new funding is an exciting and positive development, but organizational change of that magnitude could be accompanied by additional layers of bureaucracy and control, something that could compromise the capacity to respond proactively to changing circumstances and issues. Council leaders have the luxury of transforming the organization with the benefit of ample financial resources. But this too is a risk. Skeptics might wonder whether dollar bills will paper over critique. Will those in the arts community who are concerned about the new approach or about other developments in the arts keep their mouths shut for fear that money will stop flowing from the government? The doubling of the organization’s parliamentary appropriation is slated to be phased in over five years. In

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Canada’s fiscal regime, appropriations are only voted on an annual basis, so there is no absolute guarantee that the promised monies will in fact flow. The Council, arts communities, and civil society writ large will need to keep an eye on this issue. Future budget cuts could spell real trouble for the Council and, by extension, the arts community. If there are cuts, Council leaders will need to deftly steady things for the arts in the midst of budgetary restraint, while safeguarding the organization’s autonomy. What’s more, critiques raised in the context of budgetary restraint have a tendency to sound more like sour grapes than legitimate concerns. If there are concerns that need raising, now, ironically – during the good financial times – may well be the best time to do so. What’s more, the Council and the arts community have the ear of the government, an advantage that’s not guaranteed in the context of funding cutbacks. These questions underscore that the political and bureaucratic waters the Council navigates don’t get easier with more money or positive relationships with the government – just different. For the moment, though, the Council enters its seventh decade strong, confident, optimistic, and well-resourced. But with the doubling of its parliamentary appropriation, expectations are high all around. Says Director Simon Brault, “You don’t have any excuses [if the approach fails] if you have the resources.”4 Only time will tell whether the new approach succeeds. What is sure is that, as the Council celebrates its sixtieth year, it is both sixty years old and sixty years young, forever evolving in a dynamic, complex, and rich artistic, social, political, and economic environment. Its first six decades have been fertile ground in which to develop the wisdom of age, experience, and maturity that it will need to successfully, nimbly, and confidently navigate the next sixty and beyond.

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Acknowledgments

Writing a book is a lengthy process, and, like raising children, to do it well takes a village. I was remarkably fortunate to have the privilege of working with a highly talented, tremendously inspiring, and remarkably dedicated village that supported this book from conception to publication. Writing a book can feel like an endless parade of deadlines – probably because it is – but having such an outstanding team supporting the project every step of the way was an experience I expect will be unique to this project. Those who have worked in and around the Canada Council for the Arts have a remarkable fondness and caring for the institution. While they’re not uncritical of the organization, they have a kind of loyalty to the Council, in many instances, long after their direct connection with it is past. As a researcher and author, that made this project daunting in some respects. It is not easy to write a history of an organization that so many people care about. The work has to be fair, thorough, critical where critique is warranted, and salutary – but not naively celebratory – where deserved. That the Canada Council scrupulously respected the arm’s length principle and my academic freedom throughout the entire process speaks volumes about the integrity of the institution. It’s not easy to have someone write a history of one’s organization and not have control over what they say. That the Council collaborated and supported the project every step of the way, but not once sought to control the book’s content, is a testament to the professionalism, respect for creative freedom, and openness to critique embedded in the organization’s dna.

Many current and former leaders and staff members went above and beyond to support the project. The list begins with former Director and ceo Bob Sirman, who approached me in 2013 to ask if I would be interested in writing a history of the Council. As an academic, my first question – stipulation would be more accurate – was that I have full editorial control of the project. Bob assured me that this would be the case, and both he, his successor, and all Council staff have respected those arrangements without exception. Bob and I have not always agreed on the book’s contents and have had many stimulating debates about different elements of the manuscript, but his unwavering support (including financial support for research assistants, travel, and teaching release) has been essential to the project’s success. Thank you, Bob. Bob’s successor, Simon Brault, likewise provided invaluable assistance, opening his door on multiple occasions for interviews, responding to emails posing small or large questions at lightning speed, and helping to ensure the French translation of the manuscript accurately captures the English version’s meaning. Former Council directors John Hobday and Joyce Zemans likewise lent considerable time, expertise, and energy to the project, closely reading and commenting on drafts of the manuscript, suggesting materials or people to consult, and speaking with me by phone or Skype – even from around the world – to debate and discuss their comments and critiques. I owe a very special thank you to Kathy Berg, John Goldsmith, and Jocelyn Harvey for the many hours they individually and collectively spent with me in the early phases of the project as I framed up the book’s core arguments and themes. In what I affectionately referred to as the “JJK Sessions,” John, Jocelyn, and Kathy shared their vast expertise and experience with the Council in afternoon-long sessions filled with insightful analysis, often hilarious story-telling, and invaluable recommendations about who to speak to, where to find key documents, and how best to proceed on thorny or delicate issues. Their careful reading of the manuscript and extensive comments strengthened the text significantly. To provide external input on the project on an ongoing basis, I asked Caroline Andrew, Stephen Blank, and Jocelyn Harvey to serve on an advisory committee to give counsel on the book’s framing and content. Caroline’s extensive expertise and experience in the social sciences and humanities community, Stephen’s knowledge of Canada and the arts world beyond the country’s borders, and Jocelyn’s “insider” knowledge of the Council made for a formidable group of advisors, each able to comment

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on the project from their distinct perspectives. Their advice on both process and product improved the book substantially. Kelly Wilhelm, Terry O’Grady, Adam Meisner, Tara Lapointe, Francine Bercier, and John Sobol all provided precious input and support to the project at various phases, helping to connect me or my research assistants to the right people, places, and resources, whether to find documents, schedule interviews, market and promote the book, organize video interviews, or shepherd administrative components of the project through the Council. A special thanks to Kelly and Terry for their heavy-but-careful lifting to get the project off the ground in a way that ensured Council support was provided – and seen to be provided – at arm’s length. This was pivotal to the success of the enterprise. Thanks are also due to Terry O’Grady and Tara Lapointe for their attentive read and comments on the manuscript. I would also like to thank receptionists Johanne Laleye and Andrée Parent for their warm and friendly welcomes during my multiple visits to the Council offices. It was always a pleasure to see them both. A substantial undertaking of the book was the images. Locating photos, photographers, artists, and arts organizations, and securing their permission to use the images throughout the book was a Herculean undertaking, and would not have been possible without the extensive support of Rachel Conley at the Canada Council and Martha Young at the Canada Council Art Bank. Rachel and Martha no doubt grew accustomed to receiving multiple emails from me or my research assistant, Acacia Paton-Young. A heartfelt thank you to Rachel and Martha for their professionalism, dedication, prompt and helpful replies, and attention to detail on the images. As for my research assistant, Acacia, words cannot express my gratitude for all her long hours, perseverance, follow-ups (and more follow-ups) to secure high-resolution images for the book, along with the necessary permissions from photographers, artists, and arts organizations. I truly could not have done it without her. Thank you, Acacia. I hope you agree the final product was worth the effort. Selecting a publisher for a book that straddles the scholarly and trade presses took a lot of care and reflection. I would like to thank Doug Gibson and Valerie Hussey for their early conversations with me to help sort through the options. A special thanks to Valerie for suggesting McGillQueen’s University Press, and a very special thanks to McGill-Queen’s Executive Director Philip Cercone for understanding the nature of the project, for believing in it, and for signing me as an author with the Press. mqup

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has been outstanding to work with on both the conceptual and logistical fronts. Conceptually, they understood the special nature of the project from the beginning and worked closely with me and consulted closely with the Council to ensure the final product was rigorous, engaging, and aesthetically pleasing – a very high bar. The McGill-Queen’s team was a pleasure to work with and added immeasurably to the quality of the book throughout the project. Thanks to Special Projects Manager Julia Monks for helping me shape the conceptual approach in the early stages of research, and to Rights and Special Projects Manager Natalie Blachere and Managing Editor Ryan Van Huijstee for ably shepherding the book through peer review and production. Natalie and Ryan, your patience, dedication, and professionalism made even the most arduous of moments enjoyable. A big thank you to Pat Kennedy for her careful copyediting of the manuscript and close consultation with me to ensure I was comfortable with various elements of style. I am grateful to Denis Lessard for his exceptional work translating the manuscript, including his care and effort to pick up small but important inconsistencies and imprecisions in the English-language version. Thanks also to Alexandra Peace for her timely preparation of the book’s manuscript. Finally, many thanks to Marketing Director Susan McIntosh and her team for working with me to promote the book. At the University of Ottawa, I would like to thank my students Laura Nourallah and Katherine Pietroniro, who provided excellent support as research assistants, assembling databases of people, facts, and figures, proposing potential images for use in the book, and reading and commenting on various portions of the text. Finally, I would like to thank all those who generously shared their time, experience, and expertise in interviews, including video interviews with multiple Council and arts leaders. The latter are a rich resource now and into the future for those interested in Canadian arts and cultural policy. I am grateful to all those interviewed for their timely and careful read of the manuscript. I am likewise indebted to the two anonymous peer reviewers, who provided timely and insightful comments and critique on the draft manuscript. Collectively, their comments strengthened the book substantially. As is customary, any errors of fact or interpretation are mine alone. Behind any author is a village of family and friends, many of whom experience “the book” as something that sees their mother, friend, or family

