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This paper examines how the discourse of creative industries is interpreted in the Canadian context with a case study of the Department of Canadian Heritage's Creative Canada policy framework. Based on textual analysis of policy documents from both federal and provincial governments, it analyzes the underlying dynamics of Creative Canada with pre-existing dialogues of Canadian cultural policies. The findings of this research indicate that this policy masterplan reinterprets traditional mandates of Canadian cultural policies, such as safeguarding the nation's cultural sovereignty and developing a distinctive Canadian value with market mechanisms. While Creative Canada is a major turning point in policymaking towards the commodification of culture and creativity, its schemes of valuing culture and the arts remain subject to the complexity of the nation's cultural politics that also shapes the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pierre Trudeau's vision of Canada's cultural policy was situated within a bilingual framework. Canada, so conceived, has "no official culture" and two official languages. Nearly 50 years later, debates regarding the effects and broader significance of this policy combination persist as illustrated by the recent debate about Supreme Court judges. Yet, Canadians' attitudes about bilingualism have received relatively little scholarly attention. This paper probes the structure and recent evolution of public attitudes toward the general idea of official bilingualism using the Survey on Official Languages (2003) and the Canadian Election Studies (1997-2011). It goes on to investigate regional differences in public support for bilingual Supreme Court judges using a large-scale survey conducted by Vox Pop Labs in 2015 (n = 291, 577). The combination of these data sources offers new insights into the contextual and individual-level determinants of regional differences in public attitudes toward bilingualism policy in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on a review of policy papers and cultural statistics from Canada and Europe, among others, this paper confirms a widespread belief in creative economy policies as panacea for revitalizing economies, while noting a general failure to acknowledge the role and the needs of creative workers. Existing policy instruments are mostly uncoordinated but can be divided into four categories entitled ‘education and training’, ‘awards and contests’, ‘business support’ and ‘social security policies’, with the greatest emphasis on the first three. Escaping the precarity trap – precarity meaning existence without security – typical of much cultural work requires a rehabilitated notion of ‘flexicurity’ that includes exceptionalist, sub-sectoral, sectoral and generalist strategies to support cultural workers. The authors argue for a more holistic policy framework that uses a rights-based perspective and emphasizes social security measures. This approach, which we term ‘creative ecology’, is based on the intersection of social, labour and cultural policy. This paper thereby begins the response to calls to academics, practitioners and policy analysts to provide a route map out of the demoralized terrain of neo-liberalism with respect to cultural work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper engages selected moments in Austin Clarke's literary journey to argue that in spite of his involvement in the development of Canadian literature (CanLit) during the 1960s and 1970s, the Canadian literary establishment continues to pay little critical attention to his contributions. This lack of recognition is specifically evident in recent writings about Canadian literature and the literary figures who spearheaded its development after Canada's Multiculturalism policy of 1971. Canada's becoming officially multicultural required a new narrative of Canada and new literary depictions of Canadians in their national literature, as ethnically diversified but of a single citizenship. I argue that Clarke's legacy as a Black writer should be given more prominence in Canadian institutions because today this legacy is under threat of erasure as the number of Canadian Black voices telling mainstream stories about Black people's experiences is evidently in decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role assigned to culture in general and to cultural industries and diversity in particular by the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA). Although it pursues further economic liberalization, the arrangement is about much more than trade: its preamble, for instance, contains a reference to the 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Nevertheless, the text lacks a general exception clause protecting culture. This paper examines the consolidated CETA text from the perspective of political economy to clarify to what extent this is an opportunity to reconcile rules of free trade with cultural policies aiming to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions, especially when the latter derive from cultural industries in both analogue and digital scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the assumptions and structure of the concentric circles model of the cultural industries. Empirical data for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US are used to illustrate the model's key characteristic: the proposition that the cultural content of the output of the cultural industries declines as one moves outwards from the core. The test uses the proportion of creative labour employed in production as a proxy for cultural content. The results confirm the model's validity as a means of depicting the structural characteristics of the cultural industries and also enable some wider features of the cultural workforce in the five countries to be examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the