The Council's grants, services, initiatives, prizes and payments contribute to the vibrancy of a creative and diverse arts and literary scene and support its presence across Canada and abroad.

The Council's investments contribute to fostering greater engagement in the arts among Canadians and international audiences.

The Canada Council for the Arts is an arms-length organization based in Ottawa, Ontario, that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

While the council's powers as a promoting and sponsoring body remained, all references to social sciences and humanities were removed.

The majority of the changes to the Canada Council for the Arts Act since 2002 involve updates to language due to evolving definitions.

The Canada Council for the Arts, as a federal Crown corporation, is accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage and is governed by an 11-member Board.

The Board meets at least three times per year and is responsible for the oversight of the Canada Council's policies, programs, budgets, and grant decisions.

Chairs of the Canada Council: Executive Management:[7] The Canada Council for the Arts was established and began operations in 1957 as part of a major recommendation of the 1951 report by the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, commonly known as the Massey Commission.

The report described an unpromising cultural landscape in Canada: professional theatre was "moribund;" the musical space was meager; professional artistic ventures were lacking and virtually absent outside of the largest urban areas; and English Canada produced only 14 works of fiction in an entire year.

In introducing the Canada Council Act to Parliament, then-Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent said:[2]Our main object in recommending the establishment of the Canada Council is to provide some assistance to universities, to the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as to students in those fields without attempting in any way to control their activities or to tamper with their freedom.

Governments should, I feel, support the cultural development of the nation but not attempt to control it.The Canada Council for the Arts was thereafter created as an independent, arm's-length body, accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage with responsibility for establishing its priorities, policies, and funding programs as well as making grant decisions.

[2] In March 1986, the Payment for Public Use (PPU) program was established by a Cabinet decision, with an initial budget of $3 million allocated to it by the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Toward the end of the decade, however, came what the then-chairman of the Council, actor Jean-Louis Roux, called "the beginnings of a new period of growth."

[9] Established by the Canada Council for the Arts in 1957,[21] the Commission is managed by a 17-member executive committee consisting of representatives of government departments, academics, and other experts in education, culture, and world heritage.

In particular, every year, the Canada Council awards a broad range of prizes to over 200 Canadian artists and scholars in recognition of their work.

[22] The John G. Diefenbaker Award, with a prize of up to $95,000, allows a distinguished German scholar in the humanities to conduct research in Canada and spend brief periods gaining additional experience at American institutions.

[26][27] The MIB was established in 1985 with a $100,000 bequest from the Barwick Family along with the fundraising efforts of businessman William Turner and cellist Denis Brott, both of Montréal.

Since then, the Bank has received donations and loans of violins, cellos, and bows—created by such luthiers as Stradivari, Gagliano, Guarneri, and Pressenda—as well as generous bequests for the Canada Council to purchase additional instruments.

[26] The Musical Instrument Bank has supported various notable Canadian classical musicians, including Lara St. John, Alexandre Da Costa, Martin Beaver, Judy Kang, and Denise Djokic.

In 2006–07, the Canada Council awarded some 6,000 grants to artists and arts organizations and made payments to more than 15,400 authors through the Public Lending Right Commission.

Eligible work includes original writing, translation, illustration, narration and photography contained in library books across a range.

[29] The creation of a PLR program was first deliberated in 1977, when the Council sets up the Payment for Public Use Committee to discuss the matter.

In 1982, the Applebaum-Hébert Committee recommended that the federal government create a program to pay authors for the use of their books in libraries.

Soon after, in March 1986, the Payment for Public Use (PPU) program was established by a Cabinet decision, with an initial budget of $3 million allocated to it by the Treasury Board Secretariat.