Director's Message - November 2019

A federal election is always an important opportunity for a public conversation about our collective priorities. Arts and Culture were not particularly prominent this time around, although ELAN joined with two dozen other arts organization to take out a full page ad in Le Devoir addressed to the party leaders. Part of the reason that Arts and Culture were less urgent in 2019 was that funding was increased considerably last year, both federally and provincially.

Climate was a much bigger issue this year. About 500,000 concerned citizens, many of them too young to vote, marched through the streets of Montreal on September 27 for the international climate strike. ELAN staff joined many other arts organizations marching among a sea of vividly expressed banners. Some were hopeful and humorous, many were bleak and dire. We can hold different views about the gravity and urgency of climate change, and can vote for different parties to address the problem, but it was good for democracy and the planet to give this issue top billing in 2019.

Guy Rodgers

Executive Director

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.