Culture Is Infrastructure: The Role of People, Identity, and Our Social Fabric

Full Panel
Transcript

Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software.  Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to citytalk@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.

Jamie Bennett This panel, our panelists have all been asked to think about the question of culture as infrastructure. So that’s distinct from but of course, related to cultural infrastructure, the things that the sector needs to survive. And we had been talking and sort of thinking about cultural infrastructure as the organization and physical structures that we need for the sector. But listening to Zita this morning, I think that notion of connection is also really important, to think about connection within the cultural infrastructure. So we’re going to talk for a little bit about culture and how it operates as a system within our communities in the same way that plumbing does, in the same way that roads do, in the same way that connects people with each other and to their place. And so let me start with the Deputy Minister, who is who is next to me. And when you think about your work at Heritage Canada, how do you think about culture as infrastructure? How do you talk about that work? How do you how do you bring it into the day to day?

Isabelle Mondou Thank you so much. And I hope it works …

Jamie Bennett Yes, perfect.

Isabelle Mondou We will definitely try to be sexy … So I think we are always thinking at Canadian Heritage about how culture is really part of the fabric of city, all communities, very every part of of life and connection. And why is that? It’s because, I don’t want to undermine the panel before me, but it’s because that’s what makes people, art and the city art really happen. Because although you can have beautiful buildings that can absolutely change a city if they are empty, that’s not going to create anything – a sense of belonging, social cohesion, etc.. So I’m not going to get into the detail of our program, but we have a program on cultural space for that very reason, because obviously artists and talent and culture doesn’t exist in the abstract. Library, museum, theater needs a place to live and artists need a place to create. And without that, it’s creating a very empty city, which unfortunately we have witnessed during the pandemic when everything was closed, the building was still there, but the life was gone.

Jamie Bennett And stay on the mic for just a second because as we’ve been talking about the different infrastructure systems within Canada, we’ve been talking about housing, we’ve been talking about the environment. How would you grade, how would you diagnose Canada’s social fabric? How is our cultural infrastructure doing right now?

Isabelle Mondou Wow, that’s a big question that I think we are almost seeing a newspaper article every day and sometime I feel more optimistic than other time. But I will say that we are certainly experiencing and we have data that we are pulling in our own department. We are certainly experiencing a tough moment for Canada in the sense of, you know, the pandemic, a lot of geopolitical drama really, and all of that affects us in a very real way, plus everything that happened domestically from the life of people. So we are definitely in a moment where we need to pull all our strength together. We really need to all work to try to reinforce this sense of belonging. And that’s why I think culture is is an essential ingredient of that. There is so much survey and so much data we have that show that people feel more connected when they are together, doing something together and not in their living room, on their couch, but when they are in a festival, when they are in theater, when they are at a music concert and their mental health, and they say that in the survey, is better, this feeling of well-being is better … All these things accumulated together. It just goes to show that culture is just so crucial. It’s a social glue, basically.

Jamie Bennett Brian, let’s come to you next because 221A in Vancouver does cultural infrastructure, you develop, you think about, you imagine you dream. Tell us a little bit about the work you do and then I’ll have a couple of questions for you.

