The following blog post was published on the Canada Council for the Arts’ Council blog on January 20, 2015, and was written by Roger Gaudet, Director, Arts Disciplines Division.

The Canada Council for the Arts has been supporting the evolution of the arts in Canada for nearly 60 years. Along the way we too have had to evolve, keeping pace with innovations in the arts and with the shifting social context in which artists and arts organizations operate. 

Soon the Canada Council will evolve again:

• We are moving towards the implementation of a new suite of national, non-disciplinary programs.
• The number of funding programs will be drastically reduced.

Why are we changing?

• To more effectively support Canada’s artistic ecosystem in the 21st century
• To be as flexible and inclusive as the diverse practices and communities we support
• To scale up our organizational impact
• To bring more great art to more Canadians
• To lessen the administrative burden on artists, arts administrators and on our staff

What will not change?

• The amount of arts funding that we deliver to artists and arts organizations will not decrease.
• Peer assessment remains a fundamental value of the Canada Council and will be at the heart of our new program design.
• Our mandate remains unchanged: “to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts.”

When will the new programs be launched?

At this point, we are shaping and defining our revised suite of programs. Our thinking has been guided by the feedback received in our recent disciplinary and cross-disciplinary consultations and from peer assessors. We anticipate that by the summer of 2015 we will be communicating our plans in much greater detail, and that they will be implemented by 2017. We understand that adapting to change is necessary, yet difficult and complex, and that professional artists and arts organizations of all sizes face tremendous pressures today. Our aim is to alleviate some of those pressures by aligning our programs more effectively with the artistic community’s changing needs. As we work through our program design process, building on our many recent consultations with artists and arts organizations, we will communicate regularly via social media and the web.

We look forward to sharing more with you soon.

To learn more about the Canada Council for the Arts, visit http://canadacouncil.ca/