Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs and International Trade
Issue No. 40 - Evidence - Meeting of March 1, 2018
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 1, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met this day at 10:32 a.m. to study on the impact and utilization of Canadian culture and arts in Canadian foreign policy and diplomacy, and other related matters.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators,this committee has been authorized by the Senate to study the impact and utilization of Canadian culture and arts in Canadian foreign policy and diplomacy, and other related matters.
Under this mandate, the committee is pleased today to invite Ronald Grätz, Secretary General at the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, appearing again by video conference from Berlin, Germany. Mr. Grätz, we thank you for your commitment to helping us out in our study. While I understand there are still a few small video conference problems of noise, we’re going to persist and finish your testimony today.
Before we do that, I’m going to ask the senators to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene from Nova Scotia.
Senator Ataullahjan: Salma Ataullahjan from Ontario.
Senator Housakos: Leo Housakos, Quebec.
[Translation]
Senator Saint-Germain: Raymonde Saint-Germain from Quebec.
Senator Massicotte: Paul Massicotte from Quebec.
Senator Cormier: René Cormier from New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Cordy: I’m Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
Senator Bovey: Pat Bovey from Manitoba.
Senator Dawson: Dennis Dawson, Quebec.
The Chair: And I’m Raynell Andreychuk from Saskatchewan, chairing the meeting.
We had the start of your presentation. I’m going to remind senators that the biography on your achievements has been circulated, so I’m not going to take the time to fully introduce you with your background and expertise; they have it on hand.
Mr. Grätz, I’m going to turn to you immediately. I trust that you can hear me. We welcome you again to the committee. Please start your presentation, and then we will have questions.
Ronald Grätz, Secretary General, Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations, Germany: Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. It is a pleasure and honour to present to you the principles, instruments and experiences of German cultural relations and educational policy because I think it’s an exceptional way that we organize it. With your permission, I would like to repeat the whole presentation — it’s only six minutes — to have the whole spectrum.
As a short historical replication first, after the Second World War, an important principle of German politics was established. The government had no direct access to culture and education, neither domestically nor abroad. This reflects the conviction that the structuring of the cultural dialogue must be independent of politics and must not be instrumentalized by it. Cultural policies are therefore part of the responsibility of the 16 federal states in Germany, and foreign, cultural and educational relations abroad are carried out by a large number of so-called intermediary organizations in good cooperation with the Federal Foreign Office.
External cultural relations are established as the third pillar of external relations, alongside diplomacy or security policy and foreign trade policy. The Commissioner for Culture and the Media is a supreme federal authority, with its own area of responsibility. It’s not a ministry. Her portfolio includes the promotion of nationally important cultural institutions and the improvement of the general conditions of art and culture in Germany.
Coming back to the intermediary organizations, such as the Goethe-Institut and my institute — we call it IFA — we are not state and we are not civil society but non-profit associations that have concluded a framework agreement with the federal republic of Germany, represented by the Foreign Office, outlining and financing their activities abroad. The specifications of this framework agreement are made in target agreements, which are made by both parties for three to five years. Agreeing means really agreeing; no directives can be given. The relationship with the Foreign Office is trusting, collegial and open. That is why our institutes are called “at arm’s length.”
This construction has several consequences. Foreign cultural relations are not understood as nation branding, not as economic development and are not government action. In an important programmatic speech, former Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier formulated in 2014 that foreign cultural relations is not about advocacy but about responsibility for the world, that in this context, we are not talking about the state but about society and that cultural relations are based on the principle of dialogue and equivalence, with the aim of promoting trust in Germany worldwide.
Above all, the creation of open spaces is at the forefront of dialogue and discourse, creative work and understanding. Therefore, the intermediary organizations’ work is not about cultural diplomacy but cultural relations or cultural dialogue.
