Cultural Policy Brief

The City of Montreal has launched its Cultural Development Project 2017-2022, titled Savoir conjuguer la créativité et l’expérience culturelle citoyenne à l’ère du numérique (Knowing how to combine creativity and citizens’ cultural experience in the digital age).

On March 7th ELAN held a community consultation to discuss the proposed policy, the issues at stake, and the next five years of Montreal’s cultural development. Thank you to all attendees for their participation and ideas at this event. Many of your suggestions have been incorporated into the official brief. Click here to read ELAN’s brief in full!

On April 6th ELAN will present our brief to the Commission sur la culture, le patrimoine et les sports de la Ville de Montreal at City Hall around 2:30pm. Community members are welcome to attend.

Land Acknowledgement

ELAN is an official minority language organization within a country that recognizes two languages as official. ELAN is located in Tiohtià: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 Anishinaabemowin 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.