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member disappear from view, literally or figuratively. I would like to thank my parents, sister, and youngest son, Gabriel, for understanding and accepting my absences over the last few years, whether it be disappearing to work late into the evening or on weekends on “the book” or staring off into space when I was with them, thinking about “the book.” I would also like to thank my neighbours Alan and Carolyn Bowker for understanding that I was far less available than usual for socializing or garden work, and to Alan for taking pity on my neglected lawn and mowing it. To Stephen Blank … well, everyone needs a Stephen. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, dear friend, for helping me manage the chess board these last few years. Your strategic guidance was invaluable to this book coming to fruition alongside many competing priorities. Finally, I would like to thank my eldest son Cameron Gattinger for our long-running fascinating debates about art and the value of art over the last decade. It has been so inspiring to see you develop your own views about the roots of culture and the power of art over the years. But most of all, I would like to thank Roxanne Carriere for her unwavering support, encouragement, and belief in me. It carried me through the tough days more than you’ll ever know.

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Illustration Credits

0.1 Exterior of Performance Court. Credit: Roy Grogan, 2015. 0.2 Interior of Performance Court, showing Grant House. Credit: Roy Grogan, 2014. 0.3 Interior of Performance Court, showing video tower. Credit: Roy Grogan, 2014. 0.4 Interior of Performance Court, showing Âjagemô. Credit: Image courtesy of Heather McAfee / Canada Council for the Arts, 2014. 1.1 The 1941 Kingston Conference. Credit: Hazen Sise / Library and Archives Canada / pa–192885. 1.2 The Right Honourable William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St Laurent. Credit: National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada / C–023281. 1.3 Members of the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences. Credit: University of Toronto Archives, Original Item No. a1978–0041/015(22), Access File ib011, Digital Image No. 2001–77–189ms, Creator: Canadian Press. 1.4 Brooke Claxton. Credit: Arthur Roy / Library and Archives Canada / pa–047064. 1.5 Jack Pickersgill. Credit: Philip S. Shackleton / National Film Board of Canada. Photothèque / Library and Archives Canada / e000756957. 1.6 John Deutsch. Credit: Queen’s University Archives, Queen’s University Picture Collection, v28–p–50–1. 1.7 Maurice Lamontagne. Credit: Senate of Canada.

1.8 Robert Sirman. Credit: Martin Lipman, 2014. 2.1 Brooke Claxton. Credit: Canada. Department of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / ecopy e010777180. 2.2 Pierre Lassonde. Credit: Laura Arsie, 2013. 2.3 Charles Gagnon, Espace-écran #4 / Screenspace #4, 1974. Credit: Courtesy of The Estate of Charles Gagnon, Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. 2.4 Supporters of Quebec sovereignty, 1980. Credit: The Canadian Press / Ian Barrett. 2.5 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien at a pro-Canada “no” rally, 1995. Credit: Reuters / Shaun Best. 2.6 Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Queen Elizabeth II, 1982. Credit: The Canadian Press / Ron Poling. 2.7 Mohawk warrior and Canadian soldier. Credit: The Canadian Press / Shaney Komulainen. 2.8 Idle No More protest. Credit: Material republished with the express permission of Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. 2.9 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney during the 1988 federal election. Credit: The Canadian Press / Ron Poling. 2.10 Inaugural meeting of the Canada Council. Credit: Duncan Cameron fonds / Library and Archives Canada / pa–144594. 2.11 David Adams with artists of the National Ballet of Canada, The Nutcracker. Credit: Courtesy of the National Ballet of Canada Archives, Photo by Ken Bell, 1956. 2.12 The Canada Council Art Bank. Credit: Courtesy of the Canada Council Art Bank. 2.13 Extract from the 1995–96 Annual Report of the Canada Council for the Arts. Credit: Courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts. 2.14 Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, La jeune fille et la mort, 2017. Credit: Le Pictorium / Alamy Stock Photo. 3.1 Pierre Collin in Théâtre du Nouveau Monde’s production of Molière’s L’Avare, 2001. Credit: Yves Renaud. 3.2 Mullusk by the Evelyn Roth Moving Sculpture Company. Credit: Courtesy of Evelyn Roth. 3.3 Christopher Neil Wortley in Tremolo, performed by the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre Company of Vancouver. Credit: Courtesy of the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre Company (Photographer: Rodney Polden).

190

Illustration Credits

3.4 Calgary’s One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre Company’s 1997 production Doing Leonard Cohen. Credit: Jason Stang, 1997. 3.5 The 1999 Interdisciplinary and Performance Art Advisory Committee. Credit: Tara Heft, 1999. 3.6 Les Robes de Sainte-Anne by Circus Stella. Credit: Marykristn, 2014. 3.7 Joyce Zemans. Credit: Courtesy of the mba Program in Arts, Media & Entertainment Management, Schulich School of Business, York University. 3.8 Alison Sealy-Smith in The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God, co-produced by Nightwood Theatre and Obsidian Theatre. Credit: Cylla von Tiedemann. 3.9 Corpuscule Danse, Quadriptyque, 2016. Credit: Christine Bourgier, 2016. 3.10 Howie Tsui, Bipolar, 2006. Credit: Bipoloar, 2006 © Howie Tsui (Licenced by Copyright Visual Arts-carcc, 2017). 3.11 Will Kwan, Endless Prosperity, Eternal Accumulation, 2009. Credit: Courtesy of Will Kwan and the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. 3.12 Marianne Nicolson, Portrait of Yaxa’tlanis, 2001. Credit: Courtesy of Marianne Nicolson and the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank (Photographer: Martin Lipman). 3.13 Connie Watts, Play, 2001. Credit: Courtesy of Connie Watts and the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. 4.1 Michael Snow, Bees Behaving on Blue, 1979. Credit: Courtesy of Michael Snow and the Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. 4.2 Inaugural Canada Council Director, Albert W. Trueman (1957–65). Credit: University of New Brunswick Archives & Special Collections – ua pc 1 no. 56b. 4.3 Germaine Koh and Jade Rude, HIGH NOON, 13 May 2004, sitespecific performance, University Avenue at Front Street, Toronto. Credit: Courtesy of Germaine Koh (Photographer: Tracy Cocks). 4.4 Canada Council Director Timothy Porteous, 1982–85. Credit: Ontario College of Art and Design Archives (Photographer: Casimir Bart). [ph2277b/191_3_337_002]. 4.5 Sarah Chase in the autobiographical work muzz. Credit: Courtesy of Sarah Chase (Photographer: Debra Tier). 4.6 Canada Council Director Roch Carrier, 1994–97, and Chair Donna Scott, 1994–98, with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Credit: Marc Fowler.

191

Illustration Credits

4.7 Mendelson Joe with his portrait of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Credit: Getty Images (Photographer: Dick Loek / Toronto Star). 4.8 Canada Council Chair Karen Kain, 2004–08, and Vice-Chair Simon Brault, 2004–14, hold a photo of themselves with Minister of Canadian Heritage Liza Frulla. Credit: Courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts. 4.9 The Heart Beats Ecstatic by Michèle Moss, Decidedly Jazz Danceworks. Credit: Decidedly Jazz Danceworks (Photographer: Trudie Lee Photography). 4.10 Diane Gaudreau, Celebration Box. Credit: Courtesy of Diane Gaudreau (Photographer: Henry Dunsmore). 5.1 Canada Council Chair Joseph L. Rotman, 2008–15. Credit: Courtesy of the Canada Council for the Arts (Photographer: Christian Lalonde). 5.2 Tanya Tagaq, 2015. Credit: Courtesy of Tanya Tagaq (Photographer: Shelagh Howard). 5.3 Wanda Koop, Stack, 2008. Credit: Courtesy of Wanda Koop, Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. 5.4 Rita Letendre, Sunset, 1971. Credit: Courtesy of Rita Letendre, Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank (Photographer: Yuan Boulerice). 5.5 Public Lending Right Commission Vice-Chair Claude Le Bouthillier and Chair Andreas Schroeder with Minister of Communications Flora MacDonald in 1987. Credit: Material republished with the express permission of Ottawa Citizen, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. (Photographer: Wayne Cuddington). 5.6 Margaret Atwood. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo (Photographer: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert). 5.7 Leonard Cohen. Credit: Alamy Stock Photo (Photograph: Reuters). 5.8 Royal Winnipeg Ballet Principal Dancers Evelyn Hart and David Peregrine, 1980. Credit: Courtesy of Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet Archives (Photographer: David Cooper). 5.9 Walter Ostrom, Fish Vase with Greek Pot, 1990. Credit: Courtesy of Walter Ostrom and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. 5.10 To mark the Council’s 50th anniversary in 2007, fifty of the country’s leading artists came to Ottawa for a Day of the Arts on Parliament Hill. Credit: Martin Lipman. 6.1 Kent Monkman, Rebellion, 2003 (36⬙ × 48⬙, acrylic on canvas). Credit: Courtesy of Kent Monkman, Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank.