diverse nature of multiculturalism. Although there is no lack of literature on multiculturalism, it is dominated by a Western paradigm and perspectives. This paper offers a model that takes a pluralistic perspective on diversity by locating multiculturalism within the imaginings of the nation. This model uses the concept of narratives with its ideological bases to invite dialogue among various multiculturalisms and to examine the processes by which particular multicultural narratives emerge within their socio-political and historical locations. The Canadian and Singaporean multicultural narratives are explored to tease out some of the nuances of this model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Canada’s National Film Board (NFB) as a case study, this paper highlights a paradigm shift in media policy away from supporting diverse content in favor of new digital formats. Historically the NFB has supported Aboriginal media production as a hallmark of the institution’s founding commitment to representing Canada’s people and culture. However, in recent years the institution has shifted its focus to digital technologies and interactive productions. This research is rooted in both a quantitative and qualitative examination of NFB official reports and related press coverage. The examination demonstrates a decrease in emphasis on Aboriginal production and an increase in attention to new technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores a rarely discussed side of celebrity – the ‘state celebrity’ produced by state broadcasting systems. The state celebrity is explored by way of a case study of four central television personalities – not, incidentally, all white men – found on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The state celebrity differs in important respects from individual entrepreneurial celebrities found in commercial contexts. As such, theories of celebrity that focus primarily on commodification, consumption, and individualism do not adequately explain this form of celebrity. The state celebrities discussed here are found to support state formation and legitimate state cultural policies. Thus, state celebrity must be understood in terms of its state positioning, as the state broadcasting system provides the framework and conditions for the celebrity’s appearance and performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the insights of Sawer and Laycock (2009) to explore similarities in the use of populist discourse by former Australian Prime John Howard and current Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. While Sawer and Laycock label this discourse ‘market populism’ and focus on economic issues, here it is argued that Howard and Harper's populism is better understood as ‘mainstream populism’ due to the equal importance of sociocultural issues in their discourses. To demonstrate this, the treatment of issues such as immigration, multiculturalism, the culture wars, criminal justice, and childcare is considered. It is further suggested that such populist policies were used to satisfy rival wings of their respective parties – neoliberals and social conservatives – that do not always share the same priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Cultural planning is often explained as a strategic approach to urban cultural development; an approach that involves the 'mapping' and leveraging of a wide range of 'cultural resources' (arts, culture, and heritage). However, it is increasingly being questioned whether cultural planning is anything more than a fairly traditional arts policy with a different name. In particular, it has been observed in Australia that cultural plans usually fail to address more than arts sector concerns. The objective of this paper is to investigate whether this assessment applies to cultural planning practice in Ontario, the province at the forefront of the current 'municipal cultural planning' push in Canada. An examination of all cultural plans in Ontario's mid-size cities and interviews conducted with municipal staff members overseeing these initiatives shows that whereas several municipalities do follow an arts-driven policy agenda, this is not the case with most mid-size cities in the province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the transformations of local cultural governance following the popularisation of the creative city thesis. While the economic impact of the arts in urban settings has been a topic of great interest in recent years and an amply documented theme, little is known about the consequence of such development knowledge and practice on the local cultural policy arena where it takes roots. Moreover, given the popularity and the enthusiasm for such strategies within municipal governments, we have seen a growing tendency to implement the creative city strategy and to formulate cultural policies that follow it in rural and smaller communities which are quite different from the more extensively documented urban and metropolitan cases. Through case studies of three cities in Northern Ontario (Canada), we can identify a number of changes in cultural governance and policy logics. Overall, the creative city narrative appears to be detrimental to typical arts advocacy in smaller communities since it leads to the domestication of the arts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For centuries, colonizing governments have utilized cultural policies to eliminate Aboriginal culture, to make ‘citizens’ out of Native peoples in part by forcing them to relinquish language, cultural practices and traditions and have encouraged them to embrace mainstream values and cultural practices. In the Canadian context, sport has been utilized by the Canadian government as a civilizing agent to assimilate Aboriginal peoples. This paper analyses the history of this process in Canada and explains how Aboriginal leaders inverted this process to achieve self-determination