Part of the exhibitions we are showing is an extensive side program that serves as a platform for the critical reflection of one’s own position and that of others. It includes the perception that the main actors of external cultural relations are civil society, cities and regions, not the government. The concept of culture underlying this approach covers all areas of social life, from religion to sport, from human rights to conflict prevention, from development to art.
The previous dialogue approach in cultural relations has changed in recent years towards formats of stronger cooperation and, above all, co-production, meaning the joint negotiation of artistic and social issues with actors from other societies. According to our understanding, international cultural work starts to defend the freedom of opinion, science and art.
The promotion of German as a foreign language has been expanded in recent years in all areas of education. A central element of this is the worldwide network of the Goethe-Institut, whose physical presence on the ground is extremely important, and a large network of Germany schools abroad and so-called partner schools with German lessons. The science cooperation, or let’s say scientific diplomacy, were also strengthened.
In total, 1.767 billion euros were spent on foreign cultural and educational policy in Germany in 2016. Of that sum, 861 million euros came from the foreign office. Experience shows that the generally good reputation that Germany enjoys abroad has been built up over generations and, if such a reputation is to be described as a narrative about our country, then it is that of a trustworthy, fair and transparent partner who is looking for intercultural understanding.
It is an important realization that cultural relationships are formed when human relationships are created. That means exchange programs are an important tool in the context of foreign cultural relations. Creating access to culture and education across political, geographical, cultural and social borders is central to this.
Due to current developments that dissolve borders, such as a stronger networking of civil society actors and migration, the nexus between internal and external cultural policy is increasingly being promoted to, inter alia, exploit synergies of the numerous initiatives and projects of cultural actors from Germany.
Of course, we are strategically operating in key countries such as China, Russia, the U.S.A. — what we call the “year of Germany in the U.S.A.” is about to begin — Africa and, of course, Europe. We work together with a global network of cultural professionals, institutions and networks to address global challenges, addressing it as a global alliance of cultural actors.
Furthermore, we develop strategies for working in autocratic states, systematically expand the field of digital communication — or, let’s say, digital diplomacy — and accompany all our actions, also scientifically, not only to make projects but to make something out of projects. There, the IFA is one of the world’s leading think tanks, with the largest specialist library on cultural exchange worldwide. This goes as well for the field of further education on cultural relations and educational policy topics, from digital diplomacy to, for example, understanding Russia.
We are very happy to offer our support to Canada in the process of strengthening its international cultural relations and realigning its foreign cultural policy and to continue the exchange on that topic in the future. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Grätz. You kept to the time frame, and you certainly have put forward Germany’s official position and the work that you’re doing in a very succinct way and a very unusual way. I think your approach is very different to that of Canada and very much worth exploring.
Senator Oh: Thank you for your presentation. Can you explain what the German government does to promote your culture in this world of new technology? What challenges do you face in international initiatives in today’s mobile world?
Mr. Grätz: Let me repeat to understand you correctly. The first question was to promote German culture? Is that right?
The Chair: Perhaps it’s not coming through. It’s how you use the promotion of culture through the digital society today. That was the basis of the question, I believe. Right, Senator Oh?
Senator Oh: Yes.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Grätz: Well, I think whether you call it digital diplomacy or to use social networks is one of the key issues and the key challenges nowadays.
For example, first, we have to see that we lost our target groups a little bit. If you use, for example, Facebook, everybody in the world is your target group and you have to communicate with them.
The second one is that we have to face that our dialogue partners are not only the decision makers of tomorrow or the elites or the political opinion leaders, but everybody. That changed our strategy a lot. We created our institute, but we also have an academy inside our institute that offers training for diplomats as well about this issue. We are planning campaigns and management in social networks. We see the social networks as a tool for international cultural relations.
We try to influence, as well, the agenda setting with digital distribution forums, but to tell you the truth, we are at the beginning. I’m not really sure that I should use Twitter every day. Maybe. As well, we need in our institute a social media orientation for everybody. It’s a complicated issue and we are learning. We see that maybe it becomes the key communication channel for us.