192

Illustration Credits

6.2 Sanaz Mazinani, Woman Reading on Bus, Tehran, Iran, 2006. Credit: Courtesy of Sanaz Mazinani, Collection of the Canada Council Art Bank. 6.3 Canada Council member Isabelle Hudon, 2013–17, Minister of Canadian Heritage Mélanie Joly, 2015–, and Council Director and ceo Simon Brault, 2014– . Credit: Frédérique Ménard-Aubin.

193

Illustration Credits

Notes

Introduction 1 As the largest provider of grants to artists and arts organizations in the country, the Council has not missed the irony of moving in beside “Grant House.” 2 The Year’s Midnight is an eerily playful interactive installation that uses digital video cameras embedded discreetly in the video wall to project multiple images of the faces and eyes of onlookers onto the screen. Black and white smoke wafts up spookily out of the projected images’ eyes as the viewer’s face slowly floats upwards. Meanwhile, the eyeballs extracted from the images of the onlookers’ faces accumulate at the bottom of the screen. 3 The term “Indigenous” refers to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in Canada. 4 Overseeing the design of the new Council offices and public spaces, negotiating with the developer, and creating the Âjagemô gallery consumed much of the attention of Director and ceo Robert Sirman (2006–14) during his last three years at Council, and Sirman considers it one of the most significant and lasting legacies of his tenure. 5 The word “deaf” is often capitalized when

6

7

8 9

10

11

referring to the Deaf community, in recognition of the unique cultural and physical characteristics of deaf people. Brault, Le Facteur C: L’avenir passe par la culture. Translated and published in English as No Culture, No Future. Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967; Milligan, “The Canada Council as Public Body”; Ostry, The Cultural Connection; Trueman, A Second View of Things; Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows; Wyman, The Defiant Imagination. Mailhot and Melançon, Le Conseil des arts du Canada. For a detailed description of these approaches, see Gattinger and Saint-Pierre, Les politiques culturelles, 574–86. To my knowledge, the originator of this saying is John Goldsmith, who spent more than two decades at the Canada Council, retiring as director of stakeholder relations. “Goldsmith,” as he is affectionately known, has a well-earned reputation for knowing everything and everyone at the Council. The Paris attacks occurred in the midst of the civil war in Syria that led to millions of Syrian refugees flowing into Europe and beyond. Many countries, including Canada, committed to admitting refugees. Given the connec-

tion of the terrorists in Paris to the militant Islamic fundamentalist group Daesh, popular support for admitting refugees from the Middle East flagged in some jurisdictions.

21

Chapter One 1 At the time of the Royal Commission, it was referred to as the “Massey Commission,” after its chair, Vincent Massey. Over time, the commission came to be referred to by many as the Massey-Lévesque Commission, in recognition of the important contribution of Father Georges-Henri Lévesque to its work, and the ascendancy of le fait français (the French fact) and Quebec in Canada. 2 See Tippett, Making Culture, 163; Brison, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Canada; and Beckman, Langmead, and Black, The Best Gift. 3 See Canada, Royal Commission, Appendix 5. (A. Carnegie Corporation Grants to Universities etc., in Canada. B. The Rockefeller Foundation Expenditure for Work in Canada). 4 See Tippett, Making Culture, 164. 5 See ibid., 165–6. 6 Smith, André Biéler, 191. 7 Ostry, The Cultural Connection, 6. 8 Litt, The Muses. 9 MacLennan, “Reflections on Two Decades,” 48. 10 Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows, 46, 50. 11 Ibid., 54; Litt, The Muses, 24. 12 Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows, 44. 13 Canada, Royal Commission, “The Order in Council.” 14 Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows, 44. 15 See Litt, The Muses, 24–9. 16 Canada, Royal Commission, Part II: Introduction. 17 Ibid. 18 Arts council funding in the United Kingdom was subsequently devolved to Wales, Scotland, England, and Northern Ireland, with the creation of arts councils for each jurisdiction. 19 Canada, Royal Commission, Chapter 25. 20 The Arts Council of Great Britain, The Arts 196

Notes to Pages 20–38

22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38

39 40

41 42 43 44

Council of Great Britain, Appendix A, 24, as cited in ibid. Canada had not yet established a national commission for unesco, the creation of which the country had committed to when it signed on to the unesco Constitution in 1945. Canada, Royal Commission, Chapter 25. Ibid. Emphasis in original. Pickersgill, My Years with Louis St Laurent, 139, as cited in Litt, The Muses, 24. Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows, 55–6. Ibid. Calculated in 2016 dollars using the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculator at: http:// www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/ inflation-calculator/. Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 441. St Laurent, “Canada Council,” 393. Ibid., 395. Ibid., 396. Canada Council for the Arts Act, 1957. St Laurent, “Canada Council,” 396–7. Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 445. For a fascinating comparison of architectural approaches at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough and Massey colleges, see Rybczynski, “A Tale of Two Colleges.” Sirman, “What Would Massey See Today?” Ibid. Canada Council for the Arts, The Canada Council: Second Annual Report to March 31, 1959, 1. See Granatsein, Canada 1957–1967, 451–2; Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows, 60–1. Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts, Annual Report, 2014–15, 26. The endowment fund generated $11.0 million in 2014–15 of total financial resources of $194.7 million that year (the latter figure includes total revenues and parliamentary appropriations). Martel, De la culture en Amérique. Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 452. Pearson, “Hansard.” Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Act.

Chapter Two 1 Now Franco-Nevada Corporation, following “Old Franco’s” acquisition by Newmont Mines in 2002 and subsequent corporate changes leading to the creation of FrancoNevada and its Initial Public Offering on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 2007. 2 Canada Council for the Arts Act. 3 See Canada Council, First Annual Report, 59–62. 4 See Canada Council for the Arts, Annual Report, 2015–16, 9. In addition, 17,169 authors received Public Lending Right payments. 5 See Symons and Page, To Know Ourselves, 5. 6 See Gattinger and Saint-Pierre, Les politiques culturelles provinciales et territoriales du Canada. 7 Ibid., 28–39. 8 See Simeon, “Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations” (2002), and Bickerton, “Deconstructing the New Federalism.” 9 See Statistics Canada, Table: Origins of the Population. 10 Statistics Canada, Canada’s Ethnocultural Mosaic. 11 See, for example, Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship. 12 See, for example, King, The Inconvenient Indian. 13 See Cairns, Citizens Plus. 14 This book uses the term “Aboriginal” when referring to the legal rights of Indigenous peoples, or to specific programs, pieces of legislation, bodies, etc. that include the term in their name. In all other instances, the book uses the term “Indigenous,” given its greater level of support over the word “Aboriginal” among Indigenous peoples in Canada. 15 Giddens, Consequences of Modernity. 16 Nevitte, The Decline of Deference, and “The Decline of Deference Revisited.” 17 Giddens and Pierson, Making Sense of Modernity. 18 See, for example, Klein, This Changes Everything. 19 See Scholte, “Defining Globalisation.” 197

Notes to Pages 42–69

20 See, for example, Grande and Pauly, Complex Sovereignty. 21 For an excellent account of this time, see Doern and Tomlin, Faith & Fear. 22 See Acheson and Maule, Much Ado about Culture. 23 Management guru Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge economy” in the late 1960s (see Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity). On the “creative economy,” see Howkins, The Creative Economy. 24 Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class. 25 Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. 26 On varieties of capitalism, see Hall and Soskice, Varieties of Capitalism. 27 Held and McGrew, “The End of the Old Order?” 28 For an engaging history and in-depth reportage on Expo 67, see Fulford, This Was Expo. 29 As cited in Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 449. 30 Ibid. 31 Woodcock, Strange Bedfellows, 91. 32 Ibid., 92. 33 Ibid., 96, and Saint-Pierre, “Le Québec et ses politiques culturelles,” 201. 34 John Goldsmith used this expression in a lively discussion with the author, Katherine Berg, and Jocelyn Harvey in an early scoping interview undertaken for this research. 35 For a detailed study of the road to the cultural industries exemption, see Gattinger, Trading Interests, especially Chapter 5. 36 Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts 38th Annual Report, 1994– 1995 and Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts 41st Annual Report, 1997–98. 37 Canada Council for the Arts, The Canada Council 36th Annual Report, 1992–1993. 38 Carroll, “Some Obstacles to Measuring Results.” 39 Sirman, “New Challenges for Supporting Art and Culture.” 40 Clarkson, “The Multi-Level State,” 502.