through sport, in particular through the North American Indigenous Games and the World Indigenous Games. In this sense, we argue, sport has been historically contested terrain, wielded to disempower and to empower Aboriginal peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes research that was designed to examine the assertion that historic designation of properties, under the heritage legislation in Canada's largest province, has a negative impact on the values of those properties. The actual selling price of subject properties was used to establish their value history trends, which were then compared to ambient market trends within the same communities. Almost 3,000 properties in twentyfour communities were investigated, in what is believed to be the largest study of its kind ever undertaken in North America. It was found that heritage designation could not be shown to have a negative impact. In fact there appears to be a distinct and generally robust market in designated heritage properties. They generally perform well in the market, with 74% doing average or better than average.The rate of sale among designated properties is as good or better than the ambient market trends and the values of heritage properties tend to be resistant to downturns in the general market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article highlights the significance of the crime genre to the resurgence of the made-for-TV-movie, especially the Hallmark Channel's romance movies. Typical assessments of Hallmark movies as brimming with positive affect encourage us to take a closer look at the representational strategies that make such happiness possible in stories otherwise concerned with violence and death. I draw upon theories of melodrama and film to identify which experiences are considered common or shared in these predominantly white, upper-class worlds, and how they create an orientation against which guilt and justice are determined. I also situate these made-for-TV-movies in relation to discussions about the status of filmmaking in Canada, as examples of the distinct shift in emphasis in Canadian cultural policy that now sees cultural texts as products and prioritizes commercially viable—and internationally desirable—media (as distinct from "national cinema"). I combine these critical perspectives to track the ways in which Hallmark combines high body counts, low violence, and often White homogeneity into happy crime films—and what the mass production of them tells us about the present and future of filmmaking in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the cultural policy design strategy. In his study the author establishes the relationship between a recent example of action research realized in a major Quebec City and its epistemological, theoretical and methodological grounding in qualitative research. This study, which was carried out by the University of Quebec, in partnership with the Arts and Culture Division of the City of Longueuil from 1999 to 2001 will provide a breakdown of the complexity of an action research project, while underlining the necessary contribution of a constructivist research design, of participatory action research, of soft systems methodology and of the mechanics of knowledge transfer, all of which were part of the research strategy. In the present paper we propose a model for the analysis and planning of a cultural system constructed with these various strategies in mind. We also discuss a cultural policy design strategy and the instruments needed in order to obtained the desired results. This article is intended for university researchers and municipal stakeholders in the cultural domains and attempts to emphasize the relevancy of action research for those who work professionally in or with the cultural milieu.

Listed events are policies enacted by states to protect the free-to-air rights of specific television and radio broadcasts that are identified as being of particular national significance. Some states (including the UK, Belgium, and Argentina) have begun to adopt these listed events policies, typically regarding significant national sporting events. We re-conceptualize listed events as a practical means by which to protect the intangible cultural heritage of states – an issue addressed by international institutions such as ICOMOS and UNESCO. Furthermore, we engage in a critical analysis regarding both the merits and potential problems involved in the possibility of Canada adopting listed broadcasting events policies, specifically involving hockey broadcasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article inquires into the difference between philosophy as a universal practice and philosophy as a cultural product; its aim is to establish a case for there being Canadian philosophy. Philosophy as a practice can exhibit a dialectical framework. The practice can pursue both universal truths and cultural variations in expressions of those truths. Each philosophical endeavor requires the other to be meaningful. No matter how abstract a "truth" may be, an example always creates cultural relevance. The article introduces the example of an early Canadian philosopher, whose work is documented in the book by Leslie Armour and Elizabeth Trott, The Faces of Reason: An Essay on Philosophy and Culture in English Canada, 1850-1950. John Watson (1847–1939) was the most prolific and well-known contributor to philosophy in early Canada, pursuing universal questions and yet responding to the circumstances of his new home in developing Canada and, in doing so, contributing to Canadian cultural interpretations of philosophical questions. This article uses his example to conclude that the study of philosophy in Canada must include Canadian philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The écomusée--the small, local, and community-owned and managed museum--and similar cultural institutions, represent more than a typical