CS5.5 ICOMOS Canada: looking to the future

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On the eve of ICOMOS Canada's jubilee, to be celebrated in 2025, this roundtable aims to bring together individuals who, in recent decades, have left their mark on the cultural heritage community in Canada, particularly within or with ICOMOS Canada. In a context of cultural, social, environmental, and economic change, the aim is to discuss, evaluate and consider the role, position, operation and sustainability of ICOMOS Canada, in order to ensure the continuation - or adjustment - of the mission of this organization, recognized nationally and internationally for its contribution to heritage policy and expertise.
Like other non-governmental organizations and associations in the field of cultural heritage, ICOMOS Canada is currently facing major challenges. The growth and diversification of professions involved in the heritage field, and the increasing penetration of heritage issues in all spheres of society, tend, paradoxically, to dissipate the close ties that such organizations used to have with governments. How, in this context, should and can ICOMOS Canada contribute to public policy? How does ICOMOS Canada position itself in relation to other professional and scientific organizations in the heritage field, and how can this role be structured, functionally and financially, to the benefit of all?
This is particularly important in the current context of decolonization, broader intellectual reconsiderations of 'cultural heritage’ and, the resulting reorganization of heritage policies. ICOMOS Canada, which has traditionally been committed to public participation and socially responsible heritage policies, is also increasingly being asked to make a specific and structuring contribution to government information and action, and to decision-making by public authorities. How should this contribution take shape? In this respect, the Canadian constitutional framework poses its own challenges: who are or should be ICOMOS Canada's interlocutors, and how should the organization situate itself in the continuum or discontinuity of public policies, between those responsible for implementing international conventions and subsidiary jurisdictions, such as municipal or provincial authorities? And what of its place in the North American – and larger -- geopolitical contexts?
In short, what is the purpose of ICOMOS Canada? What is its value on the Canadian heritage scene? What is its contribution to the international community? What are the conditions under which these missions are possible and sustainable?