Speaking notes for Nathalie Bondil, Vice-Chair
Canada Council for the Arts
Annual Public Meeting
150 Elgin Street
January 20, 2015
Good afternoon and welcome to all.
I want to begin by thanking Natasha, on behalf of all of us, for her inspiring performance. I’m delighted that our annual public meeting has become an occasion to highlight concretely the artistic creation and expression that we promote and support. Bravo for this new initiative.
Today’s meeting is about the Canada Council’s impact – over the past year and into the future. It’s one thing for us to speak about impact. It’s much more powerful to experience it firsthand, through the work of talented artists such as Natasha Bakht.
This is my first Annual Public Meeting as Vice-Chair of the Canada Council. Through my work as director and chief curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, I am familiar with collecting, presenting and sharing artists’ works. Now, at the Canada Council, I have the extraordinary privilege to work with an organization that supports artists throughout their creative process… from research to creation, from production to touring, to name a few. It is a true honour - and one that I do not take for granted.
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Governance
I am also honoured to have the chance to work with a Board of Directors led by the enlightened chairmanship of Joe Rotman. As you may know, the Canada Council is a Crown Corporation governed by an 11-member board from across the country.
The quality of the Board’s collective leadership is due in large part to the diverse expertise of its members. Last year, the Council’s Board of Directors received the inaugural Excellence in Governance Award from the Canadian Society of Corporate Secretaries (CSCS). This year, we were again nominated – this time in the category of “Best Practices to Enhance Board Diversity.” And it’s no accident: One of the strengths of the arts in Canada is the diversity of its artists. We want to ensure this diversity is reflected and expressed at the highest levels of the Council. Thank you to all the volunteers on our Board.
I’d like to take a moment to quickly introduce each board member and ask them to stand when I call their names. I would ask you to hold your applause until all the members have been introduced.
I’ll begin with our Chair, Joseph L. Rotman, who unfortunately cannot be with us today and sends his regrets. Mr. Rotman, chair of Roy-L Capital Corporation, a Toronto-based private family investment company, is in his second term as Chair. After a successful career in business, he devoted himself to sharing his expertise as a board member of several organizations in life sciences and in the arts. He brings to the Council a solid and enlightened understanding of the role of creativity, empathy, innovation, and above all, the value of partnerships. Joe believes strongly in the need to transcend sectoral boundaries to address the issues of our times. Now, moving from the North, then from West to East…
- Brenda Stehelin from Whitehorse. Brenda is an artist and businesswoman of First Nations Tlingit descent.
- Howard Jang, of Vancouver, is a long-time performing arts manager, and is currently Professor of Professional Practice and Director of Woodward’s Cultural Unit at Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts.
- Beverley Foy, of Calgary, has had a distinguished career as an accountant and auditor and serves on the boards of many Calgary-based community and cultural organizations.
- Cheryl Sharfe, of Winnipeg, is our newest member and joins us for her first official Council Board meeting. Cheryl began working in health services, and thirty years ago switched to a career in the arts and has worked and served on the Boards of major Winnipeg arts organizations ever since.
- Anna Porter of Toronto, founder of Key Porter books, is an award-winning author of several works of non-fiction.
- Luc Larochelle of Montreal, a retired lawyer, is also a poet and art collector.
- Isabelle Hudon, also from Montreal, is the CEO of Sun Life Financial Quebec, and Vice-Chair of Client Solutions at Sun Life Financial Canada. She is well-known for her leadership as a business woman and champion of culture.
- Barbara Burley, a retired Nova Scotia assistant deputy minister, is an active arts volunteer and choral group member in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick.
- David Mckay, also from New Brunswick, is a visual artist and a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts based in Fredericton.
Ladies and gentlemen – I present to you the board of the Canada Council for the Arts.
This past year, as you know, was one of transition in the Council’s leadership. In June 2014, Robert Sirman, completed his second term as Director and CEO. He guided the organization for eight years through two strategic planning exercises and strengthened its capacity to adapt and respond to change. He also led the Council’s move to this new functional and welcoming building. We are sincerely grateful for all his contributions.
With this transition, we nonetheless have continuity and renewal. Our new Director and CEO, Simon Brault, has served as Vice-Chair of the Board for ten years. So he brings with him a deep understanding of the Council, the arts milieu, and its issues. Simon has a well-deserved reputation as an ardent defender of the importance of the arts in public life, and the need to engage our society in the arts.
In his first six months at the helm of the Council, Simon Brault with his whole team, has been incredibly active in imagining a new funding model that has more clarity, efficiency and simplicity. Simon has elevated the warm voice of the organization from coast to coast, and has brought the arts to many high-level discussions in the public sphere in Canada and internationally.
I know Simon personally. And I know he is a person of passionate beliefs and strong vision. Not only is he a person of thought, but also of action. We believe he is the ideal leader for the Council at this juncture, on the road to its 60th anniversary in 2017. He has been given a mandate to take bold steps to make the Council’s programs more efficient, with a greater impact. Simon will elaborate more on these steps in his remarks.