Chapter Three 1 I am indebted to Jocelyn Harvey, Council staff member from 1978 to 1994 in various positions, including Corporate Secretary and director of the Arts Division, who eloquently described the Council’s history as one of “learning how to represent/support the diversity of the country in all its aspects” over the course of its existence. Harvey, “Notes,” 1. 2 Media arts was established in 1984 and is an important chapter in the story of Council recognition of multi- and interdisciplinary arts, as explained below. 3 Canada Council for the Arts Act. 4 See Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 454– 63. 5 The following draws from Allen, Theatre Advisory Committee. 6 In the mid-1990s, the Council discontinued support for pre-professional activities, including theatre schools, which henceforth were supported by the Department of Canadian Heritage under the broader banner of arts training. 7 The definitions of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary arts have evolved over the years (see Taler, Chronology of Inter-Arts Practices). For purposes of this discussion, multidisciplinary arts refers to “the associative presence of more than one discipline that are combined, but not integrated,” and interdisciplinary arts refers to work that “integrates and transforms distinct art forms” (Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 3). 8 I am indebted to Claude Schryer, inaugural and long-standing coordinator of the InterArts Office (1999– ), for identifying the key milestones in multi-/interdisciplinary arts and inter-arts through interviews (October 7 and 14, 2015, in Ottawa), through helpful suggestions of additional interviewees, and by providing me with seminal reports and studies to review. I developed the four periods described here based on this information. 9 See Canada Council for the Arts, 17th Annual Report: Canada Council for the Arts, 1973–1974, 78. 198

Notes to Pages 72–97

10 See Mailhot and Melançon, Le Conseil des arts du Canada, 293–6. 11 Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 3. 12 Excluding financial information and appendices, the report comprised 166 pages. 13 Wilner, The Impact of Canada Council Individual Artist Grants, 32. 14 Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 13. 15 Sherman et al., Discussion Paper on Interdisciplinary and Related Subjects, as cited in Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 11 (emphasis in original). 16 Eriks, Working Paper, as cited in Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 11. 17 Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 13. 18 Ibid. 19 Burnett, cited in Schryer, Report on the Review, cited in Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 11. 20 Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 12. 21 Ibid., 13. 22 See Taler, Chronology of Inter-Arts Practices. 23 Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 3. 24 Ibid., 6. 25 Schryer interview, 7 October 2015. 26 Fulford, as cited in History of the Canada Council. 27 Racial Equality Advisory Committee, 16 (as cited in Van Fossen, Opening Up Space, 21). 28 Zemans interview, 27 March 2015. All quotes below are also from this interview. 29 Henry interview, 23 August 2015. 30 Ibid. 31 See Gessell, “The Trouble with ‘Excellence.’” 32 I owe this subtitle to Louise Profeit-LeBlanc, Coordinator of the Aboriginal Arts Office (2001–2012), who used the expression in an interview on 8 October 2015. 33 Profeit-LeBlanc interview, 8 October 2015. 34 Loft interview, 8 September 2015. 35 Zemans interview, 27 March 2015. 36 Profeit-LeBlanc interview, 8 October 2015. 37 Loft, “The Group of Who?” 38 Loft interview. 39 Ibid. 40 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Call to Action 83. 41 Wilson interview, 13 October 2015.

Chapter Four 1 St Laurent, “Canada Council,” 396. 2 MacDonald, “The Development of Cultural Policy.” 3 See Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney and Governing from the Centre. 4 Milligan, “The Canada Council,” 274. 5 Trueman, A Second View of Things, 161. 6 Milligan, “The Canada Council,” 275. 7 Trueman, A Second View of Things, 152. 8 Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 450–1. 9 Milligan, “The Canada Council,” 285. 10 As cited in Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967. 447. 11 Ibid., 277. 12 Canada Council for the Arts, The Canada Council: 21st Annual Report, 1977–78, 7. 13 Ibid., 8. 14 Milligan, “The Canada Council,” 278. 15 History of the Canada Council, 5. 16 Moore, as cited in ibid., 10. 17 Good, The Politics of Public Money, 263. 18 Porteous, The Canada Council and Bill C-24, 4. 19 Ibid., 8–9. 20 Jennings, Art and Politics, 187 (Jennings notes that the Council chair of the time was Mavor Moore, but in 1984 Maureen Forrester was chair, 1983–88). 21 Additional sections of the faa apply to Telefilm Canada. 22 Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Meeting the Expectations of Canadians, 13. 23 Canada Council for the Arts, “Canada Council Director Out.” 24 Porteous, The Future of the Canada Council. 25 Ibid., 3. 26 Carrier interview, 1 June 2015. Subsequent citations also from this interview. 27 History of the Canada Council 1957–2008, 6–7. 28 See Canada Council, Parliamentary Appropriation and Canada Council Arts Funding. 29 Zemans interview, 27 March 2015. All quotes in this section also from this interview. 30 Berg, Goldsmith, and Harvey interview, 21 January 2014. 199

Notes to Pages 101–27

31 Peritz, “Quebec Poet Rejects GovernorGeneral’s Award.” 32 Doherty, “Petitions, Rejections, Controversy.” 33 Canada Council for the Arts, Canada Council for the Arts 43rd Annual Report, 1999– 2000, Chairman’s Report. 34 Fulford, “Fostering Canadian Culture,” as cited in History of the Canada Council 1957–2008, 11. 35 Sirman interview, 5 February 2014. 36 Gattinger, “The Liberals’ ‘Reinvestment’ in Arts and Culture.” 37 Ibid. 38 Hobday interview. 39 Sirman interview, 5 February 2014. 40 During this period, the department also created a division of “portfolio affairs,” with a view to coordinating the various agencies, boards, and commissions comprising the portfolio of the Minister of Canadian Heritage (the Canada Council, cbc/RadioCanada, Telefilm, the National Film Board, national museums, etc.). 41 See Perley-Robertson, Hill & McDougall, Canada Council for the Arts, 2. 42 Ibid., 4. 43 Canada, Ministry of Finance, Canada’s Economic Action Plan, Year 2, 305. 44 Sirman, “Weathering the Storm.” 45 McCaughey interview. 46 Canada Council for the Arts, The Canada Council: Third Annual Report to March 31, 1960, 1. 47 Author translation of Brault interview, 7 January 2015. 48 Burley interviews. 49 These changes weren’t always universally supported by members. Council member Anna Porter (2008–16), award-winning author, founder of Key Porter Books, and a paragon in the Canadian publishing sector, lamented that the board didn’t spend as much time learning about and discussing “where the arts are at across the country.” Porter interview. 50 Trueman, A Second View of Things, 140. 51 Ibid., 135.

52 Robert Sirman, director from 2006 to 2014, can boast the most formal process of all. His appointment coincided with a move by the Harper government in its first minority mandate (2006–08) to ensure that appointments to agencies, boards, and commissions were based on merit. As an interim part of the process, the government required incoming directors, ceos, and chairs of Crown corporations to appear before a parliamentary committee – in Sirman’s case, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. This approach was subsequently dropped as Parliament rejected certain aspects of the process and it proved infeasible and impolitic to expect candidates to make their candidacy publicly known prior to a formal appointment. Sirman was one of the only appointees in the federal system to go through this process before it was abolished. 53 Sirman interview, 5 February 2014. 54 Wilhelm interview. 55 Author translation of Brault interview, 17 February 2015. 56 Formerly the Canadian Society of Corporate Secretaries. 57 Canada Council for the Arts, Parliamentary Appropriation and Canada Council Arts Funding. 58 Kain and Brault interview. 59 Author translation of Brault interview, January 2014. 60 The electoral platform committed to double the budget over two years, but the Budget extended the period to five years. This enabled the organization to phase in the new funds more gradually. 61 Massey, On Being Canadian. 62 Canada, Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, Chapter 25. 63 Chawla interview, 28 September 2015. Chapter Five 1 Rotman interview, 9 September 2015. 2 Given its mandate, the Council has also, as seen in Chapter 3, been attentive to discipli200

Notes to Pages 127–46

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11 12 13

14 15 16 17

18

nary representation and to representation between large and established organizations and artists and new and emerging ones. Thomson, “Why the Public Must Fund the Arts.” Mulcahy, “Entrepreneurship or Cultural Darwinism.” Williams, “Without Mysteries or Miracles.” Milligan, “The Canada Council as a Public Body.” See Saint-Pierre, “Le Québec et ses politiques culturelles.” Kain discussion, 26 March 2014. The Flying Squad originated in the late 1970s and early 1980s to assist troubled professional theatre organizations. It was re-introduced in the Theatre Section in 1998 as a proactive organizational development mechanism, and was opened to all disciplines in 2006. Following a 2011 review, the program was disbanded due to changing needs and opportunities in the sector, including the emergence of many online tools for organizational development and the trend among younger artists and arts organizations towards alternative governance models. For a comprehensive analysis of the origin and evolution of provincial and territorial arts and cultural policies, see Gattinger and Saint-Pierre, Les politiques culturelles provinciales et territoriales du Canada. Sirman interview, 5 February 2014. Brault interview, 17 February 2015. In the case of grants to the social sciences and humanities, competitions were at first carried out by the Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada on behalf of the Council, but the Council took back the role in the early 1960s (Milligan, “The Canada Council as a Public Body,” 286). Granatstein, Canada 1957–1967, 448. Trueman, A Second View of Things, 140. Silcox interview, 1 May 2015. Roberts, “Speech to the Conference,” as cited in Canada Council for the Arts, History of the Canada Council, 10–11. Porter interview, 6 October 2015.

