Shortening “arm’s length”: From the Canada Council to the SSHRC

Shortening “arm’s length”: From the Canada Council to the SSHRC

The Canada Council was created in 1957, with an endowment of public funds, partial insulation from government interference in its decision-making, and a mandate to encourage the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Calls to sever responsibility for the humanities and social sciences from the Council’s responsibilities were made almost immediately. Representatives from these fields were displeased with the amount of money the Council granted to them relative to the support it provided the arts. During the 1960s and early 1970s, the government sought to enhance the political role played by culture within the nation-state, to develop a national science policy, as well as to rationalize its own spending. The Council came under increasing pressure to take government priorities into consideration. Its “arm’s length” status did not co-exist well with the gov-ernment’s policy program, eventually leading to the creation of a new federal agency, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.