Québec Relations: Mapping Provincial Arts Funding

Québec Relations Focus Group at ELAN, Research Coordinator Nick Maturo (left foreground). Photo by Guy Rodgers.

Funded for three years by the new Secretariat for Relations with English-Speaking Quebeckers, ELAN’s Québec Relations project has three main objectives: to identify all available funding sources within the provincial government, to help English-speaking arts organizations apply for new funding, and to set up a permanent working group with all provincial departments and agencies working in culture.

A second focus group met on November 8. This session yielded a number of practical suggestions for how we can help demystify the grant application process at the provincial level, and we will be working to incorporate these ideas into our project design. A third focus group session will take place in December before the holiday period.

Our efforts in documenting available funding sources is ongoing, and we are in the process of revising our repository of funding documentation based on early focus group feedback. While these documents already include English translations of important eligibility requirements and program criteria, expanded versions will add other practical information such as examples of previous grant recipients to allow applicants to better identify the kinds of grants that are applicable to their needs. Please note that these documents will be made public in the future. We are designing a format that will allow for maximum usefulness and accessibility.

Furthermore, we have been in contact with several organizations across a variety of sectors to develop partnerships and to share knowledge of non-traditional sources of funding for the arts. This will allow us to share expertise and offer practical guidance to potential applicants. We will announce the first of these efforts in early 2020.

Finally, we are continuing to reach out to English-language arts organizations across Quebec to participate in our survey. Interested organizations are encouraged to contact Nick Maturo at research@quebec-elan.org to receive the questionnaire or to request more information.

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