Brian McBay Sure. We operate cultural infrastructure in about ten different buildings in the city of Vancouver, which everyone knows is one of the most expensive places on earth. And so a big part of our work is bringing communities together to be able to inhabit buildings. We operate housing as well as cultural spaces that are venues that maybe as a teenager someone would make music, would be able to express themselves and their identity formation in the public, which I think, you know, Canada is a very difficult place to be because of the way our identities have been fractured. I do feel, you know, with this country, which is so beautiful in terms of the trans disposition of people from all around the world on Indigenous land, we don’t have that pride, that ability to say, look at this amazing place. And part of that question is, you know, where’s our Beyoncé? We don’t have Beyoncé here. And I sort of ask this question of, you know, this question of culture is infrastructure. Part of it for me is thinking about not those official spaces of culture, but those unofficial collective memories. And the Multiculturalism Act, which was, I think, a really brilliant and courageous act, hasn’t quite manifested in the way that institutions are created. And some of those very large institutions, of course, they’re able to circulate stories from our neighborhoods. But most of culture in Canada has been, kind of the bastion of culture, has been in in domestic spaces and in small businesses, in small venues and commercial spaces. And that’s where we’ve been able to be authentic people to share their cultures and their backgrounds. And so it’s a very difficult thing when you see displacement happening in those spaces, because the large institutions which often are cycling up that work, they no longer have kind of bedrock of an underground work. So for me, I wouldn’t …  Certainly culture is survival in the sense that I wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t have expressed who I am, you know, with my brother and friends and in our basement in Winnipeg. You know, that’s, for me, the romantic place of where culture is created, even though I would prefer it, of course, to be in invested large institutions like this. And I can tell you, you know, the background here, someone was saying, what’s the color of your socks or something? And three bottles of water is used. The background here, I took a photo and my daughter’s been watching Frozen, so that’s basically where culture lands. You know, we’re currently on the Frozen set …

Jamie Bennett That’s great. So let me ask you to get a little tactical for a minute only because a lot of people in the room today are counting on culture to do a lot for our cities, for our communities. Right. We’re going to fix divisiveness. We’re going to create a big enough “we”, we’re going to allow people to fully become themselves. But what is it that the arts and cultural sector needs from cities in order to be strong enough to do that job? When you think about that continuum of infrastructure from the underground, the small to the palaces that we inhabit, what is the system of infrastructure that culture needs to be strong enough to be up to what cities need us to do.

Brian McBay Yeah. I mean, I can’t help but think, trust. Like there was a conversation about trust earlier … is so critical. And to get to that point of trust, we need to be honest. And to be honest, we need to tell stories about colonization and we need to talk about the friction and contestation of culture. And I think it’s also a lot of beauty there. Now, looking at cities, cities do a lot with very little, and they try to use zoning tools to get developments, you know, to build these community offsets, which we’ve been involved with operating. And we see a kind of city state model. But in the city of Vancouver, we’ve lost 400,000ft² in ten years and we operate 120,000ft². One of the buildings provided through City of Vancouver amenity contribution is 20,000ft². It’s a passive house, seven story commercial building. It’s beautiful, funded by Canadian heritage as well. But it’s still not enough in terms of population growth and that erosion of the commercial market because we won’t without designing cultural spaces into the future of the city, we’re not going to have happy go lucky. Kind of like arts and culture groups like myself as a when I was 18, starting to 20 coming about it’s heck, maybe we can knock on this retail space and open a small arts space and use this to express ourselves and share something that will be the bedrock of the soul of our city. It’s we’re going to have to preplan where those spaces come out. And just like housing the housing crisis, we should see it as a part of that. But work and otherwise, it sounds really I’m kind of trying not to be pessimistic, but self-terminating in the sense that the design we have, the current city is ridding ourselves of culture and it’s more of a monoculture, multiethnic monoculture than this. Some of these initial ambitions, I think of our great country.

Jamie Bennett I want to hold that last thought. I want to come back for all of us to talk about that notion of culture is singular, culture is plural, and how we do that. But before we pick up that theme, Monique, you were the chair of a well, infrastructure district that is literally and figuratively in the heart of the city. Tell us a little bit about the quarter and tell us a little bit about how you think about that work.