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Public funding in the arts = sound investment for Canadians
For those of you who might not be familiar with the Canada Council’s background and mandate: The Council was created in 1957 by an Act of Parliament. It operates at arms-length of the federal government and reports to Parliament through the Department of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages.
Close to 60 years later, the return on the government’s investment in arts and culture through the Canada Council has been huge. Canadians take great pride in the productions and prestige of their professional artists. And they have every reason to be proud! Our artists, actors, filmmakers, choreographers, musicians and authors are acclaimed at home and around the world. It’s remarkable – especially given Canada’s relative population. Our diverse, dynamic, multidisciplinary arts scene is known for its excellence, innovation and youth… And the statistics show just how significant this growth has been since the creation of the Council. I say this as a proud Canadian for 16 years now – and because I’m originally from France, I can’t be accused of chauvinism! I remain astounded by the openness of spirit and the creativity of the art scenes that I discover every day… That’s why, at the Council, we believe that it’s more important than ever to maintain and to renew a strong commitment to the arts – so that Canadian creativity can continue to be relevant and help us to respond to the reverberations of the complex world in which we live. Art is a powerful tool to help us live together.
Here I’d like to explain my position on two points by referring to my own experience. First of all, art is a powerful, profound and universal language. A picture is worth a thousand words. We’ve seen proof of the power of the image in recent events. I am convinced that in our societies, which place more value on learning how to do than how to be, art is what prevents us from being considered robots or consumers. Art speaks the language of the emotions, and so it gives us a better understanding of the sentient world as well as helping us to be better human beings. Art is good for us both individually and as a society. Recent statistics show unanimously that attending arts events leads to increased success and well-being. Less than a century ago, it was not universally acknowledged that sports were good for our physical health – a fact no one disputes today. Similarly, we know today, in the 21st century, that the arts are essential to our well-being in every respect. This is why the Canada Council’s commitment to public engagement is a major priority.
Like many of my colleagues who work in arts organizations with strong roots in the community, I’ve come to see that the power of the arts goes beyond the individual experience. My work at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts allows me to see the impact we have on visitors of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. This year, we once again welcomed one million visitors… that’s a 100% increase in 5 years, confirming the need for art in our everday lives. The arts offer a sensitive experience of the world that is needed to awaken creativity, open-mindedness and curiosity in our fellow citizens. Art is relevant, more than ever, in a world where emotions are manipulated.
Secondly, I also want to underline that the arts have important economic, social and human benefits that grow exponentially when we work with in partnership with other sectors of society. We must work in co-evolution, and not in competition, for the benefit of the arts and our communities. For example, at the Montréal Museum of Fine arts, we are involved in several innovative art therapy projects universities and research. We are also involved in social justice projects, including one with the Michaëlle Jean Foundation (The 4th Wall) that offers marginalized youth an opportunity to create and share works of art, giving them a voice and a sense of belonging. These examples hint at the monumental gains that can be made when artists and those in other sectors combine their creativity and innovation to address relevant issues in our society.
Above all, the work of Musée des beaux-arts and the commitment of the Council have given us a deep appreciation of the work of artists. They share with us their imagination, problem-solving, passion, curiosity and innovation. They reach out to audiences around the world and within our country, building bridges and helping us to understand each other. Artists express who we are as a people – in all our complexity and diversity. They help us to understand where we are now so that we can begin to imagine where we want to be in the future. To paraphrase Picasso, I would say that artists can see the passage of beauty more quickly than the rest of us.
And just as artists must be innovative, flexible and deliver impact, so must the Canada Council.
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Conclusion
Canada’s 150th anniversary, as well as the 60th anniversary of the Council in 2017, is a perfect occasion to engage artists and all Canadians. It is a time to highlight the role of the arts in shaping our country’s identity and expressing our values both at home and on the world stage.
The Council would like to take on an even greater role in advancing the arts in Canada, and it is well positioned to do so. It has a national perspective, and it has the trust of artists, government and the Canadian public. The new funding model that we envisage will take us in this direction. Simon will present some of the innovations that will allow for greater flexibility and a framework that ensures its strategic investments have stronger outcomes and impact.
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Finally, I’d like to introduce the next presentation on our agenda. I’m very excited about this. It’s an excerpt of a short film named Bihttoš. This film premiered last fall at the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival – and event that takes place in Toronto each year and showcases the work of Canadian and international Indigenous media artists. The Canada Council has been supporting the festival since its beginnings in 2000.
Bihttoš is an unconventional documentary that explores the complex relationship between a father and daughter. The story is told by writer/director Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers through animation, re-enactments, and archival photos. The artist is Blackfoot from the Kainai First Nation, and Sámi from northern Norway. She recently received the 2014 Vancouver Mayor's Arts Award for her work as an emerging filmmaker, and in December, the film was included in TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten Festival.
This funding story illustrates the many layers of the Council’s support of the arts -- our commitment to Aboriginal artists, emerging artists, digital artmaking, and the presentation of works both within Canada and internationally.
We are showing a short excerpt of the film. I encourage you all to see the entire version at a film festival near you. Enjoy!
