thank you very much for your thoughtful message and apologies for not having responded earlier: the pace of this ountry-wide consultation is quite fast and I try to maximize my short stay in each city by piling as many meetings as possible… and then at night, it’s writing the blogs in both official languages, and catching up with the emails at the office which have been accumulating.

Enough whining and excuses! I must say that as challenging as it may be, this tour of Canada is also most rewarding. Everywhere it seems that the message I am bringing is resonating and there are clear signs that when they hear about the CCA and what it has to offer to the Canadian cultural sector, people are interested in seeing it reinvented and reinvigorated, particularly as a grassroot organization with precisely the kind of mandate you are talking about. All of this feeds my hope and energy.

Thank you for your sustained interest in this venerable and hopefully soon to be recreated institution!

best regards,

alain

I have been reading your reports on the consultations across the country with great interest. It is good to know that you are getting valuable feedback and useful ideas with respect to the CCA’s future role in the development of the arts and culture in Canada.

Your reports remind me of the Direction Canada consultations the CCA initiated many years ago. Do you think the time has come for another Direction Canada experience of some type? Now that the CCA is involved in developing a strategic action plan for the future, it would seem to me that the experience with Direction Canada was – and still is – very relevant. Not only did it create a fundamental set of priorities for the future – priorities that were based on the frequency of issues raised by the arts and cultural community in all parts of the country – but also it made the CCA very visible and enabled it to fulfill one of the most essential objectives in its mandate, namely to be a powerful lobbying and advocacy organization on behalf of the arts and cultural community in Canada. Is the time ripe for the CCA to return to its original role in this respect, particularly in terms of holding governments and the private sector accountable for their actions and funding of the arts and culture throughout the country?

Your reports also reminded me of the discussions the CCA had several years ago with respect to making ‘the case for the arts and culture’ in Canada. Surely much could be accomplished by making this a high priority in the CCA’s future development, especially as the role of the arts and culture in Canadian development has changed considerably over the last few years and contemporary research is revealing that the arts and culture have a much greater impact on people’s health, welfare, well-being, and lives than was previously thought. As you know, recent developments in arts education are very pertinent in this regard.

I raise these two issues in the hope that they might be included in the dialogue you are having about the CCA’s future development as a strong and independent not-for-profit organization. Surely one of the great things about life is that a door usually opens when another door closes. The CCA’s future would appear to be very bright in this respect.

With warmest regards.

Paul Schafer

In Mumbai we have a street art festival which started in 1999 on a small scale. Today it is the largest street festival in Mumbai. It’s called the Kala Ghoda and it starts on Feb 4, 2012.

Hope all’s well in your part of the world. Unfortunately, I am not scheduled (budgetary reasons) to visit the North. However, I really appreciate your offer and wonder if there would be a possibility to organize some sort of electronic version of my consultation session? Let me know what you think and we could arrange something for the week of February 20 maybe?

Best regards,

Alain