New minister joins the Montreal culture club
At 36, Mélanie Joly, Justin Trudeau’s newly appointed minister of Canadian Heritage, emerges as the youngest culture czar this country has ever had. And Joly boasts glittering credentials.
She has been a star in the legal world and in the world of public relations. She came second in the election for mayor of Montreal. She has an impressive track record as a booster of the arts and even won the Arnold Edinburgh prize awarded by Business for the Arts.
But from a Toronto-centric perspective, Joly’s appointment could be cause for anxiety. It’s a striking demonstration of the political fact of life that arts and culture looms larger as an issue in Quebec than in the rest of Canada. And Joly is the latest member of an unofficial club: players from Quebec who dominate the leadership of federal arts organizations.
At the moment, however, euphoria is the prevailing mood in Toronto’s culture world, as it has been for the past four weeks.
It started with relief that the dark decade of Harper is over, akin to the mood of the “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead!” number from The Wizard of Oz.
Thus began great expectations that a golden age for the arts is about to begin under a spell cast by the wizardly Trudeau.
But when it comes to delivering on Liberal platform pledges, such as hundreds of millions of dollars in increased funding for the CBC and the Canada Council for the Arts, I fear we may encounter snags, detours and congestion on the yellow brick road to cultural glory.
Much will depend on the mindset of Joly. Inevitably, there is an ongoing rivalry between Montreal and Toronto for the unofficial crown of top cultural destination. And the balance has shifted since Montreal captured the world’s attention with Expo 67.
Yet you would never guess the cultural stature of Toronto from a survey of federal appointments in recent times to the most powerful arts jobs in the country.
The government film commissioner and chair of the National Film Board of Canada (which has its headquarters in Montreal) is Claude Joli-Coeur. After earning a law degree at the Université de Montréal, he practised law in Montreal and got into the film world as legal counsel for Telefilm Canada before joining the NFB 12 years ago.
The director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts (which has headquarters in Ottawa) is Simon Brault, former head of Montreal’s National Theatre School. In 2014, Brault succeeded Robert Sirman (former head of Canada’s National Ballet School in Toronto).
The executive director of Telefilm Canada, which also has its headquarters in Montreal, is Carolle Brabant. Born in Montreal and trained as a chartered accountant, she was appointed to the Telefilm job in 2010 and is now in her second three-year term.
And the CBC president is still Hubert Lacroix, born and educated in Montreal. He holds the post of associate law professor at the Université de Montréal. Appointed by the Harper government in 2007, Lacroix has remained in place, even as top network executives came and went.
Over the past nine years, instead of being protected from government interference, as it was in its previous history, the CBC was brought under direct federal control.
When it comes to undoing the damage inflicted by the Harper decade, the CBC presents the biggest challenge. If the Liberals believe in a hands-off policy, they can’t remove Lacroix.
But to restore its lustre, the CBC needs not just the $150 million promised by Trudeau but a new president.
Dealing with that dilemma is going to be a huge test of Joly’s skill in the dangerous politics of culture. mknelman@thestar.ca