We need to be more ambitious, to claim more of our legitimate place in society. For without the arts, without a rich cultural fabric, our economic and sociological achievements will be unfulfilled. Yet all too often we give up our central position to these narrow discourses and their experts. Whereas instead we must have the courage to say: no culture, no future  the courage to insist that it is imagination, nurtured by the arts and by culture that gives meaning to human life and to society.

http://canadacouncil.ca/council/news-room/news/2014/stpa