Cultural Policy: Origins, Evolution, and Implementation in Canada's Provinces and Territories

How do Canadian provincial and territorial governments intervene in the cultural and artistic lives of their citizens? What changes and influences shaped the origin of these policies and their implementation? On what foundations were policies based, and on what foundations are they based today? How have governments defined the concepts of culture and of cultural policy over time? What are the objectives and outcomes of their policies, and what instruments do they use to pursue them? 

Answers to these questions are multiple and complex, partly as a result of the unique historical context of each province and territory, and partly because of the various objectives of successive governments, and the values and identities of their citizens. 

Cultural Policy: Origins, Evolution, and Implementation in Canada’s Provinces and Territories offers a comprehensive history of subnational cultural policies, including the institutionalization and instrumentalization of culture by provincial and territorial governments; government cultural objectives and outcomes; the role of departments, Crown corporations, other government organizations, and major public institutions in the cultural domain; and the development, dissemination, and impact of subnational cultural policy interventions. 

Published in English.

Monica Gattinger is Director of the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science, Society and Policy, Full Professor at uOttawa’s School of Political Studies, and Chair of Positive Energy. She holds a PhD in public policy from Carleton University. Professor Gattinger’s research and engagement focus on the energy and arts/cultural policy sectors. Her work explores ways of strengthening governance, policy, and regulation in the context of fast-paced innovation, technological change, and markets; fundamental social and value change; and lower public trust in government, industry, science, and expertise.

Diane Saint-Pierre is professor at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS, Québec) and head of the research program on cultural policies of the Fernand-Dumont Chair on Culture at INRS. Her research in recent years has focused on comparative analysis and public management of cultural and heritage policies, as well as on culture, language and cultural diversity (including a forthcoming book in 2020), and cultural and territorial development. She has close to two hundred publications to her credit, including books, articles, chapters, conference proceedings, and reports.