19 Statistics Canada, Government Expenditures on Culture, 4. The series was discontinued in April 2012. 20 Canada Council for the Arts, 2012–13 Funding to Artists and Arts Organizations, 35. The total includes the Public Lending Right Program, the Art Bank Purchase Program, the Canadian Commission for unesco, and Special Funds (endowed prizes, the Killam Research Fellowships and Prizes, and the Japan-Canada Fund). 21 Wilhelm interview, 5 March 2014. 22 Ibid. 23 Schryer interview, 7 October 2015. 24 To reduce administrative burden on grant applicants, cadac enables organizations to submit financial and organizational information to a single source, using a single set of forms. This provides a valuable database for public funders and the arts sector to better understand the arts organization landscape. 25 Richard Simeon, “Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations” (2010). 26 Ibid., 409. 27 Walden, “The Chicken and the Egg.” 28 “An Act for the Establishment of a Canada Council.” The word “he” was changed to “the Governor in Council” in subsequent versions of the Act. 29 See Canadian Commission for unesco, Constitution and By-Laws. 30 The commission had some twenty staff members prior to Program Review, when it was cut back to seven staff members. When new government funding became available, the staff complement increased to about a dozen people. 31 Walden interview, 26 January 2016. 32 The United States accounted for one-fifth of its budget, but the financial contribution was withdrawn following US opposition to Palestine’s admittance as a full member of unesco in 2011. Berg, The Canadian Commission for unesco, 1. 33 Berg, Goldsmith, and Harvey interview, 4 February 2014. 34 Profeit-LeBlanc interview, 8 October 2015. 35 This phrase was coined in 1970 by White 201

Notes to Pages 146–70

36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43

44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57

House urban affairs adviser Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a memo to President Richard Nixon recommending that issues regarding race in the United States should pass into a period of “benign neglect.” Milligan, “The Canada Council as a Public Body,” 286–7. Kelly interview, 25 April 2014. Trueman, A Second View of Things, 175–6. Ibid. Canada Council for the Arts, “Killam Program. Program History.” Canada Council for the Arts, “Killam Program,” “Prizes,” and “Research Fellowships.” Canada Council for the Arts, “Killam Program. Program History.” Schneider interview, 27 July 2016; see also Ross, “Writers Program in Power Struggle with Canada Council.” Sirman interview, 5 February 2014. Canada Council for the Arts, Annual Report, 2015–2016, 9, 23. Canada Council for the Arts Public Lending Right Program, Annual Report, 2015–2016, 19. Silcox interview, 1 May 2015. Guindon, Cohen and the Canadian Cultural Field, 41. Canada Council for the Arts, “Leonard Cohen Donates $50,000 Prize.” Zemans interview, 11 October 2014. Burley interview, 18 September 2015. O’Grady interview, 11 March 2014. Sirman interview, 5 February 2014. As noted in Chapter 3, special acquisitions are made from time to time, but the Art Bank’s cost-recovery mandate makes it very difficult to support new acquisitions. Lapointe interview, 1 April 2016. Author translation of Brault, Rapport du directeur, 6. Brault, Speech Given by Simon Brault. Conclusion

1 Canada Council, Annual Report, 1968–69, 7.

2 In 2016, New Brunswick faced just this issue. The government announced it was folding administration of artsnb, the provincial arts council, into its culture department. The response from the arts community was swift and vocal: artists, arts organizations, and cultural leaders criticized the decision repeatedly and publicly. The issue was not one of funding levels – the government committed that it would not reduce grant funding – but of integrity of the process and grave concerns that grant decisions would be made according to political rather than artistic considerations. 3 Council Director Simon Brault notes that very few employees left the organization over the change, and staff surveys revealed that less than 20 per cent of staff were resistant (Brault interview, 18 August 2016). The Council’s corporate secretary, Michelle Chawla, explained it this way, “many staff had a hard time with [the new approach] because their value system was about supporting particular disciplines” (Chawla interview, 28 September 2015). 4 Brault interview, 18 August 2016.

202

Notes to Pages 178–84

Bibliography

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Interviews Berg, Katherine, John Goldsmith, and Jocelyn Harvey, interviews by the author, 21 January and 4 February 2014, Ottawa, Ontario. Brault, Simon (Vice-Chair, 2004–14; Director and ceo, 2014– , Canada Council for the Arts), interviews by the author, January 2014, 7 January, 17 February 2015, and 18 August 2016, Ottawa, Ontario. Burley, Barbara (Council Member, 2007–15, Canada Council for the Arts), interviews by the author, 24 June and 18 September 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Carrier, Roch (Director and ceo, Canada Council for the Arts, 1994–97), interview by the author, 1 June 2015, Montreal, Quebec. Chawla, Michelle (Corporate Secretary and Director of Strategic Initiatives, Canada Council for the Arts, 1995–2015; staff member at the Canada Council in various capacities for two decades), interview by the author, 28 September 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Henry, Victoria (Director of the Canada Council Art Bank, 1999–2015) interview by the author, 12 August 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Hobday, John (Director, Canada Council for the Arts, 2003–06), interview by the author, 30 March 2015, Montreal, Quebec. Jenkins, Amy (Lead Art Consultant / Manager, Canada Council Art Bank, 2011–2016), interview by the author, 19 August 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Kain, Karen (Chair, Canada Council for the Arts, 2004–08), in discussion with the author, 26 March 2014, Toronto, Ontario. – (Chair, Canada Council for the Arts, 2004–08) and Simon Brault (Vice-Chair, 2004–14; Director and ceo, 2014– , Canada Council for the Arts), interview by the author, 9 September 2015, Toronto, Ontario. Kelly, Keith (National Director, Canadian Conference of the Arts, 1989–98; Director of Public Affairs, Research and Communication, Canada Council for the Arts, 1998–2005), interview by the author, 25 April 2014, Ottawa, Ontario. Lapointe, Tara (Director, Outreach and Business Development, Canada Council for the Arts, 208

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2015– ), interview by the author, 1 April 2016, Ottawa, Ontario. Lassonde, Pierre (Chair, Canada Council for the Arts, 2015– ), interview by the author, 17 November 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Loft, Steven (Coordinator of the Aboriginal Arts Office, Canada Council for the Arts, 2012– ), interview by the author, 8 September 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. McCaughey, Claire (Head, Research and Evaluation, Canada Council for the Arts, 2008–14; staff member at the Council in various capacities for three decades), interview by the author, 3 February 2014, Ottawa, Ontario. O’Grady, Terry (staff member at the Canada Council for the Arts in various capacities for some two decades), interview by the author, 11 March 2014, Ottawa, Ontario. Porter, Anna (Council member, Canada Council for the Arts, 2008–16), interview by the author, 6 October 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Profeit-LeBlanc, Louise (Coordinator, Aboriginal Arts Office, Canada Council for the Arts, 2001– 12), interview by the author, 8 October 2015, Wakefield, Quebec. Rotman, Sandra (widow of the late Joseph L. Rotman, Chair, Canada Council for the Arts, 2008– 15), interview by the author, 9 September 2015, Toronto, Ontario. Schneider, Peter (plr Program Manager and Executive Secretary to the Public Lending Right Commission, 2012– ), interviews by the author, 27 July 2016 and 18 August 2016 in Ottawa, Ontario. Schryer, Claude (Coordinator, Inter-Arts Office, Canada Council for the Arts, 1999– ), interview by the author, 7 October 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Silcox, David (Visual Arts Officer, Canada Council for the Arts, 1965–70), interview by the author, 1 May 2015, Ottawa, Ontario. Sirman, Robert (Director and ceo, Canada Council for the Arts, 2006–14), interview by the author, 5 February 2014, Ottawa, Ontario. Walden, David (Secretary-General, Canadian Commission for unesco, 1999–2013), interviews by the author, 26 January 2016 and 31 March 2016, Ottawa, Ontario. Wilhelm, Kelly (Head of Policy, Planning, and

Partnerships, Canada Council for the Arts, employed in various partnership roles with the Council between 2005 and 2016), interview by the author, 5 March 2014, Ottawa, Ontario. Wilson, Marie (Commissioner, Truth and Reconciliation Commission), interview by the author, 13 October 2015, by telephone. Zemans, Joyce (Director and ceo, Canada Council for the Arts, 1989–1992), interviews by the author, 11 October 2014, Ottawa, Ontario, and 27 March 2015, Toronto, Ontario.

