Strategic Plans

Our 2021-26 Strategic Plan—Art, now more than ever—is made up of three directions that are guiding our efforts and investments. The Plan supports a rebuild of the arts sector on a more inclusive, equitable, resilient, and sustainable foundation and maximizes the sector’s impact on Canadian society over the next five years.

We have begun to map out how we will realize the directions of our Strategic Plan through a series of actions. As of fall 2021, the following actions are underway or being developed. These include key initiatives that will define our own evolution.

As the implementation of our Strategic Plan progresses over the next five years, we will refine our actions and initiatives and add new ones.

Direction 1: Invest in rebuilding and innovation

The Council will foster an inclusive and sustainable rebuilding of the arts sector across the country. Innovation will be at the centre of that collective journey.

Actions

• Invest $1.6B in grants and $74M in payments to authors through the Public Lending Right Program over the next five years to support artistic and literary creation and foster increased access to the arts across Canada.
• Better understand and address the numerous barriers faced by youth, official language minority communities, and historically underserved and marginalized communities including Indigenous, Black, racialized, Deaf and disability, and 2SLGBTQI+ and gender-diverse communities, women, and artists at intersections of these groups. In this regard, and to improve access to its funding, the Council will allocate at least:
  • 50% of total grant funding to projects
  • 20% of project funding to first-time recipients
  • $100M over five years for Indigenous arts and culture
• Develop and implement a Northern Roadmap to strengthen the Council’s presence, interactions, and support for artistic and literary activity in the North of Canada.
• Develop and implement new grant management tools to ensure equitable access to project funding for artists, arts groups, and organizations in all regions of the country.
• Invest a minimum of $200M over five years specifically for a strong rebuild of the arts sector that encourages the development of innovative business models, the ongoing digital transformation, and more.
• Modernize our management of the Art Bank to build a more inclusive and equitable collection, broaden public access to our collection, and ensure a sustainable business model.
• Review and modernize our prizes to ensure they better recognize artistic and literary contributions to the development of an inclusive society.

Direction 2: Amplify the benefits of the arts for society

The Council will support the arts sector in its work to eliminate discrimination in all forms, including that based on gender identity, race, and ability, to respond to climate change, and to recognize and promote the role of youth in the arts. It will support efforts to advance Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, as well as the Indigenous-led decolonization of the arts and culture sector. It will champion fair compensation for artistic and literary creation, the economic protection of artists, and equitable access to digital infrastructure and resources for artists and people across Canada.

Actions

• Convene and actively participate in dialogues with arts organizations and all stakeholders to develop and implement strategies, policies, and initiatives to:
  • advance equity, diversity, and inclusion to eliminate the consequences of racism and colonization in the arts sector, overturn misogyny and all forms of discrimination against women, and advance gender equality.
  • work collectively to mitigate the effects of climate change in the activities of the arts sector.
  • support the arts sector to respect and protect the intellectual property, traditional knowledge, and artistic and cultural expression of Indigenous people and encourage the arts sector to serve as an example in furthering this work.
  • promote improved working conditions and financial remuneration and security for artists and cultural workers, including in the form of a social safety net.
• promote universal access to digital resources for artists, arts groups, and organizations and audiences, particularly in underserved areas such as the North of Canada.
• Fund innovative projects that build digital capacity in rural and northern communities and support the arts sector in its greening efforts.

Direction 3: Nurture and expand collaboration and partnerships

To strengthen the arts sector’s capacity to rebuild and innovate, the Council will support collaborations, cross-sectoral partnerships, and renewed cultural diplomacy.

Actions

• Act as a trusted convenor to foster cross-sectoral collaboration and the transfer and sharing of knowledge within the arts sector and, more broadly, between the sector and Canadian society.
• Actively foster and engage in partnerships with Canadian and international stakeholders to support and position the arts in the post-pandemic reconstruction of the economy, communities, and society.
• Maximize the synergies between the Council and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO to advance the shared priority of a more just, equitable and sustainable future.
• Invest a minimum of $110M in grants over five years to strengthen and expand the international presence of artists, arts groups, and organizations from Canada.
• Expand the Council’s role in the delivery of a renewed approach to cultural diplomacy to advance dialogue and exchanges between cultures.

Council’s Efforts

We, at the Canada Council, will be learning, adapting and navigating this momentous period of transition alongside the sector. We are committed to questioning, reviewing and improving how we work to help build back a better arts sector.

Actions

• To strengthen our strategies, policies, programs and operations, we will
  • Take meaningful steps to create a culture of employee engagement, wellness, diversity and inclusion consistent with the Council’s organizational values.
  • Accelerate the journey of decolonization at the Council.
  • Continue to increase diversity and representation at the Council and leverage the diversity of voices at the Council.
• Review our approach and processes to supporting the sector and our decision-making, such as applicant profiles and peer assessment, to broaden access to Council funding and improve our services.
• Accelerate and amplify the Council’s digital shift to improve our services.
• Green Council’s operations to reduce our carbon footprint.
• Enhance measurement and reporting to improve our accountability and transparency.

