For twenty-two years, Culture Montréal has been fighting in the field of ideas to anchor culture at the heart of the development of our metropolis. Twenty-two years of significant advances in politics, setbacks, but also bright spots that bring hope.
At a time when our societies are facing increasing challenges and the cultural sector is once again experiencing strong turbulence, we want to recall the vital importance of culture, a true antidote to the ills of our existence and to the disruption of world.
Culture elevates and binds us. It participates in self-construction and the training of critical thinking, while being a vector of encounters. It nourishes this fundamental need for social interaction which is at the heart of our human nature. It makes us aware of our environment and its fragility. It makes community life possible. It is an extraordinary lever for promoting French, designed as a language of openness and sharing.
Many territorial virtues
Culture also has many territorial virtues by promoting the quality of living environments. It makes our street and our neighborhood more livable. It rehumanizes our city. It contributes to economic dynamism by generating documented benefits for local businesses. It is one of the essential conditions for stimulating our city center.
Caring about culture means firstly taking care of the artists who allow it to exist. Artists must be able to live and create in the metropolis. The stagnation of funding for the three arts councils, the main instruments of support for the creative heart, endangers Montreal’s status as a cultural metropolis, that is to say what fundamentally distinguishes it.
At a time when our societies are facing increasing challenges and the cultural sector is once again experiencing strong turbulence, we want to recall the vital importance of culture, a true antidote to the ills of our existence and to the disruption of world
Citizen participation
Caring about culture also means supporting citizen participation. It means reinventing the financial model of festivals which, through their abundant offerings – free for some – shape the very identity of Montreal. It means investing in the network of libraries and cultural centers, which provide access to culture throughout the territory. It means reinvigorating cultural leisure and amateur artistic practice which are an extraordinary means of civic expression.
Caring about culture means promoting the development of our heritage by encouraging mobilizing projects that ensure the continuity of who we are, because there is no identity without a common history. It means taking a new look at regional planning by going beyond purely technical approaches to focus on what makes up the personality and authenticity of our metropolis. It’s betting on culture to revitalize eastern Montreal.
Caring about culture means having a vision for our metropolis.
However, we must recognize that our current societies are having more and more difficulty in projecting themselves and carrying out a project for the future for culture: fragmented initiatives lacking clear orientations, tinkering operations to temporarily fill in the gaps, decisions not concerted efforts that do not allow culture to face new realities, too often calculation replaces vision.
In its new strategic plan made public last Monday, Culture Montréal reaffirms its role as a laboratory of ideas and influence on public policies to have the capacity to propose new ideas. Over time, Culture Montréal has perfected its tools for consultation, reflection and intervention in public debate.
The organization has been at the heart of many major issues, such as the establishment of Rendez-vous Montréal, cultural metropolis or the recognition of artists’ studios.
Today, with this expertise, we are launching an appeal to the cultural community: let us reinvest our democratic authorities.
Two major consultations
The next two years will be decisive with two major consultations — that on the future 2050 Urban Planning and Mobility Plan and that on the City’s new Cultural Development Policy — as well as three elections: first federal, then municipal and finally provincial.
It is essential that stakeholders from all sectors working for the development of our metropolis join this mobilization in view of these crucial deadlines.
More than ever, we must act to defend our culture and instill an ambitious vision in our cultural metropolis.