museum: they are also community movements in time and space that resist the modern hierarchical practices of the cultural sector. Through four Canadian cases, this article examines the different forms of écomusée resistance by discursively excavating the conditions of their formation, institutional practices, and the resulting effects and implications. The movement's resulting schism in space and time has created local empowerment of underrepresented community groups by reappropriating and challenging the modern cultural landscape with implications for public action and public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study done in Canada and Ireland and in the 2 countries that cast a long shadow of influences over them—the United States and England respectively—suggests that the press council/ombudsman self-governing structure recently implemented in Ireland might help the Canadian press to gain more independence from court controls and regain a deeper sense of its own stated mission. The study included in-depth interviews with journalists and scholars in all 4 countries, close readings of sample crime coverage, and examinations of prevailing ethics codes and accountability practices. The Irish said they are discovering that by foregrounding ethics, they have relaxed the battle against legal restraints and—to some measure—dug out from under the competitive pressures that had threatened to bury their primary mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the role of Canadian municipal governments in relation to the development of music industry policy. It examines two attempts by Canadian cities (Calgary and Toronto) to develop municipally based music policies. Both cases are examined in context of the policies of other levels of government in Canada, where municipalities have not generally played a significant role in addressing the music industry. Historically, music industry policy has been a concern of federal government policies. The article addresses how this creates a particular conception of the industry and the extent to which municipal policies need to challenge this in order to be effective. Further, the article examines some of the other factors that constrain and shape the ability of Canadian municipalities to intervene in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission provoked extensive debate in 2004 when, in a seminal decision, it approved controversial and popular satellite television network Al-Jazeera Arabic for Canadian distribution. While the broadcast regulator's decision placed what some consider onerous responsibilities on potential Al-Jazeera carriers, others argue that given past egregious incidents of abusive speech on the network, it should not have been approved at all. This article accounts for the policy and regulatory context in which the Al-Jazeera decision is situated and the factors leading to the decision. The article argues that in proscribing abusive speech on the airwaves, the regulator locates freedom of expression within the context of a mandate to ensure that the Canadian broadcasting system makes a tolerant, multiethnic and multicultural Canadian nation imaginable. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The televised parliamentary leaders' debate of 2008 provided an indication of what cultural policies are imaginable at the level of Canadian federal politics. Now that governments and business are interested in the commercial potential of art and culture, artists find themselves in a curious position. This essay argues that what is required for a critical articulation of culture is not only a progressive approach to the links between culture, technology and the global economy, but a critique of the political economy of neoliberal cultural production that is able to politicise culture rather than culturalise politics. In the Canadian context, the near absence of any serious discussion of the creative industries is partly due to the emphasis on cultural identity and cultural nationalism. Identity, however, figures as part of a transnational process of symbolic production in which it has become seemingly impossible for the designers of cultural policy to construct a meaningful view of art's social function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article address public funding, free markets, and contemporary art in Canada as shaped by forces integral to the formation of Canada as a nation state and its continual development. Canada has a network of publicly funded institutions in support of contemporary art. Public funding for the arts is direct and plural: it operates at three levels of government - federal, provincial and municipal - and is distributed by government departments and arts councils. Canadian institutions in receipt of public funding relevant to contemporary art include art schools, artist-run centres, non-collecting exhibition venues and art museums. A perception that this creates and maintains a circular system for contemporary art that is co-ordinated via state funding is reconsidered. In addition, it is misleading to consider a boundary divide, with state and not-for-profit sector organizations separated from private and commercial ones. The role of art market intermediaries, namely contemporary art dealers (or gallerists), who are responsible for representing artists and promoting their work for the first time (on the primary art market) to collectors, is integral. It also represents one measure of the overall health of Canada's contemporary art market system. Attention is drawn to the situation where few contemporary art dealers based in Canada have the economic resources to compete in the international arena, with one consequence being the adoption of non-Canadian dealers to represent leading contemporary artists from Canada. The emergence of a generation of aboriginal artists living and working in Canada is another development, one that speaks to the