Director's Message - September, 2020

Guy Rodgers speaking at ELAN’s 2020 AGM via Zoom.
Photo: Juan Velasquez

ELAN held its 16th Annual General Meeting on August 24. It was our first online AGM and the first AGM not followed by a schmoozer. This is the year of doing things differently. I want to thank the 90 people who joined us via Zoom, and ELAN’s staff and project managers who made engaging presentations about the work they are doing. You can see all the details here in the 2020 AGM information package that contains Activity Reports, Audited Financial Statements, Budget and Team Bios. With considerable sadness we said au revoir to five board members: Karen Cho, Louise Campbell, Purna Bhattacharya, Lori Schubert and Keith Henderson.

ELAN members elected eleven board members for two-year terms. The four new board members are Brian D’Oliviera (Music), Emmanuel Hessler (Film and Video), Elise Moser (representing the Quebec Writer’s Federation) and Anna Scollan (Corporate). Returning board members are Li Li (President/Theatre), Kakim Goh, (Vice-President/Visual Arts), Angie Cheng (Treasurer/Dance), Patrick Lloyd Brennan (representing the Quebec Drama Federation), Isak Goldschneider (Music), Anna Levanthal (representing the Association of English Language Publishers of Quebec) and Roger Sinha (Dance). They join the six board members elected in 2019: Paul Bracegirdle (Writing & Publishing), Blair Mackay (Arts Presenting Organizations), Tim Piper (Regions), Deirdre Potash (Regions), Victoria Sanchez (Film and Video) and Quinten Sheriff (Visual Arts).

As most of you know, this was my last AGM as ELAN’s Executive Director. I am proud of ELAN’s dynamic, diverse board and our dedicated staff and I look forward to working with them during the coming months of transition and succession.

Here are a few screenshots from our 2020 AGM:

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.

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Land Acknowledgement