Last week I attended The City of Owen Sound's Public Meeting for their new [Draft] Cultural Master Plan. The draft document can be downloaded in PDF format from the City's Web site. We are Ontario's third city to develop a Cultural Master Plan. I think the plan is a good start. Many positive things were included that I would not have expected. My congratulations goes out to the City for including, for example, the literary arts. The plan's weakest areas are the parts where it reads as a partial inventory of many of the organizations in the region who contribute to our local cultural.

The usual suspects were at the meeting: The Georgian Bay Symphony, John Harrison of the Tempo Foundation (a local built heritage advocate), Grey Roots, the Roxy Theatre, The Library, the Gallery, Butchart Estate B&B, and more. Many of individuals at the meeting represented an organization. There were not a lot of individual artists, or performers, or crafts people. Nor is the individual represented in the plan. (This may have been a coincidence that the individual did not show up and that it is not represented in the plan; but I do think it is an interesting coincidence.)

For the most part I feel that what is included in the plan is good. The plan is big, not all-encompassing, but it is big. The City will not be able to accomplish all of its goals in the first or even second year. I am worried about how the City will demonstrate that it has accomplished everything in the plan. At the meeting I asked the City's Planner how government would demonstrate its accountability to the plan. I did not receive the answer I expected. (I was hoping for: we will set out regulations which define how we will be governed by the goals of the plan.) Instead I was told that it was up to the citizens to force the government to be accountable.

I was confused. What's the point of having a plan if it is the citizens who are responsible for ensuring it is implemented? This statement implies that small organizations (and indeed individuals) who do not have the time or the "man-power" to lobby the government will be silently dropped even though they are listed in the plan. It appears as though my frustrations were heard loudly and clearly by the room. It also appears as though my opinions on this were news-worthy.

The City has asked for written responses to the Plan to be delivered before November 22, 2006. Now is the time to help shape the Cultural Plan so that it is accountable to itself and not only to the volunteers who ought to focus on enriching our cultural experience instead of lobbying local government.