We are discussing, as well, risk management on social network media and good practices. We are collecting and recently published — if you’re interested, I can send you the link to this. It’s a study of our research program. It’s called Digital Training Camp: Taking traditional diplomacy in the digital age. There we looked for best practices and we looked for the challenges, the problems and the risks. We analyzed that, for example, digital participation is an important issue nowadays in foreign politics.
I hope that answers your question.
Senator Oh: Yes. Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Grätz, that document you referred to would be extremely helpful for us, so if we could get a copy through our clerk who contacted you, it would be very much appreciated.
Mr. Grätz: I will send a link to your office to a lot of stuff about digital diplomacy. As well, I will give you some information about the structure of the training on digital diplomacy that we offer as well as for German diplomats, because everyone is at the beginning of that. We have to learn a lot.
Senator Cordy: It’s always interesting to see how other countries are using their diplomacy — cultural diplomacy, in this case. You certainly have a broad spectrum of things that fall under that definition.
When you were speaking to us, you spoke about making something out of the projects. I’m just wondering, before you do a cultural exchange, do you set goals before that happens? Do you determine which would be most helpful to Germany or which ones wouldn’t be effective? Do you have that kind of strategy in place?
Mr. Grätz: No, we actually don’t. The new format we tried to organize is a co-production.
For example, our institute is organizing exhibitions of contemporary art from Germany. The first important issue is art from Germany, not German art. We also show in our exhibitions artists from Colombia, South America, Turkey or Iran because they are living in Germany. So for us, it’s our understanding it’s contemporary art from Germany. Not always, but we’re trying it now.
The main part, we came from the dialogue to the cooperation, and now we are in the step of co-production. For the next exhibition, we invited eight curators from around the world, from India, China, Brazil and Africa. We asked them, “What would be interesting for you to see as contemporary art from Germany?” Then we create an exhibition that is a module always, and we bring it to the country where these curators live, with the aim to complete the exhibition with local artistic positions. In every country, we have a different exhibition, always completed by the local perspective.
The goal of this is to see what are our common interests and common issues. What should we discuss? For example, the issue of freedom nowadays. We have the impression that we lost it, or the definition: What is freedom? Mr. Erdogan, as well, saying all the journalists in Turkey are free. So we look at how the artists are reflecting on freedom. That’s new. We’re trying it. Every exhibition has, as well, an educational part and a discussion part.
You asked about making something out of the projects. With the rich experiences we made with our exhibitions and what our institute learned about that, the exhibitions changed with us, and we should learn. So our position is a learning position, not a position of promoting something. Of course, you promote something in an indirect way, but that’s not the main goal. It’s really to speak and discuss on the same level.
Senator Cordy: I think what you’re saying is that you look at the whole sphere of culture and the importance of culture to the people of Germany and a reflection of the people within Germany. If I were to ask you how you measure the cultural diplomacy strategy, it would be just what you stated, that it’s the promotion of culture within the country and from outside.
Mr. Grätz: Yes. It’s to create a reputation, to create trust by being as open as possible to the interests of others and to let others influence our foreign cultural policy. That’s the real way to create a dialogue and to think more about how to create a platform for exchange and not to send something for them to say, “Well, it’s beautiful.”
Senator Cordy: Thank you.
Senator Saint-Germain: My question was the same as Senator Cordy’s, but I have another one. It is related to independence. Thank you for your introduction, because your intervention will bring, I’m sure, a great added value to this committee. You said from the beginning that independence, especially from politics or from governments, is very important for you. Where does your funding come from? In link with the measurement of your efficiency, what are your criteria in order to try to bring more financing or funding to your institute?
Mr. Grätz: My institute is funded 90 per cent by the foreign office. The Goethe-Institut, I’m not really sure, but it’s more or less 60 or 70 per cent funded by the foreign office. The rest is language courses, for example. Of course, we are always looking for funding from other ministries or, let’s say, foundations or the European Union, for example.