Monique Simard Okay. Thank you. By the way, one of the persons that were at the origins of the Quartiers des Spectacles in Montreal is Cameron Charlebois. I just learned that when I came here today and he was working with the city of Montreal and I said, “Merci thank you”, because it’s a success. And so for the ones that don’t know what is the Quartier des Spectacles, it’s really downtown Montreal. It’s 22 years old now. It’s really a concept, a cultural, urban concept of 1.2km², which was created essentially by people in the country. The idea came from people from the cultural sector, mostly big festival showrunners, jazz festival amongst them, the City of Montreal, people that were thinkers in the city of Montreal at that time, urban planners, and decided to create the space. Some of it was really run down, but at the same time you had La Place des Arts what is really the cultural institution in Montreal, very old theaters, but small venues also, rundown places, the red light district, that was what it was. And then we sort of created the Quartier des Spectacles. But why it worked is that it was created with the spirit of a partnership, and that’s the governance of it. And I chair a board of 22 members, but we have 85 partners, which of course are cultural venues. We have more than 80 cultural venues in that small territory and we have eight public spaces. But the cultural venues of different space, different kinds, theater, dance, etc. we have 52 festivals within a year and it’s directly downtown. It started with $234 million investment, it has attracted over the years, $3.3 billion investment. But that’s of course, economically very interesting. But what is most interesting is that it is the heart and the revival of downtown. And we have … we were hit by the pandemic like everybody else. And one of the first reflex of the mayor of Montreal at that time, Valérie Plante  asked me, would you co-chair with the Board of Trade how we can manage to revitalize the downtown in this pandemic, awful area. Which we did. And we were about the only ones kicking around during that time, organizing things outside for Montrealers. And I think that it is a proof that if you do believe in culture and you invest in cultural infrastructures and you do it in partnership with artists, and when I say artists in a very broad sense, it’s the creators, but also the ones that run the venues, etc., and that you work together, that you can attract. And of course, now we’re the number one attraction for Tourism Montreal. Around the world where they do their you know … There’s the Mont Royal, le … and the Place des Festivals. That’s what attracts people to Montreal. And so the model and it’s a nonprofit and we’re totally funded by the city of Montreal. But if they had decided at that time that it would be a department of the city, it wouldn’t have worked or it would have worked, not … it wouldn’t have the dynamic that it, you know, has been driven over the years. And somebody asked me, what would you want in ten years to come? I want us to be copied all across Canada and other cities because believe me, the model does work. You have to work and accept. And of course, we have restaurant owners, hotels, and we work with stores. That’s all part of the partnership. And you can create this collaboration. And during, I’m not saying it’s easy and all the time, but in hard times when the pandemic hit, we proved that that was the model that was needed. So, yes, I can only say and we’ve talked with Heritage …  Which by the way, I’ve never got a dollar from Heritage. This is a message very public message … Once I asked Isabelle, “How come?” She said “you were unique in Canada, there’s nobody else”. Well, please copy us everywhere. So she can open a program so we can get support.

Jamie Bennett Yes, I think this counts as a grant application …

Monique Simard Maybe I took too much time, I’m sorry.

Jamie Bennett No, no, no, that’s fine. Now, Kelly, let’s come to Toronto for a second. And this work very much is rooted in the business community, in the revitalization, in the economy. You, of course, there are places in Toronto where that’s true for a cultural sector as well. But you’re also thinking about other things. You’re talking about other systems to intervene in, other outcomes. When you think about the non-economic pieces of the work that you do in Toronto, that our community of artists do there. What are some of the outcomes? What are some of the things that you talk about, about why Toronto needs arts and culture and the work that your agencies support?

Kelly Langgard Well, when I think … I mean, first when I think about that, I think about  what is Toronto? Who is Toronto? Toronto is one of the most diverse or pluralistic cities in the world. Toronto has many, many neighborhoods, distinct neighborhoods, distinct communities. Toronto also has the largest concentration of artists and cultural workers in the country and, you know, is known as a creative city internationally. So, you know, when I think about that and then the work that we do as Toronto Arts Council and Toronto Arts Foundation, working with the city and with many, many other partners, which is essential Monique, and I think that was really important that you raised that. And we are thinking about creative interventions in every neighborhood, block by block and “Create a city, block by block” is a part of our motto. And, you know, to do that, we run programs. We fund artists and arts organizations to do their work across a very broad spectrum. We think about newcomers. We have supports for newcomers. We have supports for refugee artists. We have supports for, specifically for black arts communities. And when we talk about impact, it’s social cohesion, it’s community engagement, it’s safer communities, all of those things that we know that arts and culture, when it’s embedded in community, when it comes from community, can create those kinds of outcomes that are ultimately city building endeavors. And artists and cultural workers are such an important part of that city building role.

