By Rachel Lajunen
The National Arts Centre may have found a couple of four-leaf clovers with the end of its orchestra’s labour strike and the beginning of talks between representatives of the NAC board and the House of Commons heritage committee.
The Crown corporation has seen some bad luck over the past couple of months — the centre’s director and chief executive officer of the past two years, John Cripton, left the NAC in early October, and in November, its orchestra went on strike.
Cripton, who was replaced by Elaine Calder Nov. 2, is one of three CEOs who have left the NAC in the last five years.
Cripton was two years through a five year mandate when he left the NAC. His leave from the NAC prompted a motion, put forward by New Democrat MP Wendy Lill Nov. 17, to have NAC representatives meet with committee members to look into the centre’s troubles.
The motion was passed unanimously. The meetings were to begin once the labour strike ended.
Lill, a committee member, says the question is whether the problems that seem to keep “bedevilling” the centre have been solved.
“There seemed to be a very good person at the helm in John Cripton yet something occurred that made the situation impossible and he was fired,” Lill says.
“We want to know more about that. What’s souring these relationships between the board and staff?”
Cripton says he didn’t resign and that he wasn’t fired either. He says he prefers to call his departure from the NAC a “separation of the ways” where he left the NAC because the board and the centre were no longer in agreement over its future.
Support has shown up at Heritage Minister Sheila Copp’s office in the form of a petition signed by over 200 staff members who question Cripton’s dismissal. The NAC reports through her office to Parliament.
Lill says the petition shows “a real concern inside and outside of the NAC’s state of affairs.”
John Cripton says he couldn’t ask for better support from the staff. He says he has also received lots of supportive messages at home from citizens, local businesses and organizations through letters, faxes and phone calls.
Lill says Cripton was a “very popular CEO” who on all accounts had done good work. She says she hasn’t found anyone who really had problems with his leadership.
He says the board had to incorporate the issue of funding and perhaps they weren’t prepared to take the same risks.
“The board didn’t go out and raise funds, a necessary step. The board had to play an important role as well and I tried to encourage that,” says Cripton.
The NAC receives about $20 million in government funding. The other half comes from donations, ticket sales, hall rentals, parking and restaurants. The centre lost about $3 million last year, resulting in cutbacks to funding in areas of technology, building and stage facilities.
Over half that loss came from Festival Canada, which lost $1.7 million in 1997.
Despite the financial problems, Cripton says “we were just on the leading edge of where we were going.”
“I don’t think anyone would say two years would have been enough time to turn the centre around,” he says.
He brought strong interest to the centre. Alexei Yashin, captain of the Ottawa Senators, donated $1 million to the centre to promote Russian arts in Ottawa last spring.
Lill says the committee’s primary concern is to clear the air for the future of the National Arts Centre.
She says the committee has no interest in getting involved in managing the centre.
She wants it to be a thriving independent arts organization with no political interference in the selection of its board members.
She says people need to feel more confident in boards and in committees and agencies of the federal government.
“They need to feel that there is a transparency there, that there is accountability to people,” she says.
Lill says she hopes the representatives of the board and committee will meet before the House of Commons breaks for the holidays Dec. 11. She suggests the committee may find that the mandates for the relationship between the board and staff aren’t clear enough.