It’s a little difficult to explain. We are not completely independent, and we are not civil society, but we are not state. We are something in between. Sometimes we call us a quasi-NGO. Of course, it’s not completely independent. Our aim is to always work in a very collaborative, good and trusted way with the foreign office.
The only point is we, as well, discuss with the foreign office what would be the best kind of approach, the best formats and issues in foreign cultural relations, because we have the experience. Of course, they have some information on their amnesties, for example. But we also work closely together with the Goethe-Institut. We have, as well, our experiences. It’s a different experience than that of state, of the embassies, because we have no interests. Nobody thinks that we have any interests. We have responsibilities but no interests.
Of course, we try not to convince about Germany or German culture. We try to convince that it’s always the best to have a dialogue and to discuss things together.
Senator Saint-Germain: I’m interested in knowing more about your funding, this 90 per cent coming from the foreign affairs department. Here we very often receive comments from artists that try to get funding from Global Affairs or other public departments. These artists tell us that the criteria for funding artists are so technocratic and very often they’re linked to an official relationship with the department. I’m interested in knowing, out of your 90 per cent — which is the majority of your funding — are there binding criteria coming from the department that you have to respect and abide by, or do you have a margin of manoeuvres in order to be able to fund some initiatives or try to experiment in some fields?
Mr. Grätz: There are two aspects. The first one is that every department of the institute has a board. Very often, it’s not our decision. It’s a decision by the boards. For example, the art department is built by artists, by curators and directors from museums, so it’s not only our decision.
The second thing is, we try to bring German positions to international exhibitions. If there is any exhibition in the world, let’s say a biennale, and they say, “Germany is not presented here,” we look for an artist, or we ask them which artist would be interesting for them, and we would support the artist to participate in this biennale. Sometimes the artists come to us and they say, “We’re interested to show some of our work in a gallery in Iran.” So we ask our board if the quality of the artists is high enough to be presented by IFA in this gallery, and if they say “yes,” then we support them.
Senator Ataullahjan: I’m interested in the scholarship program that the IFA has for young professionals and volunteers from Germany and Islamic States to work together in another country to have a better understanding of each other. Can you expand a bit on this program, when it was started and how you measure its success? Just looking at what is happening in the world, I think it is an incredible idea to do a program like this with meeting in a neutral country to understand each other.
Mr. Grätz: The program is called the Cross Cultural Program and it’s now about 10 years old. In these 10 years, we’ve brought nearly 1,000 young professionals, beginning with the Islamic world. We now have what we call “the module” for Russia and Belarus and the Ukraine. We would like to start with a number of people from Turkey now — not because it’s a Muslim country but because its relationship with Germany is complicated.
You have to bring people together, simply because cultural dialogue works only to change a bit of the point of view of everyone. It’s done one by one. The experiences are different. For us, a lot of them have cultural shock when they come to Germany because it’s so different from their countries. The first thing is they have to stay one or sometimes two weeks with us in Berlin or in Stuttgart to acclimatize and learn how Germany works — that is, the values, the positions and obviously women. It’s very different. That’s the first thing.
The experiences are very good — not always, but for about 80 per cent it’s very good. I will give you an interesting example. One woman from Abu Dhabi, I think, came to Germany and worked for five months or so with the Kinder Kanal, a children’s channel on TV. She then went back to Abu Dhabi and ,in the state broadcasting company, she created, after the model of Germany, the same TV channel only for children. I think that is beautiful history. It is a beautiful story to see the impact of this program as well.
Our experience in cultural relations involves a lot of impacts that you will only see after generations. You must have patience for the result of cultural relations. We invite about 100 people to Germany every year, and we have more than 1,000 who apply for this program.
Senator Ataullahjan: To follow up, you say that some of the young people who come to Germany experience a culture shock. What has been the experience of some of the young Germans when they interact? What has their experience been?