Jamie Bennett And do you … this is sort of a personal question that I’m interested in. Do you talk about fun? Do you talk about joy? I mean, because – and this is … I can do chapter and verse about all of the pious ways in which arts and culture is good for you. And I’ve spent my career doing really important work to bringing arts and culture to people who don’t want arts and culture. But it strikes me that we’re sort of missing the joy, the reason that I come to Montreal …

Monique Simard We have a lot of fun, right? Believe me, we’re fun 52 weeks a year. And the Quartier de Spectacles never sleeps.

Jamie Bennett Excellent. But, Kelly, does that work in city government? Does it work in the kind of infrastructure work that you’re doing to talk about the joy, to talk about the fun?

Kelly Langgard I hope so. I’m a bit like you, Jamie. I think I’ve missed that a lot, too, right? I don’t talk about that because I think, you know, we need to be proving our value in so many other ways. But of course, you know, joy is at the heart of the arts, joy and togetherness and optimism and hope, all of those things that are just, you know, long term and intangible in some ways, but so incredibly important, especially now, you know, in our society.

Jamie Bennett Well, let me come to a question for everyone. I’m working with an organization in the U.S., that just released some big public opinion research. And it turns out that arts and culture is very popular because, you know, Beyoncé it’s fun, it’s a balm, but that only kind of works if you ask in isolation, right? If you ask a resident, do you like arts and culture? Yes, 80%. It’s an 80/20 issue. But when you begin to put it in competition with housing, with the situation with immigration and with the economy, with other things, arts and culture always doesn’t rank very high. So maybe let me come back to the deputy minister. How do we make sure that the work that Canada Heritage is doing is as important as all of the other work that the government is doing? How do we make ourselves rank?

Isabelle Mondou Yeah, I think one of the challenge we have is that people feel that culture is something that other people will take care of and they may not feel as much as we feel, I think around here, the risk that the sector is under the fact that, you know, most of the people are struggling to make a living. The income for people in the sector is very, very low compared to anybody. So I think they rely a bit too much on us to make it happen. But in a way, I think what I would like to see is that people feel that this is just their contribution too. And in that sense, we have seen the audience going down in some space. So the thing that you value, you also have to fight for it. And we have many, many a colleague and that’s why I think partnership is so important because state as absolutely fabulous and important role to play. But without the private sector, without every partner, we’re not going to make it alone because the demand increase, we want to include other voices that were not included before. And I think that’s why a table like this one and conferences like these ones are important because I really think we need all of us. And we need all of us to work together. We have organizational struggle at the moment and they are going down because they don’t know how to find a business model that works for them. And the person just right over there may have a business model that works, but they don’t necessarily talk to each other and they don’t try to, you know, share some of those lessons. So we are really trying to encourage this partnership, this also exchange of experience. All of you are doing very, very cool things. I don’t give money to Monique, but I talk about her every single meeting I go somewhere. And so it’s about all these experiences and all these way to find a way together. I like to talk also about, you know, libraries are becoming place of culture. Children go there to have history told to them. All these space are very, very precious because they are rare and rarer, if that’s a word in English. And so it’s really, I would like people also to feel that this is something they can not leave to others. So when they build, they buy a condo – are they really looking around what’s available? Are they thinking about asking instead of a gym, love sport important, but every single block has a gym. Can one block out of three of something else than a gym that is a cultural space so that we can have a bit of a mix of things because healthy people is not just the body, it’s also the mind. And it takes a sport, but it takes something else.

Jamie Bennett Absolutely. I think that’s great. I was doing some work with the Urban Land Institute. We were trying to get real estate developers to care about arts and culture. And one of them said, “oh, I get it. Arts and culture is the new golf course, right? Even if you don’t play, you want to live near one.” So I think there’s something about that. Brian, you know, particularly for charities, particularly for NGOs, it can be a little bit of The Hunger Games, right? We’re sort of pitted against each other to go for the funding, to go for priorities. When you talk about the work of your organization, what is effective in terms of getting people to understand why it’s important to invest in you and invest in your work.

