Since the 1970s there has been a phenomenal growth in the Canadian cultural sector. New technologies and changing economic and social conditions have meant rapid change in the creative and working environment. The sector's ability to find and retain creative, skilled workers has become vitally important.
Since the early 1990s, arts service organizations, cultural industry associations, artists' unions and others have been meeting to discuss human resource issues within the cultural sector, primarily issues pertaining to training.
In the early 1990s, when the Ontario government created the Ontario Training and Adjustment Board (OTAB) to play an advisory role on labour market issues, it called for sectoral councils to be created in each major area of the economy. This group fought for the recognition of the cultural industries at OTAB, and became the Ontario Sectoral Council for Culture (OSCC). A needs assessment conducted by OSCC in 1993, followed by the 1994 report 'The Business of Culture,' indicated that training was a significant human resources issue for the sector.
At the same time, the Canadian Conference of the Arts was working on a similar agenda at the national level, and influenced the policies of the Canada Employment and Immigration Commission so that policies became more relevant to the particular circumstances of the cultural sector. Eventually, the Cultural Human Resources Council emerged as a separate organization which continues to work at the national level.
A change of government in Ontario led to the dissolution of OTAB. But the federal government, which had long supported labour adjustment and training programs in all provinces, was preparing to devolve those responsibilities to the provinces. At a time when governments were reducing or eliminating support for training, and the responsibilities that would remain were shifting between governments, it became even more important for the OSCC to strengthen its role for the sector.
In 1996, support through the Industrial Adjustment Services program of Human Resources Development Canada, meant that for the first time there could be paid staff at the OSCC to help move the cultural training agenda forward for Ontario. In 1997, the OSCC took its current name, Cultural Careers Council Ontario (CCCO).
In 1998, Cultural Careers Council Ontario was incorporated as a not for profit organization, with a Board of Directors and Executive Director appointed to carry out its mandate of supporting human resource and career development needs in Ontario's cultural sector.