Mr. Grätz: Well, when there are about 100 people changing their culture and societies, about 90 come from the Islamic countries and 10 per cent are Germans who go to Islamic countries. There are more interested in Germany than Germans are interested in working for half a year in Islamic countries, unfortunately. They don’t experience the same shock as the others. Maybe they are better informed or have a different self-image. I don’t know. For the Germans, it’s easier to survive in the Islamic countries than for the others here in Germany.
Senator Ataullahjan: Maybe the perception one has of the Islamic world is not as bad as people would think. I don’t know. Thank you.
Mr. Grätz: That may be.
The Chair: Senator Ataullahjan, was your question about the students who come to Germany, other students who are not part of the program but interact in the community, or were you talking about students who go to the Islamic countries?
Senator Ataullahjan: I was talking about both. The witness said the students who come from Islamic countries have a culture shock, so I wanted to know what was in the reserve. That is, when German students go to Islamic countries, what is their experience? After all, they are going to different countries. I got my answer, so thank you.
Senator Cormier: Thank you for your presentation, sir. I come from the arts and culture sector. I’m a musician and a theatre person, and I have to admit that I’m totally impressed by the approach you have. I’m amazed how you put the artist in the centre of your strategy. I’m amazed when you say that it’s not Germany’s art but art from Germany. I find that in your approach, you respect the creation, the artist and their ability to bring strong dialogue on important questions like freedom. This sounds like an ideal situation to me. What are the challenges that you face as an institute in your relations with government? It seems that artists are quite free. You’re talking about no nation branding and non-instrumentation, if I may say. I’m interested to hear about your challenges because it seems so ideal.
Mr. Grätz: Of course, there are challenges and, of course, it doesn’t always work this way, but we work hard to make it more successful.
What are the challenges? The challenges nowadays are how to work in dictatorships and how to create a dialogue in countries like, let’s say, from the Arabic world, in the Gulf states, for example. That’s really difficult. We always say that if the political dialogue is broken, we have to continue. We have to be there. Independent of what happens, we can’t leave the countries. That’s a challenge, because there, it doesn’t work that way there. The state controls everything, so there is no free dialogue with artists. Nowadays, that’s the main challenge we face.
Senator Cormier: I wanted to know because you said you were an arm’s length organization. I was thinking about challenges with your own government. There must be a strong trust between the institute and the government leaders.
Mr. Grätz: No, nothing like that. Our foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the current minister, Sigmar Gabriel, always say, “Look, cultural relations and cultural diplomacy is the most important part of our work.” They are completely in favour of culture. They are very interested in it. If they are travelling around the world, they always invite artists to come with them — not only journalists or people from the industry, but Frank-Walter Steinmeier always invites a lot of musicians, writers, artists and painters. In 2016, Germany spent 1.6 billion euro for cultural policy. That’s a lot and it shows how important cultural policy is, because of our history. We got the chance from the alliance — that is, from the United States, France, Russia and the U.K. — to come back to a civilized world after the Second World War. I think the key was culture that created the trust in Germany.
Senator Cormier: Thank you very much, sir. This was very inspiring.
Senator Massicotte: My question relates to the last point you just made. In the first part of your presentation, you made it very clear that all this effort, all this cultural diplomacy, has one principal objective: to create trust in Germany. One can argue that is the case for all of us. We all have agendas and objectives. In Canada, our minister has said we use cultural diplomacy to create a favourable impression of Canada so that people are free and encouraged to visit, to do business with us and so on. You used the word “trust.” I suspect it relates to your history, and you just made reference to it. Could you explain a bit more about that? Would that be different from other countries or is it particular to your own history?
Mr. Grätz: It is, of course, because of our history. We would like to show ourselves as interested partners in the others, not only to say, “We want you to be interested in our culture, but we are maybe, at first, interested in you, in your culture,” and then to see how we can create a dialogue, and then to be a very fair partner and to help the others as well, and to be a long-term partner. So it’s not only to make one project, let’s say; we are always interested in creating networks with local organizations, and we try to work together for several years. So every project is the beginning of other projects. It’s important that they know our dialogue will continue and that they have influence on what we are doing. That’s the goal in how we work. I don’t know if it always works this way, but it’s the principle of our work.
