Year in Review: State of the Arts on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion

The State of the Arts (SOTA on EDI) project launched this year to begin a conversation about the present state of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion practices in Quebec English-speaking arts, culture, and heritage. The team personally engaged with 919 individual artists, cultural workers, and organizations across 12 regions in Quebec. SOTA on EDI launched two surveys which ran from November 1-30 to capture and understand the current state of the arts, heritage, and culture sector.

One survey sought to understand what equity, diversity, and inclusion can look like on an organizational level through the surveying of executive directors, board members, and collective members of groups across Quebec.

The second survey aimed to understand the needs around equity, diversity, and inclusion of individual artists, cultural workers, and heritage workers across Quebec.Using this research, the project is preparing to move into its next phase.

The goal for the new year is to build on the information shared in the survey by organizing focus groups to deepen understandings of experience and move toward actions. The greater goal for 2023 is to build trust, between the project and community members, between individuals, and organizations.

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.