Brian McBay Yeah, I think it and this might sound bad, but our, our work is … sort of only has a certain length to it. And really what we’re looking for is succession model. I think earlier today there was this weird horizontal stickiness that we need horizontal stickiness. Now we are you know, the Canada Council funds thousands of organizations across the country, and each of them have these very small amounts of funding. It’s the sprinkling effect and it’s sort of a way of absolving sort of the center of Canada from having to or maybe building culture outwards that way. But in doing so, those spaces and those places are facing collapse, you know, as as there’s rising rent. So for us, we’ve been proposing or I’ve been a proponent of idea of a land trust to be culturally cultural properties similar to housing, land trusts, where they’d be secured for both permanent affordability, but also in a generative manner like a housing corporation, the ability to purchase and basically take some of those rental escalations that happen every year. And you know, just looking at the numbers alone, you have more and more rent being paid out of grants. And so just as a as a public service mechanism, it’s a it’s a smart investment. And what we’re really looking for is a grandparent in the sense that and maybe you’re the grandparent for us, I don’t know if in sense we came back to back could be the grandparent for the rest of Canada. I don’t know. But we we do need that investment to to sort of get into the acquisition of land and and using those resources for culture. And the idea that at the same time when property is purchased, there is a redistribution that happens. And that’s where also this kind of question, this question of land back and contested contestation around indigenous ownership of these lands can also be brought to bear. And so compensation mechanisms, collaboration, we can also bring communities to the table who haven’t been had a voice for decades and years. And so some of that joy that we want, which comes I think joy comes out of recognizing some of those pains that we experience. So, you know, I don’t open my grant application with these types of descriptions, but I think, you know, we are looking at, I think, sound business investments as well and recognizing communities have within their the bones of their history so much potential in terms of economics that are not the kind of unlock could be unlocked. And so I look at indigenous communities and see them as very thirsty for authentic representation and having using their own language, being able to represent themselves will create a much stronger culture. And so that’s where, you know, we’re basically pushing, at least in British Columbia, for this type of decentralized type massing of real estate for the benefit of more generative growth model and getting all this kind of scattering of funding a little bit more secured and being able to push towards climate goals as well as equity goals at the same time. So we’re presenting a triple word score.

Jamie Bennett I love that. I also love that using the Community Land Trust is a way of getting us sort of past the settler notion of ownership and back into the notion of stewardship and what are the spaces, what are the lands that we are stewarding and using for a time. Kelly, you know, mayors are busy people. They have long lists of things that are on fire, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. You know, what what does it take to keep arts and culture at the top of Mayor Chow’s list?

Kelly Langgard Well, I think we’re actually really lucky in Toronto. Mayor Chow already has arts and culture at the top of her list. She’s an artist herself. She’s someone who really understands the various dimensions and benefits of the arts. And I would say also city council in Toronto is really excellent and city staff. I was thinking, Brian, as you were talking about also the importance of planning. Right. We can’t leave these things to chance. We actually have to plan for cultural infrastructure. We have to plan for those for for these longer term benefits. And in Toronto recently, just a few weeks ago, city council approved a new culture plan, a ten year culture plan for the city. There are people in this room who are really instrumental in making that happen. Pat Tobin, I think, is here somewhere. Paul Johnson, city manager, is still here. That is such an important thing for the city, for any city or any any region to have. And it’s a ten year plan. It has real investments. It has, you know, 1,000,000ft² of cultural space and new cultural space in the city in the next ten years and various mechanisms to make that happen. And, you know. I think that kind of plan, that deliberate expression from city council, from our mayor, about the importance of arts and culture, and then all of those partnerships in that co-creation with artists and arts communities will hopefully help to make that a reality.

Jamie Bennett Great. Thank you. Monique, the 1.2km is central to the identity of Montreal, whose culture gets celebrated, whose culture is held in that 1.2km. How does the group think about that?