Senator Massicotte: But always with the intention of creating trust in Germany; is that accurate?
Mr. Grätz: Yes.
Senator Massicotte: Thank you.
Mr. Grätz: May I continue on one point that is really important for us? The network of the Goethe-Institut is so important. There are 160 Goethe-Institutes around the world. In Canada, it’s in Toronto and Montreal. It’s so important to have an infrastructure where the people can come to see and to meet Germans and to make proposals for projects. My colleagues from Goethe-Institut say, “Well, what you said is interesting. Let’s do a project together. It’s a good idea, so we will realize it together with you.”
Senator Massicotte: Just a little deviation from this, given that the whole objective of your institutes in Montreal and Toronto is to meet Germans, but principally to create trust in German —Canada has a lot of German immigrants, who are obviously Canadians today. Do you make use of that ambassadorship to achieve your objective of trust in Germany?
Mr. Grätz: We are working now with the German minorities in Eastern Europe — Poland, Bulgaria, as well as in Russia — because in our view they are building a kind of bridge. It depends. I’m Brazilian, so I grew up in the German community in São Paulo. I know that it is a melting pot as well in countries like Canada, United States and Brazil, because everybody is a kind of immigrant. I spoke with the government to see how we could work with the German communities in Canada, United States, Brazil and Argentina. It’s important. They are the ambassadors between us. It would be interesting for us to work more with them. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the funds to do so — only for the German minorities. They are official minorities in Poland, Romania and so on. But it has great potential.
The Chair: We are coming to the end of questioners, and I put myself on the list.
What you have not talked about is something that is being talked about in Canada, and that is the issue of building businesses around cultural ventures and utilizing new technologies. The government is looking at cultural industries as an opportunity not only for the artists, et cetera, but it’s also economic, job creation, et cetera. How does that factor in in Germany, or does it?
Mr. Grätz: It’s beginning with this aspect because we thought we should have a better link to the economy, and the link to the economy is creative industries. We are organizing, in September of this year, an exhibition of German design at the London Design Biennale. We try to learn from the creative industries to see how we can work together and help one another, but we are at the beginning. It’s not our main goal. It’s not completely separated, but it’s not the goal to create jobs and such. We will inform at the London Biennale about the German creative industry, mainly about design. So we are at the beginning.
The Chair: Do the cultural groups in Germany receive funding on their own? I presume they do. You wouldn’t have three opera houses in Berlin if you didn’t. How do they factor into this process? They get money through some system in Germany, both at the state level and the federal level, and then you have your own independent money to further this trust and understanding in cultural —and you are working within your country but also outside. If we want to know how much money is being spent on the cultural community in Germany, is there a place we could go to find that out?
Mr. Grätz: I can find out for you and I will send that. I don’t know exactly. The foreign cultural policy, or foreign cultural relations, and the internal cultural policy are completely separated, unfortunately. They are different ministries. The foreign office is responsible for foreign cultural policy, and the states of Germany are responsible for funding all this infrastructure. They fund everything.
We have about 153 orchestras in Germany, complete orchestras, funded by the state, by the cities, by the Länder, as we call it. We try to look at our experiences. It is important that what we learned abroad is communicated in Germany. Because of migration and because of a lot of facts, we are an intercultural society, like you, but we perceive it now. It’s so important for the German internal cultural policy to have better contact and a better link.
They are separate ministries. There is a discussion now with the new government to create, for the first time in our history after the Second World War, a cultural ministry, but it didn’t work. They are cooperating a little bit, but they are also competitors.
The Chair: You noted that very delicately. Some of us might have said it a little more forcefully.