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Index

Please note that page numbers in italics denote images. A t indicates a table. Abell, Walter, 22, 23 Aboriginal Arts Office, 91 Aboriginal rights. See Indigenous Peoples Aboriginal Secretariat, 94 access to art for Canadians, 42, 56– 7, 59–63, 68, 86 accountability, 124 Adams, David, 58 administrative arrangements of the Council, 15, 20, 29, 70–1, 102, 110, 116, 124, 134, 157–8. See also arm’s length principle; Financial Administration Act (faa); funding models The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God (Nightwood Theatre and Obsidian), 87 Âjagemô, 4–5, 5, 16, 17, 163 Alberta Creative Development Initiative, 144 Animism (Tagaq), 139 Anna Wyman Dance Theatre Company, 80 annual report, 65 Applebaum-Hébert Committee (Federal Cultural Policy Review Committee), 113 appropriations: compared to endowment, 115t; decline in, 64, 120; fi-

nancial dependence on, 15, 21, 40, 110, 169; increase in, 66, 102, 128, 132; introduction of, 36–8, 106. See also arm’s length principle; funding arrangements Aquin, Hubert, 122 arm’s length principle: breach of, 107–13; established early, 33, 101, 132, 172; government commitment to, 21, 37, 133, 169; interpretation of, 102–3, 105, 123–4, 174; and lobbying, 120; necessity of, 177–8. See also art for art’s sake versus social and economic aims; funding models Art Bank, 61; acquisitions, 201n54; change in administration of, 161–4; creation of, 60–1, 108; decision to close, 118–19; exhibit for Canadian Forces, 179; Indigenous art in, 95; Purchase Program, 201n20; support for culturally diverse artists, 88 art for art’s sake versus social and economic aims, 9, 11, 13–14, 71, 138, 172–3 artistic excellence, standards of, 10– 12, 73, 89, 99, 122, 172, 180 Arts Abroad (New Funding Model), 98 Arts Across Canada (New Funding Model), 98 Arts and Culture Welcome Refugees program, 180 Arts Council of Great Britain

(acgb), 29, 196n18 artsnb, 147, 201–2n2 Association of Canadian Clubs, 24 Atwood, Margaret, 157 autonomy from versus collaboration with the government, 9, 13, 15, 71, 101–3, 133, 174, 181–2. See also arm’s length principle L’Avare (Molière), 75 Barkhouse, Mary Anne, 95 Barlow, Kim, 165 Beardy, Jackson, 93 Beatty, Perrin, 153 Beauchemin, Micheline, 165 Bees Behaving on Blue (Snow), 104 Belong (Royal Winnipeg Ballet), 160 Bennett, W.A.C., 107 Benton, Thomas Hart, 22 Berg, Katherine, 151, 197n23 Berlin Wall, 43 Biéler, André, 22 Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission (Laurendeau-Dunton Commission), 61, 113 Bipolar (Tsui), 88 Bissell, Claude, 108 Bladen Commission (Canadian Universities Foundation), 38 Blais, Marie-Claire, 118 Boudreau, Walter, 165 Boutet, Danielle, 82 Bowering, George, 165 Boyer, Bob, 95

Brand, Dionne, 165 Brault, Simon, 129, 165, 180; campaign to double funding, 128–31; as ceo of the Canada Council, 10, 126, 145, 152; and New Funding Model, 69; quotes by, 72, 127, 179, 182; on reorganization of the Canada Council, 164, 166, 202n3 British approach to funding arts organizations. See under funding models Brooker, Blake, 80 Brossard, Nicole, 165 Burley, Barbara, 161–2 Burnett, Ron, 82 Bussière, Eugène, 57 cadac (Canadian Arts Data/ Données sur les arts au Canada), 147–8, 201n24 Canada, national overview from 1957 to 2017, 45–55. See also legislation Canada-Australia Literary Prize, 159 Canada Council Act, 33, 38, 103, 150 Canada Council Art Bank. See Art Bank Canada Council for the Arts, 57; 1957 to late 1960s, 105–8; 1970s to mid-1980s, 108–13; mid-1980s to late 1990s, 113–23; 2000 to present, 123–32; changes in focus: access to diversity to funding changes to governance, 56–69; as Crown corporation, 11, 100–34; international presence, 159; mandate, 8, 33, 44, 62, 115, 134, 169, 200n2; as a microcosm of Canada, 16, 98, 136, 168; origin story, 19– 40. See also access to art for Canadians; arm’s length principle; Art Bank; diversity, representation of; education funding; funding arrangements; funding models; governance; prizes; Public Lending Right (plr) Program and Commission; Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (MasseyLévesque Commission); individual directors Canada Council for the Arts, physical space, 2, 4–5, 5, 34. See also Âjagemô Canada-French Community of Belgium Literary Prize, 159

212

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Canada-Japan Literary Awards, 159 Canada-Scotland Writers-inResidence Prize, 159 Canada-Switzerland Literary Prize, 159 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement. See Free Trade Agreement Canadian Arts Coalition, 129–30, 132 Canadian Arts Council, 27 Canadian Arts Data/Données sur les arts au Canada (cadac), 147–8, 201n24 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (cbc), 27, 35, 106, 112 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 48–9, 62 The Canadian Club of Toronto, 42 Canadian Commission for unesco (ccu), 20, 39, 137, 141, 149–51, 161–2, 201n20, 201n30 Canadian Conference of the Arts, 35, 129, 153 Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, 38 Canadian Horizons program, 77, 153 Canadian Institute of International Affairs, 24 Canadian Library Association, 27 Canadian Players, 75 Canadian Political Science Association, 24 Canadian Public Arts Funders (cpaf), 67, 146–8 Canadian Universities Foundation, 38 Capital Grants Fund, 33, 56 Carnegie Corporation, 22, 23 Carrier, Roch, 114–18, 119, 165 Casey, Thomas, 87 cbc (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation). See Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (cbc) ccu (Canadian Commission for unesco). See Canadian Commission for unesco (ccu) Celebration Box (Gaudreau), 131 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 48–9, 62 Chase, Sarah, 116 Chawla, Michelle, 133, 202n3 Chrétien, Jean, 47, 116, 118, 119 Chrétien government, 63, 66, 114, 116, 118, 122, 123 Circus Stella, 84 Clarke, Denise, 81

Clarkson, Stephen, 69 Claxton, Brooke, 24, 25, 30, 31, 41, 42, 43, 57, 70 Clement, Gary, 165 Cobiness, Eddy, 93 Cohen, Leonard, 80–1, 122, 158, 159 Cohen, Matt, 155 Collin, Pierre, 75 Le Conseil des arts du Canada (Mailhot and Melançon), 14, 195n8 Constitution Act, 48–9 Cook, Rande, 95 Copps, Sheila, 66 Corpuscule Danse, 87 Couillard, Paul, 82 cpaf. See Canadian Public Arts Funders (cpaf) cultural industries, 52–53, 63, 146, 197n35 Culture Montréal, 10 cusfta (Free Trade Agreement, Canada–US). See Free Trade Agreement Daesh, 195–6n10 Dawes, Andrew, 165 Day of the Arts, 165 Deaf and disability arts, 7, 12, 88, 139, 195n5 Death and the Maiden (La jeune fille et la mort) (Thoss), 68 Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, 130 DeFreitas, Erika, 89 democratization of culture. See access to art for Canadians Department of Canadian Heritage, 104, 122, 123–4, 147, 198n6, 199n40 A Design for the Future (Canada Council for the Arts), 118 Deutsch, John, 30, 31, 32, 35 Diamond, Sara, 165 diasporart, 89 Diefenbaker, John, 106–107 Dion, Stéphane, 132 diversity, representation of, 59–63, 85, 138–140, 145, 148, 173, 200n2. See also Deaf and disability arts; Indigenous art; Racial Equity Advisory Committee; Zemans, Joyce Djokic, Marc, 165 Doing Leonard Cohen (One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre), 81 Doupe, Barry, 165 Downtown Eastside, Vancouver, 95