Monique Simard All of them – there’s 80 venues and outside we have outdoors venues and we have indoors, small and big ones. So I just told you there’s 52 festivals. So I mentioned the jazz festival worldwide known, there’s also Presence Autochtone an Indigenous festival. And there’s also presence Arab – le festival du monde Arab. So it’s a gathering place. And what is most important when you say how do we make it that culture is on the top of the list? Well, it’s access to culture. It’s to give a taste of culture. How do you do that in a very multicultural city like Toronto? Montreal also is … Half of the people that live in Montreal weren’t born in Canada. So … and it’s you know, that’s a reality. So how do you bring them? So, of course, you have to program cultural activities that will attract them and of course, that are free because a lot of them don’t have money. So you just come and there it’s free and then you get the taste of it. So it becomes … and you have …. And when I said, Quartier des spectacles never sleeps, it’s true. Young people, they’re there during the night, you know, And then we have a new policy, La vie nocturne, in Montreal where, you know, it’s all around, you know, til 5:00 in the morning. So we have different groups that come in. And I am always astonished just walking and hearing Spanish, Arab, Russian, all these …. So there’s a thing for everybody. And that’s so important that you have to integrate that. And of course, the partnership makes us that we discuss these things amongst us and the different programmers of the different venues have this in mind because we’re just kind of a lab of discussion and open discussion on these issues of social issues. We talk about urban because, you know, we have challenges, like everybody makes it all big cities, urban issues, you know, with homelessness, drug related problems, etc.. So we talk also about these issues all together. So commercial because we have elections every year. Very happy to know there’s more candidates than … there’s always elections. You know, there’s always people that want to be a candidate and have to be voted in. But that’s … and we have electoral colleges, the cultural, the commercial, the institutional, and all brings this together that will make it try to be a space for everybody. There was a recent survey, what attracts people to Montreal and culture came in second place.

Jamie Bennett What was number one?

Monique Simard I think it was the Mont Royal or something like that. But culture, La Presse and Le Quartier des Spectacles – So I think that’s why I thanked Mr. Charlebois, because it was about, you know, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, to do this, and it worked out. So this small territory, but now we’re expanding. The city is always asking us, can you, you know, help the neighborhood, the village just beside our territory. And then during the pandemic, we worked with the Chinese neighborhood, the quartier chinoise -they were having a hard time and we said, okay, we’ll work with you. Now, La Place Ville Marie was a landmark place and they asked us to animate their public space. So our territory, it’s not officially our territory, but we’re expanding because the type of activities, public animation, animation of public spaces and different kinds of cultural or artistic creations outside are more and more attractive to people. So it’s an ongoing, ongoing work and it’s kind of working. I don’t want to minimize the problems we do have, but we do have some problems. But on the whole, it’s working. It’s working.

Jamie Bennett It’s great. I want to end in our last few minutes together by talking about people, not organizations, not institutions, but people. And culture is the glue, as I think you said. And you know, Brian, you sort of said, you know, is there a Beyoncé that’s sort of big enough to hold us all in Canada? When you think about Canadian culture and what is the thing that is big enough to hold us all and hold us all in our differences? Not the monolithic thing, but what is the cultural frame that’s big enough to hold everyone here and all the things that are important to us?

Brian McBay It’s a good question. I’m not sure. I think, you know, we do have to … We have a large geography to contend with. And when I come out from the West Coast over here, it feels like a different country. I think maybe, you know, some of the … Like I said, the courageous ideas around truths of this land, but also this idea that, you know, and part of it, we have our American neighbors, which the Americans are our friends, whether we like it or not. You know, that kind of … and a lot of culture is shaped by it. And the way that technology has shifted most of our communications. So that culture is being experienced online. You know, Taylor Swift is the kind of Muhammad Ali of the moment. Like it’s really reshaping our societies. But it’s … people are tuned into  at a global scale. We’re not shaping it here. We’re really, there’s a kind of pernicious force of American influence, which I think there’s also benefits, too. But Canada isn’t really at the table in terms of helping to shape that broader culture, because I do think it’s through relationships and trust. And getting there can’t be done only through – I think the policy can drive it and support it. But Multiculturalism Act, for example, didn’t outline a shift in the way spaces were going to be designed in this country. It sort of set itself up to fail in a way. Instead, we have an apologetic kind of American ish consumerism and individualism. I think people feel quite sad and there’s a lot of shame in the country. You know, of course there’s still joy. And but people have these pockets of of culture and and being able to bring that I think, into the mainstream is just a very difficult and that’s why I think people turn away from it. It takes time and courage and a lot of love and kindness. And so I, you know, I would say somebody said Gordon Lightfoot, I think someone said something like that. But, you know, we do need, hopefully ten years from now we have someone in Canada here who has those values. And we where we start to see that kind of fractured element or of different cultures as being something we can feel proud of, you know, something that we can recognize that it’s not like, oh, now we have to hide because we’re not …  We don’t have that totality of of pride around Canada.

