Rethinking arts and media funding – A new vision for Canada: Peter Menzies
August 26, 2025
Introduction
It has been 75 years since the Massey Commission wrote the guidebook for Canada’s cultural policies.
Back then, 29 per cent of Canadians spoke French as their mother tongue. Overall, 32 per cent could speak French, despite it not being recognized as an official language. Slightly more than 59 per cent of Canadians spoke English as their mother tongue. Today, only 20 per cent claim French as their mother tongue while slightly less than 57 per cent claim English as their heritage language. Both of these numbers have been in decline since 1986, while the number of Canadians who speak neither official language has grown to close to one in eight, or 12.7 per cent. That’s 4.6 million people.
When the Massey Commission was doing its work, there were only 13.7 million people in Canada. There were fewer than a million in Alberta, where the Leduc oil fields had just been discovered, and the entire population of Ontario – 4.6 million people – would have fit comfortably into today’s Greater Toronto Area (GTA), where 6.7 million people currently reside.
When it comes to matters of faith, the predominantly Christian country and very Roman Catholic Quebec of 75 years ago could not have imagined a nation in which mosques and Sikh temples populate city skylines and former United Church buildings function as community centres, restaurants and offices.
In 1950, millions of families were mourning, for the second time in less than 36 years, the loss of a family member in war. The fear of nuclear Armageddon was part of daily conversation.
The nation’s racial and ethnic composition is much different in 2025 than it was in 1950, as is the role and profile of Indigenous people. Canada’s de facto national flag was the Red Ensign. Everyone read newspapers, and only the very privileged had television sets.
The contrasts could continue. Suffice it to say, much has changed.
Certainly, Canada’s cultural institutions have tried to keep pace with the nation’s evolution. For instance, the Canada Media Fund and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have offered new funding to elevate the profile of Black Canadians, Indigenous people, LGBTQ2 communities, and other “underrepresented” groups.
IBF5
