Minister of Culture: instructions for use

Four months after his arrival at the head of the Ministry of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe offered himself a first major media tour. Finally he talked about the hot files that are on his desk.

Of course, how Quebec wants to interfere in federal Bill C-11 regulating online streaming is on top of the pile. Political opportunism, some have claimed. Too little, too late, judge others. Sword in the water, think the pessimists.

But for a group of observers, including myself, the Quebec government is right to assert its cultural specificity. For the moment, Mathieu Lacombe is entitled to the silence of Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage, responsible for implementing this law. Should we be surprised?

I was looking forward to meeting Mathieu Lacombe. In January, during an interview request, I was asked to be patient. Wednesday, at the offices of The Pressthe Minister brought out his great enthusiasm to answer my questions.

Because it must be said, if his predecessor Nathalie Roy had to manage a crisis, Mathieu Lacombe is responsible for putting the train back on track. It won’t be any easier for him.

Regarding the Blue Spaces, a controversial concept from which he inherited, he swore to me that he believed in its potential 100%. Allow me to doubt it… He refuses to talk about the timetable for its deployment, but we understand that it is not tomorrow the day before that we will see the complete network of 18 spaces.

On the post-pandemic aid that the cultural community hopes to see extended, he assures “that he will not let it drop” after the budget of next March 21. On the inflation of costs in infrastructure projects, he recognizes that great vigilance is required.

In this respect, Mathieu Lacombe will have several cauldrons to watch: the Musée d’art contemporain (a file that he literally has before his Montreal office), the moving of the Maison Théâtre, the renovation of the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Espaces bleus projects… All of these projects could be affected by inflation in the construction sector.

But it was about his vision of culture in Quebec that I was most looking forward to hearing from him. Mathieu Lacombe raised his hand to obtain this ministry. What does he want to do with it? What are its priorities? For the moment, we have often heard him say that he wanted to give young people a taste for culture. But still ?

“Beyond the fact that I love our artists and what we produce, I believe that culture is the cement of Quebec society, more than language. What makes us Quebecers? It’s our culture, otherwise we can become Parisians or Belgians. I think my role is to ensure that our culture can face the future. It may sound general, but I have to have this goal in mind every time I make a decision. »

Mathieu Lacombe is right to say that culture is the “foundation on which everything else is built”. But how can a minister pour this cement in a few years? Like other ministries, Culture is a game of musical chairs. Go back to the list of successive Ministers of Culture since 1961 in Quebec and you will be dazed.

Stays of two years or a few months are frequent. It is not for nothing that when we cite “legacy” as an example, they come above all from ministers who served a full mandate (Mathieu Lacombe moreover mentioned the Société de développement des entreprises culturelle, or SODEC, a legacy of Liza Frulla). To this “long reign”, we can add those of Georges-Émile Lapalme (the very first), Clément Richard, Lise Bacon, Agnès Maltais, Line Beauchamp, Christine St-Pierre and Hélène David.

We observe the same thing in France. Have you noticed that we always come back to the historic achievements of André Malraux and Jack Lang, two ministers who occupied the seats of Culture for… around ten years?

Both federally and provincially, the Ministry of Culture is too often considered a consolation prize, an intermediate position while waiting for something better. There have been solid and visionary Ministers of Culture and others who have gone down in history for less than rosy reasons.

In 2017, I met Jean-Noël Tremblay, who held this role from 1966 to 1970. Fifty years after the creation of sisters-in-law, he told me in a tone worthy of the Brothers of the Christian Schools that this play by Michel Tremblay was not “real theatre”. I couldn’t believe my ears.

Le passage éclair (February 1972 to February 1973) by Claire Kirkland-Casgrain (parodied by Dominique Michel in Bye bye 72) gave the idea to the literary journal Young Theater to launch a contest: “Find the name of the next Minister/ess of Cultural Affairs! »

Rare are the cases where specialists from the world of culture are recruited during campaigns in anticipation of this role, as is done with candidates who have solid knowledge of law, economics, health or education.

And then, a few days before the announcement of those who will hold a ministry, one wonders who would do best in culture and communications. Sixty years after the creation of this department by Jean Lesage, it is high time that we begin to see things upstream.

A few months after his arrival at the Ministry of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe recognizes that the “very romantic” vision he had of his new role has changed. “Every day, I realize that there are piping issues. »

In saying this, he identifies the great particularity of this ministry. Culture is a world of dreams, creativity, innovation and glamour. But it is also an industry that is experiencing crises, experiencing ups and downs and whose requests are as numerous as they are diverse.

The danger is to privilege one of these universes to neglect the other. A Minister of Culture must know how to dream and make people dream. But he also has to worry about screws and bolts. And God knows if the world of culture has taken on the appearance of set to rise in recent years.

Mathieu Lacombe is the 29^e Minister of Culture that Quebec once knew. Let’s hope that he becomes familiar with the instructions for use very quickly so that he can happily pour his cement during a full mandate.