Jamie Bennett That’s great. Kelly, ten years in the future, you’ve got a ten year cultural plan. What’s going to be different in Toronto in 2034 because the plan succeeds?

Kelly Langgard I think we have a city where everyone understands and sort of internalizes the idea that culture is, you know, arts and culture is part of their life. It’s part of their sort of daily existence. And as important to them as, you know, all of the all of the basic needs.

Jamie Bennett That’s great. Monique, you’ve had your wish granted. You’ve replicated your model all across Canada, spreading across North America. What’s different in our country? Because people have learned from the model of partnership.

Monique Simard I think that occupying cities, occupying public spaces. As spaces of gathering. And it starts with kids. You have to bring kids to these spaces. Not confined kids only to kids activities. No, but bring them to public spaces that they enjoy, that they be impressed by the activities that that can be organized. I think that makes it the sense of community. And. I hope that in ten years from now, every Montrealer can say, Quartier des Spectacles belongs to me as much to anybody that lives in this city and hopefully to everybody in Canada who hopefully will come and visit at some time because it’s great fun. And also that it’s … also we were northern country and I think that’s trying to find the links. We’ve had a new strategy which is called strategy hivernaire – that it’s not only summertime fun, it’s all year for fun and that also in the winter that there can be tons of things to do and that culture can express itself in all seasons, everywhere, inside and outside for all generations. And this is not a simplification. It’s not that easy. But if you put yourself to doing it and that you do partnerships and everybody goes in that direction, hopefully it can work.

Jamie Bennett That’s great. Madam Deputy Minister, as our high ranking federal official, you were seated in front of a bunch of people who are going to be working on Canada’s cities for the next ten years. They’re going to be thinking about roads. They’re going to be thinking about sewers, rainwater, the environment, the economy. What is it that you want this roomful of people to know about arts, culture and heritage for their work?

Isabelle Mondou Many things, but I will say only two for now. The first thing is that culture cannot be an afterthought. It has to be built in. I had the pleasure on Friday to meet some colleagues from Calgary who were coming because the thing the western part of Calgary will benefit from, you know, new construction around the building that exists there. So it really has to be, I think you used the word planning, it has to be thought of not as something that, you know, you think when you kind of put the drape on. It’s really, really at the beginning because it has to be built in and not kind of add on. The other thing I will say is that each of us has an impact in the city, but also the city of any part in the whole province and country. When I was young, I was living in the Laurentians and I would take the bus with the school two hours to go to Montreal to see some shows, not because there was not … there was in my community, but there was way more diversity in the city. There were all kinds of things that were happening. So the cities are important for the people who live in it, for the people around, but for the whole ecosystem. And that’s why this institution we are in one, this institution order programmation from across the country and help small, medium companies to survive. So the ecosystem of the city is important all across the system, if the city are not healthy, the whole ecosystem is not healthy.

Jamie Bennett Wonderful. So the bad news is that our time on stage has come to an end. The good news is that tomorrow I think we have two sector roundtables, one at 8:30 on public art, and at 10:30, Kelly, you and Patty Pan and others are going to be talking about what?

Kelly Langgard At the Ottawa Art Gallery at 10:30 …Jamie Bennett So with that, Isabelle, Monique, Kelly, Brian, thank you so much. Thank you all for giving us your attention.