D.-Pomerleau, Maxime, 87 Drucker, Peter, 196n23 Duguay, Julie, 84 Dumont, Fernand, 122 Dunn, Deborah, 87 Dunn, Sir James Hamet, 30 Duplessis, Maurice, 30, 58 Dupuy, Michel, 117 Dwyer, Peter, 170 Dyck, Howard J., 165 Dzawada’enuxw First Nations, 92 Education for All, 151 education funding: early importance of, 11, 16, 20, 27, 30; of post-secondary institutions, 141, 148–61, 173. See also Canadian Commission for unesco (ccu); Public Lending Right (plr) Program and Commission Egoyan, Atom, 118 Elizabeth II, Queen, 49 Empire Club of Canada, 42 Endless Prosperity, Eternal Accumulation (Kwan), 90 endowment fund, 36–7, 40, 114, 115, 178–9, 196n40 Engage and Sustain (New Funding Model), 98 Equity Coordinator, 86, 88 Equity Office, 86, 88 Espace-écran #4 / Screenspace #4, 1974 (Gagnon), 46 established versus emerging art forms, practices, and organizational arrangements, 9, 11, 13, 71, 73, 98, 99, 173, 175 Estacio, John, 165 Evelyn Roth Moving Sculpture Company, 78–9 Excellence in Governance Award, 128 Explorations program, 60, 64, 77, 79–80, 83, 118 Explore and Create (New Funding Model), 98 Expo 67, 56, 113 Le Facteur C: L’avenir passe par la culture (No Culture, No Future) (Brault), 10 Faguy, Robert, 82 fairy dust, 59, 197n34 le fait français (the French fact), 196n1 The Favourite Game (Cohen), 158–9 Federal Cultural Policy Review

213

Index

Committee (Applebaum-Hébert Committee), 113 Federation of Canadian Artists (fca), 23 festivals, 73, 76, 82, 123–4 Financial Administration Act (faa), 109–10, 124–5 First Peoples Advisory Committee/ Equity Coordinator, 93–4 Fish Vase with Greek Pot (Ostrom), 163 Florida, Richard, 53 Flying Squad Program, 144, 200n9 Forrester, Maureen, 112, 199n20 Franca, Celia, 118 Franco-Nevada Mining Corporation, 42, 197n1 Free Trade Agreement, Canada–US (cusfta), 52–3, 63 Frenkel, Vera, 165 Frulla, Liza, 129, 130 Fulford, Robert, 83, 122 funding arrangements in nb, 201– 2n2 funding arrangements of the Council: cuts/declines, 64, 113–14, 118–19, 122–3; graph of revenue streams, 115; not competing for private-sector funding, 36–7; promise of doubled budget, 66, 102, 128–31, 200n60; with provincial and municipal governments, 45, 67, 141, 142t, 144; for research, 37–8, 45; thrust funds, 108. See also administrative arrangements; appropriations; arm’s length principle; cadac (Canadian Arts Data/Données sur les arts au Canada); endowment fund; Financial Administration Act (faa); funding models; New Funding Model; Program Review; Strategic Review funding models: American, 14, 20–1, 168–9; British public arts council approach, 20–1, 29, 40, 168–9; French humanist approach, 14, 20–1, 39, 40, 59, 168–9 Gagnon, Charles, 46 Garneau, Michel, 122 Gascon, Jean, 75 Gattinger, Monica, 197n23 Gaudreau, Diane, 131 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (gatt), 52 Geoffroy, France, 87, 87

Glenn Gould Prize, 158–9 Goldsmith, John, 122, 195n9, 197n34 governance, 112, 123, 127, 133, 162, 164 Governor General’s Literary Awards (gglas), 122, 164 Granatstein, Jack L., 13, 30, 33, 145 Grand-Maître, Jean, 165 Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, 68, 74 Grant, Dr James, 3 Grant House, 3, 4, 195n1 Gray, John, 165 Green, Michael, 81 Group of Seven, 22, 23 Group of Seven, Indian, 93 Gupta, Sunil, 89 Haddad, Gail, 78–9 Harper, Stephen, 51, 66, 141 Harper government, 66, 124, 129, 132, 136, 200n52 Harris, Walter, 95 Hart, Evelyn, 160 Harvey, Jocelyn, 197n34 The Heart Beats Ecstatic (Moss), 130 Henry, Victoria, 88–9, 95–6 Hetux (Watts), 97 HIGH NOON (Koh), 109 Hill, Tom, 95 Hobday, John, 67, 124, 128, 146 The Hockey Sweater (Carrier), 114–15 Hollande, François, 17 hongbao, 90 Hou, Yi-Jia Susanne, 165 House of Commons Committees, 23, 112, 200n52 Hudon, Isabelle, 180 humanities and social sciences research, 37–8 Humanities Research Council of Canada, 200n13 icebergs, 117–18 Idle No More, 51 Idlout, Lucie, 165 indigena, 93, 94 Indigenous art, 12, 15, 62, 85, 89– 98, 173, 198n32 Indigenous Peoples, 42, 48–51, 137, 139, 169, 195n3, 197n14 infrastructure, cultural, 11, 14–15, 20, 24, 28, 56, 91, 123, 172–3 Inter-Arts Office, 82–3

Interdisciplinary and Performance Art Advisory Committee, 82 interdisciplinary art, 7, 12, 15, 60, 72, 77, 81, 198n2, 198n7 Interdisciplinary Fund, 62, 78 International Cultural Relations, 153 International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (ifacca), 67, 159–60 Janvier, Alex, 93 Jean, Michaëlle, 89 La jeune fille et la mort (Death and the Maiden) (Thoss), 68 Joe, Mendelson, 121–2, 121 Joly, Mélanie, 17, 180 Joseph S. Stauffer Prize, 88 Kain, Karen, 128–31, 129, 141, 165 Katona, Raila, 78–9 Kelly, Keith, 153 Killam, Dorothy, 153, 155 Killam, Izaak Walton, 30, 153 Killam prizes and other funding, 37, 39, 149, 153, 155 King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 19, 23, 25, 26 The Kingston Conference, 21–3, 22 knowledge economy, 53, 196n23 Koh, Germaine, 109, 109 Koop, Wanda, 152 Kunuk, Zacharias, 165 Kwan, Will, 89, 90 Labrie, Guillaume, 165 Ladner, Leon, 107 Laing, Gertrude, 108–9 Lamontagne, Maurice, 30, 32 Land Reform(ed) (Tooth), 4–5 Lands & Power (National Gallery), 93 Lapalme, Georges-Émile, 59 Lapointe, Tara, 164 Lassonde, Pierre, 41, 42, 43, 55, 70, 126, 127 Laurendeau-Dunton Commission (Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission), 61, 113 leadership versus followership, 9, 12–13, 15, 71, 73, 174–5 Le Bouthillier, Claude, 156 legislation, 33, 38, 103, 110–12, 150, 153 Lemelin, Stéphane, 165 Lemieux, Jean-Paul, 22, 23 Lesage, Jean, 59 Letendre, Rita, 154

214

Index

Lévesque, Georges-Henri, 25, 27, 28, 57, 107, 118, 196n1. See also Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Massey-Lévesque Commission) Liars (Joe), 121 Lichtenstein, Roy, 135 Lill, Wendy, 165 Literary Review of Canada, 125 Loft, Steven, 93, 96–8 Lord, Marie-Josée, 165 Lozano-Hemmer, Rafael, 4, 5, 195n2 MacDonald, Flora, 103, 156, 156 MacKenzie, Norman, 24, 27, 28, 57, 57–8, 107 MacLennan, Hugh, 25 Maggs, Arnaud, 165 Mailhot, Laurent, 14, 77 Maillet, Antonine, 165 Majumdar, Anita, 165 Manning, Preston, 63 March on Ottawa (21 June 1944), 24 Marcuse, Judith, 165 Martel, Yann, 165 Martin, Lee-Ann, 94 Martin, Paul, 66, 130 Maskegon-Iskwew, Ahasiw, 82 Masse, Marcel, 113, 120, 121, 155 Massey, Vincent, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 34, 132, 196n1 Massey College (University of Toronto), 34 Massey-Lévesque Commission. See Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (Massey-Lévesque Commission) Mayer, Marc, 89 Mazinani, Sanaz, 89, 176 McCaughey, Claire, 126 McGibbon, Pauline, 112 McKeough, Rita, 82 media arts, 12, 15, 62, 72, 77, 198n2 Medical Research Council, 106 Meech Lake Accord, 45 Melançon, Benoît, 14, 77 Millaire, Albert, 165 Millennium Development Goals, 151 Milligan, Frank, 13, 105–6, 107–8 Mohawk warrior, 50 Molson prize, 39 Monkman, Kent, 171 Moore, Mavor, 110, 199n20