Since the launch of our 2021-26 strategic plan, Art, now more than ever, we have progressed in the implementation of several actions and strategic commitments.

Note: This information is up to date as of March 31, 2023. For further updates, please see our annual report.

Funding commitments

We are on track to meet our strategic funding commitments, as illustrated in the tables below.

These commitments aim to increase access to the arts across Canada; to improve access to Council funding, especially for historically marginalized and underserved communities and first-time recipients; and to support a strong rebuilding of the arts sector.

Direction 1: Invest in rebuilding and innovation

• In addition to distributing $145.5 million in federal funding in 2021-22 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council delivered two additional funding initiatives in 2022-23 to address the pandemic’s impacts on the sector:

• $50 million in funding to resume activities in 2022-23, to support research, creation and the production of works, touring activities across Canada, market development, and sector innovation.
• $9.2 million in government support to some 200 core-funded organizations with mandates to serve historically marginalized and underserved communities, namely Indigenous, racialized, Deaf and disability, and official language minority communities. This funding supported artists, technicians and cultural workers whose livelihoods suffered because of the pandemic and whose contributions are essential to building a more inclusive, equitable and sustainable future for the arts.

• The Canada Council Art Bank launched an open call to purchase works with the goal of including a greater diversity of artists in its collection. This acquisition prioritized works by artists who were not previously represented in the collection and who self-identified as Indigenous, Black, racialized, Deaf or having a disability, being from an official language minority community, youth, 2SLGBTQI+ and gender-diverse communities, women, and artists at the intersections of these identities. More than 1,700 eligible submissions were received, and the Art Bank purchased 72 works by emerging and established artists from every province and territory and from each of the Council’s priority groups.

• In accordance with its current strategic commitments, the Council believes that everyone in Canada deserves a dynamic, accessible and diverse arts sector. Consequently, the Council continues to explore and implement strategic funding mechanisms to ensure equitable access to project funding to all applicants in all regions of Canada.

Direction 2: Amplify the benefits of the arts for society

• In 2022, the Council published its Research on the Value of Public Funding for Indigenous Arts and Cultures. This study, grounded in Indigenous ways of knowing and self-determination, concluded that public funding is integral to the success of Indigenous artists, arts, and cultures. The Council published a blog post to describe how it intends to implement the recommendations from this study.

• In 2023, the Council completed a research project on the Impact of Grants on First-Time Recipients, which shows the transformative power of its funding programs. The study highlighted many benefits of a first-time grant for artists, arts groups and organizations. These benefits include a sense of legitimacy and validation of artistic creativity; a greater sense of representation, increased visibility and professional opportunities for underrepresented communities and practices; and fostering intercultural dialogue on major social issues.

• In its efforts to help the arts sector mitigate its effects on climate change, in 2022-23, as part of its Strategic Innovation Fund, the Council has contributed more than $250,000 to a partnership with the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA) to create a climate leadership program for arts professionals in Canada.

• The Council has also engaged in a partnership with the National Arts Centre to support the Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency (SCALE/LeSAUT), a network of artists and organizations working at the intersection of culture and climate in Canada. This partnership is helping the Council better adapt its climate-related work in alignment with evolving realities and opportunities for the arts sector.

Direction 3: Nurture and expand collaboration and partnerships

• The Council hosted the Arts Funding Forum in Ottawa from April 26 to 28, 2023. It included some 150 representatives of public and private arts funding organizations from all over Canada, as well as guests from the United Kingdom and the United States. The event fostered conversations to help advance a sustainable recovery and rebuild of the arts and culture sector, highlighting shared challenges and opportunities. The Arts Funding Forum reinforced the need for a continuous channel of communication between all arts funding organizations across the country.

• To better serve the arts sector in Canada’s North, the Council entered into two co-delivery partnerships. The first, with the Inuit Art Foundation (IAF), led to the creation of a multidisciplinary funding program for Inuit artists and arts workers all over Inuit Nunangat. In 2022-23, the IAF distributed over $180,000, funding 40 artists from all over Inuit Nunangat. The second partnership, with the Government of Yukon, is providing $200,000 in funding over two years (beginning in 2022-23) to support emerging Indigenous artists and cultural carriers.

• In 2022, the Council cohosted the Arctic Arts Summit, in partnership with the Government of Yukon. With a “for the north, by the north” approach, the event strengthened arts and culture in the North, stimulated cooperation between key players, and fostered continued and sustainable collaboration across the region.

Internal efforts

• In 2022, the Council embarked on an exercise with all of its staff to identify and articulate its core organizational values. These values inform its internal operations, as well as its relationships with the arts sector, the public, and its partners in Canada and abroad.

• In 2021, the Council launched a major recruitment campaign to foster diversity, equity and inclusion. Outperforming its objectives within a year, representation of all priority groups increased significantly at all levels of the organization.