The organ lobbyists were also pressing, contacting government MPs and insisting that they have a formal hearing during the planning process. It fell to the Operations Committee to resist a grand organ on the grounds that it would have little use or appeal to Ottawa audiences. They pushed back the proposal by saying there was nothing in the budget for it and that Public Works would have to find other monies to pay for it. The idea for an organ was dropped—until it materialized much later in a gift from the Dutch people in memory of Canada’s service in Holland during the war.
Southam tracked all these particulars closely, with a masterful breadth of attention and eye for detail. After the 1965 election had again failed to produce a majority for Lester Pearson, his long-time Quebec colleague and friend Maurice Lamontagne was cut from the Cabinet, and the feisty Niagara MP Judy LaMarsh took over to manage culture. Lamontagne’s competent undersecretary, Ernest Steele, stayed on under LaMarsh.
There was bad news on the construction front—completion would be delayed well past 1967, most likely until 1969. Southam also warned Steele that the budget ceiling, now at $26 million, was about to be exceeded. Despite Pearson’s steady support, the runaway costs were causing a Cabinet revolt. A report reached Southam that one solution about to receive serious consideration was the postponement of phase three— the construction of the building itself. In the interim, the garage would be roofed over and the site on Confederation Square covered with sod. Langford later confirmed that plans and drawings had been prepared in case this option was accepted.
Southam fought back eloquently, stressing that this was “the Government’s only centennial project in Ottawa.” He was sure that the government, “for the $25 million already spent, would not want a silent, grass-covered slope covering the empty tomb of its own centennial project,” and he argued that the new centre, “more than any other Federal Government project, was doing more to quicken interest in Ottawa among members of the small but influential group of creative Canadians scattered from Halifax to Vancouver.” He stated that the centre was useful in “refurbishing Ottawa’s image in the rest of the country” and urged Steele to inform the Cabinet that the new centre had attracted the interest of all the country’s leading arts organizations and was perceived “as an important factor in developing theatrical and musical life of the country at the highest level.” In a passionate conclusion, he said that “the Centre is more than a building,” that any postponement would be “a victory for the forces of provincialism,” and that the group of “creative Canadians” now supporting the project would “melt away.” Because of the centre’s site on Confederation Square, “this unhappy development would be exposed to the world’s gaze.”22 Fortunately, Southam had allies in Cabinet, among them the Ottawa-based public works minister, George McIlraith. In the end, the project was spared the proposed delay, although the construction cost ceiling was fixed once again, this time at $31 million.
While the logistics of construction and future operations were being thrashed out, Southam was soon writing again to Ernie Steele, laying the groundwork for the centre’s artistic life. He had hired a Canadian-born arts administrator, Henry Wrong, a nephew of his old External Affairs colleague, Hume Wrong, as his overall programming consultant. Wrong had been working in New York as an assistant to Sir Rudolf Bing at the Metropolitan Opera. Also engaged was John Hirsch (as a theatre consultant), Jean Beaudet from the CBC, and Louis Applebaum, as an adviser on music. Strenuous efforts continued for the development of an orchestra as well as English and French resident theatre, although Southam still thought of these groups as independent companies and tenants of the NAC.
Despite all the problems, the construction went steadily ahead. Photo © Ottawa Citizen/UPI.Reprinted by permission.
For now, the chairmanships of these possible future companies were entrusted to three local volunteers: Louis Audette, the president of the Ottawa Philharmonic; F.R. “Budge” Crawley, for theatre; and Lawrence Freiman, who was heading a group trying to create a Canadian Festival of the Arts. Their task was to push the planning forward on programming, but, in Southam’s words, “progress was slow.” What Southam wanted from Steele were official appointments to head the Music, Theatre, and Programming departments, including the Festival. Either Beaudet or Applebaum would suit the first, he thought, Gascon or Hirsch the second, and he nominated Wrong to head overall programming and direct the Festival. No time should be lost, Southam urged, in appointing Bruce Corder as head of the administrative branch looking after the new house, box office, technical departments, and, of course, accounts. Detailed outlines of the duties of these officers, as well as a carefully worked out management chart, accompanied Southam’s request. He wanted these individuals in place before a newly formed board become active. The consistent and methodical fashion in which Southam planned and implemented the many facets of this complicated new federal government institution ensured that it would have the correct support and proper structures for the important national role that lay ahead.
By early 1965 the boisterous Judy LaMarsh had taken over the culture portfolio from the refined Maurice Lamontagne. She would stay in this job until the end of Prime Minister Pearson’s tenure. A down-to-earth populist in style and heart, LaMarsh seized the NAC file and gave it her full support, guiding the legislation effectively through the House of Commons. Wags who had worried about the new Arts Centre being too elitist joked that if LaMarsh liked it, it must be good. On July 14, 1966, having cleared the hurdles of both the House of Commons and the Senate, the National Arts Centre Act received Royal Assent.
LaMarsh wasted no time in appointing the new Board of Trustees. Lawrence Freiman, a friend of LaMarsh and George McIlraith, the minister of public works and the “Ottawa minister” in the Cabinet, was made chair. A mercurial, intense man who ran the family department-store business, Freiman loved the arts, served on the Stratford Festival Board, and favoured big symphonies and grand theatres. Both he and Southam were Ottawa-born and wanted the best for their city, but their tastes were different and, for much of the time they worked together at the Arts Centre, they would be at odds with one another.
The Honourable Judy LaMarsh, Maurice Lamontagne’s successor as secretary of state in Lester Pearson’s Cabinet.
The other eight trustees were a broad cross-section of people with experience in the arts and business in Canada. The heads of important federal cultural agencies such as the CBC, the Canada Council, and the National Film Board were given ex-officio status on the board, as were the mayors of Ottawa and Hull. This was the first time that representatives of these other agencies were placed on the board of a sister organization, and these linkages would prove useful in the years ahead.
It was several months before the new board met for the first time, on March 8, 1967, in the Orange Room of Ottawa’s Château Laurier Hotel, just across the street from the building site. In the interim, Freiman had set about developing his own vision of how the centre should be organized. He had many friends in theatre, including the English director Tyrone Guthrie, who had helped launch the Stratford Festival. Freiman consulted him about the appointment of an overall director for the National Arts Centre. An ad hoc committee that included writer Robertson Davies and Dr. Arnold Walter had already considered this question and concluded that the obvious choice was Southam. Although reluctant, Freiman was eventually persuaded by these “distinguished Canadian figures” to accept Southam as the new director general. Once the polite preliminaries were over, the first