It was neither a great year nor an awful one for Canadian cultural institutions. As ever, there were changes aplenty, but nothing that could be considered convulsive, at least compared with 2008, when the Harper government cancelled the Trade Routes, Arts Promotion and Exhibition Transportation Service programs, among several others.
A convulsion may happen in a couple of years when Canadian Heritage, which accounts for about $2 of every $5 spent by all levels of government on arts and culture, will have to cut at least $60-million to help Prime Minister Stephen Harper achieve his goal of a balanced budget by 2015. For the time being, though, if one disregards the significant whacks to culture initiated by provincial governments in British Columbia and Alberta, there's a feeling of “holding steady” across the land.
Perhaps this has something to do with James Moore remaining in the Canadian Heritage portfolio for the past 26 months – a record tenure among the three Tories who've held the job since Harper came to power in early 2006.
Continuity counts, but as the Canadian Conference of the Arts has pointed out, for all of Moore's apparent steadiness, the Conservatives continue to approach culture “without an identified long-term vision or clearly articulated policy.” They are content, seemingly, to move piecemeal – overhauling copyright here, tweaking book publishing there.
Departures and arrivals
William Thorsell retires after 10 years as director and chief executive officer of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. He's replaced by British native Janet Carding, former assistant director of public programs and operations at the Australian Museum in Sydney … Thomas Smart abruptly resigns as executive director of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Ont., ending a four-year run. The collection's head of development, marketing and communications, Peter Ross, is named interim director … Quebec chartered accountant and MBA graduate Carolle Brabant succeeds Wayne Clarkson as executive director of Telefilm Canada … Dennis Reid officially ends his 30-year stint at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto on Aug. 31. Among other high-profile jobs, he had been the AGO's chief curator 1996-2005. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Smith, former chief curator at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, arrives as the gallery's executive director of curatorial affairs … Terry Ryan retires as general manager of West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative for Inuit art in Nunavut. He started there as an arts adviser in 1960 … Gail Asper, upon the death of her father, Izzy Asper, the sparkplug behind the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, resigns as national campaign chair for Winnipeg-based Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Friends begins a search to hire a new CEO
Beginnings and endings