hybrid representations of Canadian identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines one aspect of Canada's early cultural diplomacy. During the late 1940s, the Department of External Affairs frequently received requests for Canadian books from foreign libraries. At the same time, many officials were eager to promote Canadian culture abroad. The Annual Book Presentation Programme was inaugurated with the intention of creating “repositories of Canadiana” which might stimulate interest in Canada among foreign readers. Although the budget for the program was always modest, over the years the department's book gifts did fulfill their aim, creating a basis for the later growth of Canadian studies in universities abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comparative policy analysis is an underdeveloped field of study in Canadian policy scholarship at the national and subnational levels. Cultural policy research is also underdeveloped in Canada, particularly at the provincial level. This article aims to contribute to the development of subnational comparative cultural policy analysis by assessing the analytical value of utilizing national-level cultural policy approaches as referents for provincial comparative analysis. We develop four main approaches to cultural policy and administration—the French, British, American, and hybrid (mixed) approaches—and explore their applicability to analyzing the origin and evolution of cultural policy and administration in five Canadian provinces. The article draws on a recently concluded three-year national study of provincial and territorial cultural policy and administration codirected by authors Gattinger and Saint-Pierre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been relatively little comparative research undertaken on sub-national cultural policy. This article aims to contribute to the development of sub-national comparative studies by assessing the utility of national cultural policy approaches for comparative research at the sub-national level in Canada. Drawing on studies of national cultural policy, the authors develop three main approaches to cultural policy and administration - the French, British and hybrid approaches - and explore their applicability to the origin and evolution of cultural policy and administration in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario. This exploratory research suggests there is room for optimism in drawing on national-level experiences to undertake sub-national comparative cultural policy research, particularly for comparisons over broad time periods. The study also suggests that it will be important in subsequent research to further elaborate the models for present-day comparative analysis and to refine and adapt them to reflect specificities at the provincial level of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canada Council marks its fiftieth anniversary in 2007. The third national arts council to be established after the Arts Council of Great Britain in 1946, it was created on the recommendation of a Royal Commission chaired by Vincent Massey, a Canadian philanthropist and diplomat. While it differed from the ACGB in its early scope and organization, it was and is an arm's-length body. Using unpublished and published sources, I track Massey's social contacts during his tenure as High Commissioner to London from 1935 to 1946, where he served on the war-time boards of the National Gallery and the Tate. This work put him in social contact with Samuel Courtauld, J. M. Keynes, and Kenneth Clark, who were engaged in the governance of British national arts organizations. My findings illustrate the influence that friendships and social networks played in arts policy formulation in these early years of the arts council model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the impact of the United States culture on Canada. Existence of an independent nation-state; Support for a national culture; Arguments on the government-assisted protections of national cultures.

The article analyzes the shift from culture to ethnicity. It discusses the Canadian pyramidal society, Canada's multiculturalism and the cultural policy in Quebec. In Canada, multiculturalism is a political term with a political goal which refers to legislation embodied in a specific administrative body. Although multiculturalism may use the term culture and have a cultural impact, it has primarily an ethnic and political one. A multicultural policy in the country is the solution to possible ethnic conflicts. The more ethnic Canadian society is, the more it will depend on culture for its self-definition.

The article examines the connection between cultural policy and social cohesion in Canada. Over the last fifty years, there have been three recurring themes in cultural policy discourse according to Oliver Bennett. These themes include culture as a source of moral improvement, culture as an economic engine, and culture as an instrument for promoting national identity and prestige. Majority of cultural policies in Canada over the past 60 years has been focused on counteracting the threat of American cultural domination. The role of culture in building cohesive and sustainable societies is a theme that fits well within the social cohesion research framework taking shape in the country.

The article describes the process of cultural policy change that has occurred within Europe, particularly in Great Britain, since 1995. According to the author, these changes have involved a shift from an established arts-based policy model to what has been termed a creative industries model. The analysis will also reference cultural policy prescriptions being developed by the Council of Europe and in other European nations, notably Germany. The article will present comparisons of the development of new policy frameworks in Canada and New Zealand, and the territorial nature of policy will be discussed.