
Arts & Community Advocacy
ELAN became a member of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) in 2006, and held a seat on the board for several years. ELAN collaborates closely with QCGN in many interventions in Ottawa. More importantly, ELAN works closely with QCGN and its members to ensure that community leaders appreciate the value of arts and culture as vectors of community vitality, positive identity, and youth retention.
ELAN works with Canada Council, CALQ and CAM to organize information sessions and grant writing workshops for English-speaking artists.
In 2018, ELAN received funding from the Secretariat for Relations with English-speaking Quebecers. One component of this new Government Relations project is to establish an Arts, Culture and Heritage Working Group in Quebec with participation from CALQ, SODEC, the Ministries of Culture and Education, and Télé-Québec.
Meeting with Canada Council for the Arts’ CEO Simon Brault.
Official Languages Advocacy
ELAN’s main funding source has been the Department of Canadian Heritage, under provisions of Canada’s Official Languages Act. ELAN is frequently invited to Ottawa for consultations with Parliamentary Committees and the Senate Standing Committee.
In collaboration with la Fédération culturelle canadienne-française (FCCF), ELAN ensures that arts and culture are well represented as important elements of community vitality.
The Official Languages Act celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019 with year-long, cross-country consultation, seeking ways modernize the Act. ELAN was actively involved in consultations in Ottawa and Montreal.
Broadcast & Production Advocacy
Since 2008, in collaboration with Kirwan Cox, who became Executive Director of the Quebec English-language Production Council (QPEC) after serving several years on ELAN’s board of directors, ELAN has made dozens of interventions to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), regarding broadcast policy and broadcasters’ licence renewals.
In 2018, ELAN joined a community media consortium with three community media partners (two representing radio, TV and newspapers in minority French-language communities across Canada, and the Quebec Community Newspapers Association). ELAN is filling a gap by representing English-language Community Radio in Quebec, with assistance from Hugh Maynard.
NFB, ONF Agreement (2015).
Arts, Culture & Heritage Working Group
In 2010, ELAN collaborated with the Department of Canadian Heritage to organize an annual Arts, Culture and Heritage Working Group meeting with federal departments and agencies, including Canada Council, Telefilm, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
Archives
Over the course of ELAN’s 15 years, we’ve archived surveys, arts research, workshop materials, panel transcripts, project reports, policy papers, briefs and public statements on important issues, press releases, and other media. These archives will soon evolve into a Digital Library!
Further Reading
Statistical profile of artists in OLMC (Canadian Heritage, 2011)
The Creative Economy and the English Speaking Communities in Quebec (QUESCREN/Industry Canada, 2012)
Portrait of Official-Language Minorities in Canada – Anglophones in Quebec (Statistics Canada, 2010)
Decline and Prospects of the English-Speaking Communities of Québec (Government of Canada & Canadian Institute for Research on Linguistic Minorities, 2012)
Support Arts Advocacy
Membership is a direct way to build relationships with us, help us to accurately represent your needs, and shape policy. To ensure that our advocacy work and projects truly reflect the needs of the English-speaking arts community, we depend on our members to share their concerns and opinions with us.
460 Sainte-Catherine West
Suites 706 & 708, 917 (Quebec Relations)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3B 1A7
Phone: (514)-935-3312
admin@quebec-elan.org
ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtiak:ke, the original name for Montreal in Kanien’kéha, the language of the Mohawk—also known as Mooniyang, which is the Anishinaabeg name given to the city by the Algonquin. While we are based in this city, our projects have also taken place in many regions across Quebec.
We acknowledge the colonial origin of English and French in Canada, and recognize that both languages benefit from official status throughout the land. The province that we know as Quebec is an amalgamation of the traditional territories of the Innu and Inuit nations, Algonquian nations, as well as the Mohawk nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Kanien’kéha and Anishinaabeg are but two of the original languages of this province; Atikamekw, Cree, Inuktitut, and Innu-aimun are also among the many Indigenous languages spoken across Quebec as majority languages, all well before French and English.
ELAN acknowledges the important work being done by First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples to revive the traditional languages of these territories, and their advocacy for the official status of Indigenous languages.