July 10, 2026.
Arts Champion Needs Funding!
“The Canada Council is starting the 2026-27 fiscal year with nearly $10 million less. This follows government reductions announced in 2023 that take full effect starting this year, and they represent a permanent decrease.” Michelle Chawla, Director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Professional artists face the existential threat of foreign owned AI engines scraping up their creative properties, while the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) faces a severe budget cut and the whole Canadian arts and culture sector faces unmet challenges to creating sector wide awareness of trustworthy AI engines for training. Who provides the best real world protections of creators’ ownership rights? How could we develop a national brand advantage in the application of a Canada first path in generative AI?
Canada Council’s new strategy – Together with the Arts – Strategic Plan for 2026-2031, offers a path to securing answers. The CCA recognizes uncertain times are motivating their profound shift to deepen connections with the arts community by being responsive to their realities and enhancing the complementary roles played by CCA. Witness their new Direction 1 – Strengthen the resilience and well-being of the arts sector.
At the AI Summit in Banff, the Canadian Coalition for the Arts noted that no one addressed the concern that current systems are not equipped to manage technologies that are already trained on artistic and cultural works, operating without attribution or compensation. This underlines the trust hurdle that is preventing rapid adoption of generative AI.
The newly announced national AI For All policy makes earning Trust their number 1 principle.
The CCA has the trust, the communications connections and a reinvigorated will to champion this educational opportunity to use shared knowledge to develop genre and regional partnerships, to quickly help protect the sovereignty of Canada’s arts and culture sector by bringing the arts community together to explore the AI opportunities and their impacts.
We urge that CCA produce an extraordinary emergency proposal for supporting national AI education for the arts, funded by the Canada Strong Fund, or the Canadian Tech Growth Fund both capable of funding AI education and rights protection programs for the arts and culture sector.
With funding, AI For All in The Arts could be implemented through a network of existing organizations, led by Canada Council fueled with trustworthy answers and best practices recommendations capable of engaging and enabling all constituencies. Ask your MP to get together with the arts and fund the new Canada Council.
Mike Douglas
Executive Director, Mississauga Arts Council