One other issue: You had said that you have dialogues in your area and you try to find artistic merit before you get into a relationship. One of the questions I keep pondering is that if we’re going to have these linkages or if we’re going to show the face of Canada around the world, is it only with the best of the best, or do we take the unique or the local? That’s the tension we have had in Canada, certainly in areas where I’ve been. Is it better to take a small choir from a school that’s done something innovatively and let them have that experience, or do we take our marvellous institutions at a national level?
Mr. Grätz: Good question. Until a few years ago, our target groups were always decision makers, people with influence, the media, the elite of the countries. It’s important to have a good contact and say who are the opinion makers and how we could, let’s say, inspire the agenda setting of the discussions. But we learned as well with the new right-wing parties in Germany, Europe and in the United States how important it is not only to communicate with their needs but as well — I don’t know; excuse me, maybe it’s not politically correct now — but the Middle East is maybe s not our target group, but they have to look for a wider range of target groups. As well, because of the new media, because if you send a post on Facebook, a lot of people will respond to you and that helps your target groups. Maybe it can be everybody. You have to try to communicate. They have a right to get an answer. We saw how the right-wing parties — I’m not against conservatives, but in Germany, it’s really a problem, the right-wing party, AfD, because of their point of view of Germany and German culture, and they have tried to close Germany. I think it’s dangerous, from my point of view. We saw that we lost a little bit, or maybe we never had good contact with those who are very open for their arguments of how the country should act. So I think we should not only work with the elites but look at other targets. It’s a challenge. We have no contact. We don’t know exactly how they think.
The Chair: Yet they are your citizens?
Mr. Grätz: Yes.
The Chair: One other question is that most of our leaders have a certain view of culture. The young people have defined it totally differently, and you do refer to Facebook from time to time. Even their products, their way of expressing themselves and the tools they use, are completely different. While I think we will continue to have culture defined as we know it, we are going to have to add all of these new industries, which may be show biz, as we say in North America.
How do you measure culture? That’s going to be one of our difficulties in our report — how to define cultural diplomacy. How broadly do we use the tools? You referred to education and culture. We often throw sports into culture also. There are a lot of different definitions. Do you define cultural diplomacy, or do you do it as you, I think, started out — and I will refresh myself on your notes — to talk about what the objectives and principles are rather than defining it?
Mr. Grätz: For me, it’s really difficult to define what culture is. I think culture influences everything in our life, and so for us, of course, sport is part of culture and religion is part of culture. But we are working as well with gaming. It’s a culture; it’s not gaming. It’s so difficult to define that I look for an exit to say to work with culture means to create platforms. I will give you a simple example of what we think includes culture and how we should manage it.
You remember the conflict and the scandal with Charlie Hebdoin Paris or the caricatures in the Jyllands-Postenin Denmark and all this. I think it was a great mistake to say, “We are Charlie Hebdo.” The culture or cultural actors should see that there is a cultural conflict between the freedom of opinion and the no-gos of another culture. We have in Germany as well a no-go, and that’s to neglect the Holocaust. That’s a no-go. The Holocaust happened, so for us it’s no-go. Anybody in the world can say it didn’t happen. Actually, I think that was the right moment, or it would be better to create a dialogue to understand how they were — the Muslims. We didn’t understand that. It’s about freedom of opinion or not. No, it’s really more complicated, and so we have to see that that as well is culture, and the cultural dialogue means to create the dialogue between this difficult area and different opinions.
We are working with culture and development, or culture and climate change, culture and human rights. Everything has to do with culture, with values, with the way you think, your self-definition, with your identities. So I think maybe everything includes culture.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Grätz: It doesn’t help to create a cultural diplomacy strategy, but —
The Chair: You have made it even more complex than we had been discussing it.
Senator Bovey: I appreciate our time is coming to the end, and I’d love an opportunity to extend this conversation.
I think your word “identity” is a really important one. Like my colleague Senator Cormier, I too come from a background in arts and culture. I’m from the visual art world, and I was really intrigued that you talk about learning, you talk about trust and you talk about open.
