Montreal Forum

November 10, 2008

The venue of the meeting had symbolic value: the “Institut national de l’image et du son (INIS)" is one of the institutions severely impacted by the federal cultural budget cuts which have surfaced during the recent months.

Its Director, Michel Beauchemin, and the President of Culture Montreal, Simon Brault, made the introductory remarks to the discussion. Both underlined the critical importance for the Canadian arts and culture sector to remain united in the current situation which, given the economic meltdown, can only spell more trouble for all of us. This is not the time for isolation or for wasting energies in fragmented efforts. The CCA was thanked for the information work it accomplished during the election and for launching the current series of regional forums across the country.

These themes were woven throughout the afternoon’s discussion. Someone regretted the fact that the electoral debate was overly focused on the impact of the cuts on artists who, for many, came out as eternal whiners, as opposed to being focused on the critical contribution arts and culture make to our society: it was suggested that this fact greatly contributed to the polarization of positions. Here as in other forums, interveners underlined the strategic importance of establishing links with stakeholders outside of the arts and culture sector and to find champions who support the multi-faceted contributions artists and cultural institutions make to all citizens.

The need for an on-going awareness campaign was once again mentioned. What arts and culture provide to the public should be the number one priority in the message to be developed. And while recognizing the importance of promoting popular cultural expressions, the question was raised as to how we can position more “high brow” art forms without falling into the trap of counter-productive elitism.

And once we have defined the proper message, it is crucial to choose carefully who the spokespeople will be, some types of interventions being more hurtful than useful, as we witnessed during the election. The objective is not to please ourselves by preaching to the choir but to be as effective as possible with a communication essentially destined to those who have not yet been sensitized to the role of arts and culture in our society. Here again, people mentioned the central role of the media and of education in pursuing the long term objective of positioning arts in public debate. In the short term, the point was made that we have to keep hammering the economic impact of the recent cuts on our artists and cultural institutions.