Thank you for the opportunity to speak about cultural hubs and districts in Canada.
I'm here today as vice-president of the Creative City Network of Canada. The network is a national non-profit organization that facilitates collaboration, knowledge sharing, research, and professional development for the cultural sector at the local level through the development of cultural policy, planning, and professional practice. Our membership is primarily made up of municipalities and regional governments, with members from over 178 communities across the country ranging in size from 3,000 to 2.8 million and representing over 16 million Canadians.
The network's vision is that culture is a core pillar of sustainability, facilitating positive change through creativity and innovation and creating healthy, vibrant, and engaging communities across Canada. Through its work, the network helps build the capacity of local cultural planning professionals and, by extension, their local governments to nurture and support cultural development in their communities. By doing so, our organization aims to improve the operating climate and conditions of artists, arts, heritage, and cultural organizations and the quality of life in communities of all sizes.
Upon being invited to speak here today, we reached out to our members in asking them to define cultural hubs and districts and identify whether they currently have or are working towards having them in their communities. We learned that they exist or are in development in many of our member municipalities, and while we heard a consistent message in support of the development and benefits of cultural hubs and districts, it also became apparent to us that every member community was unique and that the type, scope, scale, and definition of each community's assets was extremely diverse.
As our communities are unique and varied, we must be creative and innovative in the development of the program and how we support the development of the sector and individual communities across the country. It is also important that the approach in terms of how we define and support cultural hubs is flexible.
While each community's definition varies, cultural hubs tended to be identified as specific spaces or a building where multiple creative and cultural service organizations and disciplines came together in one location to deliver programs, services, and opportunities. Cultural districts were identified as a series of cultural assets that are located in close proximity to each other, creating a sense of place geographically. When speaking about cultural districts, our members talked about the places between the spaces also being important in defining the district.
It is important to note that both cultural hubs and districts are happening in our communities organically and intentionally. They happen intentionally as a tool for community development, such as the regeneration of downtowns, to promote tourism, and to enhance engagement in community well-being.
In looking at similarities between hubs and districts, they both offer a high volume of facilities and activities that attract people. They enable a cross-pollination of ideas, sectors, and projects; they're dynamic, flexible, welcoming, and accessible; and, they serve a diverse community of artists, performers, creative entrepreneurs, and the public.
We also asked our members to tell us what role the government can play to help hubs and districts. We heard that municipalities are already playing an important and growing role in facilitating, delivering, and ensuring cultural activity at the local level. They're already supporting cultural hubs in a number of ways, including: inclusion in official planning documents; the development and enhancement of infrastructure and public spaces; funding and granting, both to existing hubs and not-for-profit organizations; and, amendments to zoning, bylaws, licensing, and permitting, as spoken about earlier today.
Our members feel strongly that culture is the fourth pillar of sustainability, and many municipalities have worked through extensive community consultation to develop cultural plans and policies. The cultural planning documents in many cases identified the development of districts or hubs within the communities.
Often, the ongoing challenge is funding for development, operations, and programming. In this regard, coordination between levels of government needs to be improved. We were very pleased to hear the statement to this committee by the director general of the arts policy branch that it is important for the Department of Canadian Heritage to have the opportunity to establish partnerships with municipalities and the provinces, and that they are looking to see how the department can support these centres.
We very much agree that municipalities, the provinces, and the department should be working together to develop funding agreements and frameworks for the development and renewal of cultural infrastructure. This recommendation was also made by the Canadian Arts Coalition in their statement to this committee when they requested that future provincial bilateral agreements be required to include a broad consideration of cultural projects. They correctly pointed out that at the provincial level there is a significant absence of programs parallel to the Canada cultural spaces fund and that organizations and municipalities are often left in a compromised position of lobbying provincial governments for discretionary matching funds.
We also heard from our members that funding is needed to support operations, programming, and ongoing activity within hubs and districts. As was mentioned earlier, they are by their very nature diverse and often do not fit neatly into the existing funding streams that are focused on single disciplines, such as performing or visual arts, or on very specific outcomes often identified through economic development programs.
Creative and cultural industries have a positive impact on our communities. They nurture the soul of our country. We encourage embracing culture as a fourth pillar of sustainability.
In closing, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak today and would encourage future collaboration with the Creative City Network and our membership in the development of your programs.