I want to start by giving you some thank yous and some accolades. I think the work that you have done and the Goethe-Institut has done in Canada is rich. It has been amazing. In the last few years, there has been an exhibition of treasures from a museum in Berlin that went to Quebec City and Winnipeg. There is a growing interest now in Canada in the art of the German expressionists and some of those who are not the big names.
I think you not only have shared treasures, you also have shared difficult moments, and you mentioned the Holocaust. It was not long ago that those Nazi stolen treasures were found in the apartment in Munich, and that has been very much on the radar screen in Canada. And in my circle, the question has been how we can build an understanding through those treasures as to what you went through in the Holocaust and some of the other global issues.
I want to thank you for those platforms. Those conversations continue, and they are very important conversations. It will be wonderful having those reclaimed works come on tour to Canada, but that’s another day.
My question comes to young Canadian artists. As I’m sure you are well aware, there have been many Canadian artists who have gone to Berlin and gone to other parts of Germany for two years, four years and, in some cases, several decades, because there has been a freedom of expression and they felt they could take risk in their work in Germany and perhaps they couldn’t take that risk in their work in Canada for fear of it being a failure. And they were also looking to new modes of expression.
Am I correct in saying that the German government or your arm helps support those artists with studio fees in Europe, in Germany?
Mr. Grätz: Not my institute and not the Goethe-Institut. What we support are not artists from foreign countries living in Germany. As well, we are not supporting German artists living in Germany. But if there are, for example, Canadian artists who would like to participate at an exhibition in Germany, it would be interesting for us to invite them to have a Canadian position as well in Germany.
As well, let’s say a curator or a director from a museum in Canada is interested in coming to Germany, maybe to Berlin, to discuss with his colleagues in Berlin how to work together. We support that. We can finance this business, yes, but not for those living in Germany.
Senator Bovey: I think that’s a very important open door as we talk about cultural dialogue and cultural exchange in all disciplines. As I said, I think I’ll take away from here the ongoing learning, that you’re doing this to learn as well as to build trust.
Just in conclusion, I’d like to say this committee learned the other day that Canada has been invited as a guest at the Frankfurt Book Fair for 2020. I think those doors are opening, Madam Chair, and I think they’re important doors. As you’re learning, I hope we can learn and take up your offer to help Canada as we redefine our cultural diplomacy. I’d like to say, Madam Chair, that we have a mentor with us this morning.
The Chair: I think that is the appropriate conclusion to our meeting. Certainly we have had other witnesses, and they have been helpful within Canada, and we wanted to reach out. We’re very thankful that you came a second time before us. It’s been very helpful to expand the language of what cultural diplomacy could be as a dialogue, as an exchange. I think we have been enriched by the German experience. We will probably call on you again as we develop our study. We want to be sure that we cover and address the future in Canada for diplomacy, so we’re going to be looking at the administration but also the content and new visions for Canadian content, which apparently you’ve already reflected on and are developing. I think we’re a bit ahead of you on cultural industries, so perhaps you would like to look at some of Canada’s examples on that front, but we’ve certainly learned from the foreign policy aspect.
Thank you very much for your indulgence in coming a second time.
Mr. Grätz: I thank you for your interest.
The Chair: Senators, I have two comments to make. We received a response from the government on our Argentinian report. It was transmitted to us. The steering committee will see whether we wish to have a further follow-up on their response.
When we return, we will be taking up the international aspects of Bill C-45. I remind you again if you have witnesses, otherwise the steering committee has a list and a program and we will start with that, bearing in mind that we have to file by May 1, so we have a short period of time. We hope we can cluster the witnesses, begin writing a report and have a discussion on it. I think the limitation on our reference was that we cannot make any amendments to the report, but I think we can comment on what the positives or negatives of it are, as I believe only the Social Affairs Committee will be proposing amendments.
Thank you.
(The committee adjourned.)