Art and Politics. Sarah Jennings

      To his credit, Pelletier wanted to engage the energies of governments at both the provincial and the municipal levels in his quest to spread the opportunities to produce art and cultural events. The ability to allow the provinces to undertake “educational” television was one of the early measures reflecting these principles—with André Fortier as one of Pelletier’s chief negotiators.

      So far as the National Arts Centre was concerned, Pelletier had shared his doubts about the institution and its director with Fortier. Their view of Southam was that “his attitude and way of doing things were those of an aristocrat,” an elitist, and his style of living grated on them.¹⁵ Most unfairly, they judged him as “doing something for himself and his friends at the Arts Centre, which looked more like an extended private club.”¹⁶ Southam, as we have seen, had a different view of elitism. He was not against democratizing the arts, but his vision was rooted in the concept of “centres of excellence,” and he firmly believed that these institutions could not be created by governments but occurred where “the arts were started by people and then encouraged.”¹⁷ It had been broad-based coalitions of the general populace, after all, that had created institutions like the CBC and the Canada Council—headed, it is true, by leading citizens who were often, though not exclusively, anglophone.

      There is no question that the two sides had decidedly different approaches, but the extent to which this conflict was affected by social rather than ideological factors— the francophones’ aggravation at Southam’s “airs and graces” versus Southam’s often patrician way of viewing the world—is hard to calibrate. Southam’s mannerisms indeed put Pelletier’s back up and, in his memoir published in the 1990s, he remarked on his distaste for the “long gowns and white gloves” approach that he thought the NAC represented.¹⁸ Southam, in turn, would later describe Pelletier as “well educated but not a man of the world” and as a “scatterer of the wealth.”¹⁹ No love was lost between the two men.

      While their differences were perhaps rooted in their individual starts in life, their views were also affected by their differing postwar experiences of providing art to the masses. Like Maynard Keynes in England, Southam had a view of what was “the best,” and he thought it his duty to present these performances to Canada and so raise cultural standards in the country. That “best” should be not only Canadian but from abroad, such as the Comédie Française or England’s National Theatre. He had been raised as an internationalist and believed that Canada had a larger role to play in the world, and not just within its national borders. In his mind, the NAC had been born into that international context. Pelletier, in contrast, subscribed more to the community-based French view, and he and Fortier privately thought the concept of the NAC “too old-school European.”²⁰ By strictly theoretical standards, their position was more democratic and their charge of elitism stung Southam, although there was really no difference between the goals of the two camps—they both wanted to increase access to the arts for individual artists and the public alike.

      Pelletier did not fully appreciate Southam’s quick-witted and shrewd diplomatic skill at adapting to and managing the evolving political situations. In this respect the director general was the consummate politician on behalf of the NAC. As Pelletier’s work began to build up steam, in March 1971, the NAC board, which held the power of appointment, renewed Southam’s contract as director general for another five years. Southam said later that, had it been in Pelletier’s power, he believed he would have been let go. Board chair François Mercier, with strong ties to the Liberal Party and the Trudeau government, liked Southam enormously, however, and he dealt with the reappointment expeditiously.