The Cultural Affairs sector of the Department of Canadian Heritages has undergone a process of policy, program and organizational transformation in response to the ongoing importance of Canada’s cultural sector and the transformative power of digital technologies. Jean-Pierre Blais, Assistant Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs, describes the journey taken and lessons learned.

 

It is surprising to many of us, now, that the first commercial use of the gramophone was not music but business dictation. The shifting, interdependent relationship between business and culture has had much to do with my journey at the Department of Canadian Heritage toward adapting to digital technology to continue supporting cultural creation. The experience has taught me about the importance of leadership and human resources to the future of Canada’s public service.

My department’s Cultural Affairs sector is responsible for framework legislation, such as the Broadcasting Act and the Copyright Act that shapes the health of cultural creation in Canada. Through our grants, contributions and tax credits, we invest approximately $875 million a year in creating books, television programs, films, magazines, non-daily newspapers, music and theatre. We also support national training institutions that prepare the next generation of Canadian artists.

Of course, we are just one source of funding for cultural expression. The private and not-for-profit sectors, ticket buyers, readers, donors, artists, creators, publishers and producers all contribute. Provincial, territorial and municipal governments also lend their support, while other federal institutions play an important role: the National Film Board, CRTC, CBC, the National Arts Centre, the Canada Council for the Arts and Telefilm Canada.

This investment is important to our social and economic prosperity. Canada’s arts and culture sector represents $46 billion of our GDP. Over 600,000 jobs depend on this sector, which is three times the size of our insurance industry and twice the size of our forest industry.

Recognizing the importance of Canada’s cultural sector to the quality of our social, cultural and democratic life and the transformative power of digital technologies, we began a process of policy, program and organizational transformation. We started with a plan of action whose overriding objective was to position the department to provide the best advice to meet the challenges and leverage the opportunities of the digital age.

First, I established a taskforce to use innovative research on new technologies to analyse and challenge the basis of our thinking and actions. This gave rise to groundbreaking economic research and an international conference – in cooperation with the Conference Board of Canada – on the creative economy. The results provided clear evidence of the cultural sector’s significant contribution to the Canadian economy and its potential to make an even greater contribution by leveraging the power of digital technologies.

We then developed a modern vision for the cultural sector to better serve the diverse needs of Canadians, which led to reforming all federal cultural funding programs to ensure their relevance in the digital age.

The social and economic impact of technology can be both considerable and rapid. Culture, especially how we create and consume it, is often at the forefront of technological change. But it is difficult to predict exactly what the impact of technology will be. The 1886 dictaphone patent led to a $40-billion worldwide music recording industry. No one could have predicted it at the time. The risk for public policymakers is making wrong choices based on current knowledge. Given the opportunity, public servants would have chosen Beta over VHS as the standard for home video-recording devices – it was objectively better technology – but the market place chose VHS.

The gramophone shows how technology designed for one purpose can soon be adapted to another, often for entertainment or information sharing. Technology has changed; people have not. Once our basic needs are met, we like to have fun and share stories and experiences. The gramophone was invented for business, but became a source of musical entertainment – which, in turn, became a business itself. Similarly, the wireless phone, originally created for business, evolved into the smartphone or tablet: a veritable mobile information and entertainment centre.

Our policy renewal task was indeed daunting. When I look back on the context in which we operated, I realize it should have been positively scary: a series of unstable federal governments and minority Parliaments with six different ministers of Canadian Heritage since August 2003; a value-for-money audit by the Auditor General in 2007; “cuts” to culture as a key controversy in the 2008 federal election (complete with hard-hitting YouTube videos); and the need for almost all our programs to be renewed outside the normal budget cycle.

What does this mean for the human resource professionals interested in building the public service of tomorrow?

Leadership, teamwork and values

Strong and deliberate leadership was vital to the success of the Cultural Affairs sector.

I reorganized our sector to reflect the merging of traditional and new media and drive new, integrated thinking in our policy and program work and in our relationships with stakeholders. I ensured more transparency in reporting our results to Canadians by producing an annual report, which is now seen as a model, and by building the internal infrastructure to ensure due diligence, research, and sound human and financial resource management.

We established forums with key federal partners. We launched cross-Canada consultations on copyright, using innovative approaches to engage Canadians from all walks of life. We worked closely with central agencies and pressed on, despite the uncertain political context and tough economic times.

Through our ability to mobilize people, partners and ideas; my team’s extraordinary capacity for innovation and analysis; our ability to both conceptualize and deliver – and sheer determination – we implemented a remarkable transformation.

My role was to illustrate that values and ethics are our compass, dedication to public service and serving the common good our motivation. When the going got tough, I rolled up my sleeves and joined the team in the trenches.

However, leadership is not about a single individual; it is a shared responsibility. My directors general applied strategic thinking and used visionary skills. My role was to trust and support their efforts to build a policy and program framework that would provide a better future for Canada and Canadians in the digital world. I pushed my team to learn and grow as managers and leaders in the public service.

Attracting talent

In my view, too many managers, faced with pressures to hire people for an immediate need, place too much emphasis on candidates’ current knowledge rather than on potential or adaptability.

For example, copyright used to be a very technical matter. Technocrats spoke to technocrats alone for over 100 years. Things are now different: the public has views that need to be heard. Our consultations now include traditional written submissions by experts and non-experts, as well as comments through social media, webcast town halls, roundtable discussions and Twitter debates. This very active public requires public servants to be not only technically knowledgeable, but also savvy about communications and the emergence of new stakeholders. What we know today will not be enough to deal with the issues of tomorrow.

We also need to build cross-discip