Morrisseau, Norval, 93 Morrow, Joanne, 82 Moss, Michele, 130 Mulcahy, Kevin, 140 Mullusk (Evelyn Roth Moving Sculpture Company), 78–9 Mulroney, Brian, 52, 53, 54, 112, 121 Mulroney government, 63, 94, 153, 155 multiculturalism, 42, 48, 61, 113 multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary arts, 60, 69, 72, 76–7, 82, 173, 198n2, 198n7 Multidisciplinary and Performance Art program, 77 Murrell, John, 165 Museum of the American Indian in Washington, dc, 96 muzz (Chase), 116 Nacho Nyak Dun First Nation, 89 National Arts Centre (nac), 106, 112 National Ballet of Canada, 74, 128 National Conference of Canadian Universities, 27 National Film Board, 26, 106 National Gallery of Canada, 93, 96 National Research Council, 38, 106 National Theatre School, 10, 76 Neatby, Hilda, 25, 27, 28 needs of artists/arts community versus needs of Canadians, 8, 11–15, 71, 169–70, 173 neoliberalism, 54, 62, 63, 64 N.E. Thing Co., 145 New Funding Model, 10, 72, 83, 96, 98, 126, 179, 180–1 New Public Management, 54, 64 Nicolson, Marianne (‘Tayagila’ogwa), 92, 95 Nightwood Theatre and Obsidian, 87 No Culture, No Future (Le Facteur C: L’avenir passe par la culture) (Brault), 10 non-Western art forms, 7, 10, 12, 85, 173 North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta), 53 The Nutcracker (National Ballet of Canada), 58 Obomsawin, Alanis, 165 Odjig, Daphne, 93 O’Grady, Terry, 151

Oka crisis, 93 Okano, Haruko, 82 On Being Canadian (Massey), 132 One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre, 80–1 Opportunities for Youth, 60–1 Osman, Abdi, 89 Ostrom, Walter, 163 Ostry, Bernard, 14, 24 Ouellette, Fernand, 122 Paris attacks, 16–18, 195–6n10 Parker, Jon Kimura, 118 Parti Québécois, 122 Pearson, Lester B., 25, 38, 106 peer assessment committees (pac)/ juries, 8, 59, 62, 136, 144–6, 181 Pelletier, Gérard, 56, 60, 62, 113 Peregrine, David, 160 performance-based art, 77 Performance Court, 2, 3 performance measures/evaluations/ assessments, 54, 64, 79, 126, 146, 164. See also Financial Administration Act (faa); peer assessment committees (pac)/juries Pickersgill, Jack, 24, 25, 30, 31, 33, 35 Pineau, Alain, 132 Pitsiulak, Annie, 95 Play (Watts), 97 plr Program and Commission. See Public Lending Right (plr) Program and Commission Polaris Prize, 139 Porteous, Timothy, 100, 110–13, 111 Porter, Anna, 145–6, 199n49 Portrait of Yaxa’tlanis [Nicolson (‘Tayagila’ogwa)], 92 Pratt, Mary, 165 prime ministers of Canada. See Diefenbaker; King; St Laurent; Trudeau Privy Council Office, 104 prizes, 39, 88, 139, 153, 155, 158–9, 164, 201n20, 201n40 Profeit-LeBlanc, Louise, 89, 93, 94– 5, 151, 198n32 Program Review, 63–4, 79, 81, 114, 120, 156, 201n30. See also funding arrangements Public Lending Right (plr) Program and Commission, 137, 149, 155– 8, 161–2, 164, 201n20 Quadriptyque (Corpuscule Danse), 87

215

Index

Quebec: funding by province, 142– 3t; relationship with federal government, 30, 49, 58, 59, 108, 147, 175; request for devolution of federal funds to province, 21, 140. See also Bilingualism and Biculturalism Commission (LaurendeauDunton Commission) Quebec nationalism, 45, 47, 59, 122, 169 Quiet Revolution, 45 Racial Equality Advisory Committee, 85, 86, 93 Ray, Carl, 93 Reagan, Ronald, 54 Rebellion (Monkman), 171 {Re}conciliation (The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada), 96 refugees, 17–18, 195–6n10 Regional Distribution of Canada Council Funding, 142–3t Renwick, Arthur, 95 residential school system, 48–9, 139 Roberts, Peter, 145 Les Robes de Sainte-Anne (Circus Stella), 84 “The Roch and Donna Show,” 117– 18 Rochon-Burnett, Suzanne, 95 The Rockefeller Foundation, 22 Rombout, Luke, 118 Roth, Evelyn, 78–9 Rotman, Joseph, 67, 95, 126–7, 135–7, 138, 173, 179 Rotman, Sandra, 135–6, 179 Roux, Jean-Louis, 122, 165 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 50, 93 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 45 Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences (Massey-Lévesque Commission), 19–20, 25–9, 28, 29, 33, 35, 132, 149, 196n1 Royal Society of Canada, 24 Royal Winnipeg Ballet, 74 Ruby, Jay, 84 Rude, Jade, 109 Salon international du livre de Montréal, 116 The Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation, 67

Sanchez, Joseph, 93 Schneider, Peter, 157 Schroeder, Andreas, 155, 156 Schryer, Claude, 82, 83–4 Schultz, Albert, 131 Scott, Donna, 117–18, 119 Sealy-Smith, Alison, 87 Sears, Djanet, 87 Shadbolt, Jack, 22, 23 Shaw Festival, 75 Sheila Hugh Mackay Foundation, 147 Shnier, John, 165 Silcox, David, 145, 159 Simeon, Richard, 148 Simoneau, Marie-Christine, 84 Sirman, Robert, 34, 165; as director and ceo, 34, 152, 195n4, 200n52; focus on governance, 67, 125–7, 161–2; Literary Review of Canada, 125; and the plr program, 157–8; quotes by, 68, 123, 124, 144 Smith, Daniel “Pinock,” 6 Smith, Tracee, 165 Snow, Michael, 104 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc), 20, 35, 38, 45, 122, 141, 149, 153, 200n13 Society of Yukon Artists of Native Ancestry, 90 soldier, 50 The Spice Box of Earth (Cohen), 158–9 Sports Illustrated case, 53 sshrc. See Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (sshrc) Stack (Koop), 152 standards of artistic excellence, 10– 12, 73, 89, 99, 122, 172, 180 St Laurent, Jeanne, 26 St Laurent, Louis, 19–20, 25, 26, 30–3, 45, 100, 101, 127 Strategic Review, 124–5 Stratford Festival, 75 Sullivan, Françoise, 165 Sunset (Letendre), 154 supply and demand model, 44, 56, 69, 163 Supporting Artistic Practice (New Funding Model), 98 Surveyor, Arthur, 27, 28 Syrian refugees, 17–18, 195–6n10

Tagaq, Tanya, 139 Tanabe, Takao, 118, 165 ‘Tayagila’ogwa (Nicolson, Marianne), 92 Telefilm Canada, 112, 113 tensions, 11–16. See also art for art’s sake versus social and economic aims; autonomy from versus collaboration with the government; established versus emerging art forms, practices, and organizational arrangements; leadership versus followership; needs of artists/arts community versus needs of Canadians Thakkar, Menaka, 165 Thatcher, Margaret, 54 Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, 75, 116 Théâtre du Rideau Vert, 75 Thomas, Jeffery, 165 Thompson, Jamie, 130 Thomson, Shirley, 139, 151–2, 159–60 Thoss, Stephan, 68 Times Higher Education World University Ranking index, 45 Tomorrow Starts Today (tst), 66, 123, 128 Tooth, Stanzie, 4–5 Toronto Tri-level, 148 Touring Office, 60, 118 Treasury Board Secretariat, 104, 106, 110, 112

216

Index

Tremblay, Georges-Nicolas, 87 Tremolo (Anna Wyman Dance Theatre Company), 80 Tri-levels, 146–8 Trudeau, Justin, 17, 51, 66, 102, 132 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 38, 49, 110 Trueman, Albert W., 14, 57, 58, 106, 107, 126, 145 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (trc), 50–1, 97 Tsui, Howie, 88, 89 Turgeon Committee (House of Commons Special Committee on Reconstruction and Reestablishment), 23, 24 Ufundi Gallery of Indigenous art, 95 unesco. See Canadian Commission for unesco (ccu) United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (unesco), 20, 26, 33, 196n21 Van Fossen, Rachel, 83 Vezina, Christian, 130 Walden, David, 150–1, 152 Walking with Our Sisters (wwos Collective), 90 Walter Gordon Symposium on Public Policy, 34 Warhol, Andy, 135

Watts, Connie, 95, 97 Weldon, Douglas, 106 Western European–influenced art, 12, 59–60, 74, 140, 173 Wiebe, Rudy, 165 Wilhelm, Kelly, 127 Woman Reading on Bus, Tehran, Iran (Mazinani), 176 Woodcock, George, 14, 25, 27, 42–3, 58 World Conference on Arts Education, 151 World Summit on Arts and Culture, 68, 160 World Trade Organization (wto), 52, 63 Wortley, Christopher Neil, 80 Writers’ Union of Canada, 155 Wyman, Anna, 80 Wyman, Max, 14, 152 The Year’s Midnight (LozanoHemmer), 4, 5, 195n2 Yukon International Storytelling Festival, 89 Zemans, Joyce, 62, 85–6, 86, 93–4, 100, 120, 127, 159