ELAN Receives 3-Year Grant to Connect English-Language Artists to Provincial Funding Opportunities

On August 14, 2018, Kathleen Weil (minister responsible for relations with English-speaking Quebecers) announced that $6.9 million will be distributed to four organizations over the course of 3 years to increase and fortify connections between English-speaking artists and the government of Quebec. These organizations include: Community Health and Social Services Network (CHSSN), Literacy Quebec (LQ), Seniors Action Québec (SAQ), and English-Language Arts Network (ELAN).

ELAN will be using this 3-year grant towards a new project entitled:
A New Momentum for Quebec’s English-Speaking Artists.

This community-driven project will aim to:

Encourage English-language cultural organizations, as well as individual cultural workers and artists to participate fully in social, economic, and cultural life of Quebec.
Enhance visibility of English-speaking artists and bolster their capacity to collaborate and work in partnership with the Quebec government.

To reach these goals, ELAN will:

Document arts, culture and heritage funding opportunities.
Design a comprehensive directory of active ACH (Arts, Culture, and Heritage) organizations, which includes their missions, audiences, and needs.
Create a resource that matches individual artists (and their needs) and cultural organizations (and their needs) with funding opportunities that are currently available.
Establish a committee that brings government and ACH community representatives together to brainstorm and initiate projects.
Develop an Action Plan to make long-term impact using this project as a building block.

In addition to connecting English-language artists to funders and vice-versa, this project will identify new funding sources and help individual artists, as well as arts organizations in our community take full advantage of the support that is available to them.

Breakdown of funds:

Community Health and Social Services Network – $5.7 million
English-Language Arts Network – $400,000
Seniors Action Québec – $400,00
Literacy Quebec – $400,000

Links to Resources :

Press Release from Ministère du Conseil exécutif

CBC – Quebec unveils where $7M earmarked for Anglos will be invested

Global News – Quebec invests nearly $7 million in English-speaking community

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.