Canada Council

The Canada Council for the Arts was introduced by parliament in 1957. It is a Crown corporation which funds Canadian artists and encourages the production of art in Canada.

The Canada Council is an arms-length government corporation that is supervised by the Department of Heritage. Its main duty is alloting grants to Canadian artists based on the merits of their applications. The council also judges many of Canada's top arts awards, including the Governor General's Awards.

The council has five main divisions, each of these coordinates grant giving to a different area of the arts.

• visual arts
• media arts
• dance
• music
• writing

These are complemented by three groups that work with all the sections:

• aboriginal art, to foster First Peoples art in all media
• equity officer, to encouraged diversity in arts funding
• intermedia arts, to deal with proposals that transcend traditional media

The Canada Council also supervises the Art Bank and the Public Lending Right Commision.

Each year the council recieves some 16 000 grant requests, these are veted by panels of artists set up by each division of the council. The council gives grants to about 6000 artists each year. The total budget for the council is ~130 000 million dollars (2003).