On Sept. 17, Premier Danielle Smith delivered new mandate letters to her cabinet members, and among those was a tightly-focused, four-priority letter for the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Status of Women.

That included working with the Minister of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration to grow the province’s cultural industries; continuing to promote Alberta culture while also growing the size and scope of Alberta Day; working to implement a new Indigenous repatriation framework that would see nations being able to repatriate culture objects; and further development on supporting victims of domestic violence with the Ministry of Children and Family Services.

Removed from the new mandate letter were references to both the francophone community and the LGBTQ2S+ community, however.

Minister of Arts, Culture and Status of Women Tanya Fir said that what Albertans should take away from the new letter versus the old was that the 2025 mandate letter was an update—not a replacement.

“It doesn’t change the priorities. The updated mandate letter just added new or updated information. I am still the liaison to the Francophone community. I’m still the liaison to the 2SLGBTQI+ community. All the things in that original mandate letter still stand. The updated letter just adds increased areas of focus or modification,” she said.

Minister Fir said the new letter reaffirms that arts, culture, and women remain important areas of focus for the province.

“I think one of the top takeaways for me would be the amazing diversification of our province and how, while we are and I will always be proud of our core industries of tourism and agriculture and oil and gas, it’s not an or, it’s an and. Alberta is those industries, and we are also film and television, arts and culture, all those other areas,” she said.

“I think Alberta is the best province in the country, and I think what they can take away from my mandate letter is areas of arts and culture and status of women matters are things this government cares about, and will continue to care about, in addition to all the other areas that make our province strong.”

Refinement of letter a result of success by Ministry

Minister Fir said that the four areas of focus came about as a result of ministry successes.

Development of the film and television economy in Calgary and area has led to more interest in continuing to grow that economic engine, and that, combined with successes in funding at venues like the Werklund Centre, has seen real benefits to Calgarians, she said.

“Premier has said, and I have said, and I echo her words, people come to Alberta and people come to Calgary for jobs, standard of living, quality of life, opportunity. But they stay because there’s interesting things to do. They stay because there’s community. They stay because there’s culture. They stay because there’s all sorts of opportunities,” said Minister Fir.

“That’s why you’re seeing those continued investments in those organizations, but also increased investment to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.”

Recently, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts opened its first gallery in Calgary, and the investments into the Werklund Centre, Glenbow Museum, Contemporary Calgary, and other downtown arts venues have contributed to the single largest current investment into arts and culture infrastructure in Canada.

“We want to make sure that areas where we continue to grow our economy, build tourism, and celebrate our artists. I mean, we want to make sure that we’re championing Alberta’s cultural industries,” said Minister Fir.

Championing Alberta’s cultural industry has also meant a greater focus on Alberta culture.

Although since Alberta Day was announced by former Premier Jason Kenney, its prominence has been sidelined by other cultural activities in the province.

In Calgary, it had a largely disastrous start and in subsequent years has been more of a way to draw visitors to Heritage Park with free entry than a premier public display of Alberta’s cultural contributions.

Still, Minister Fir said the province has considered Alberta Day a success since it was launched.

“We have celebrated Alberta Day since former Premier Kenney announced it a few years ago. Big celebrations at Heritage Park here in Calgary, at the legislature grounds in Edmonton, and then through dozens of municipalities, local events throughout the province that we fund. But I think we need to put even more effort in communicating that,” she said.

That, she said, also meant doing a better job of working with the City of Calgary during their Culture Days events, and promoting Calgary artists as part of the celebrations.

Recognition that the culture part of the ministry also means Indigenous culture

The recent renewal of the Manitou Stone Agreement by Premier Danielle Smith was cited by Minister Fir as one of the ways that the province has been working towards better reflecting the importance and respect of Indigenous culture.

That meteorite, which has had significant spiritual importance to numerous First Nations in Alberta, began the repatriation process in 2022 after decades of work to restore the stolen object.

Alberta is one of the few jurisdictions in North America that has legislation allowing for the repatriation of First Nations cultural items that are held in public archives.

“Over the past 20 years, our government has processed 44 repatriation requests that have represented about 2,000 objects that have been returned to active ceremonial use. But we need to keep doing that, and we will keep doing that because that’s important to First Nations communities, and it’s important to us as well,” said Minister Fir.

Minister Fir said that was due to the province’s desire to engage in reconciliation and reconcili-action.

That meant working with the First Nations closest to Calgary, such as the Tsuut’ina Nation and the Stoney Nakoda, more closely in the years to come.

Minister Fir said that likewise, the success that the province has had with its 10-year Strategy to End Gender-Based Violence was a reason why the efforts to end gender based violence were prominently featured in the new mandate letter.

“It’s the most comprehensive plan of its kind in Canada. Not just in Alberta, in Canada. It’s really about identifying root causes, breaking that cycle before it begins, making gender based violence a rarity and a norm, and not recurring. We’re realistic that to completely eliminate it or anything may not happen, but we can certainly make it less frequent, a rarity, less occurring,” she said.

“We’re really proud of it, but we also know it’s not just a strategy that we can develop and put on the shelf as we implement it. We have to see where it needs to be tweaked, modified, what we’ve missed, what we need to enhance.”

What Minister Fir said might be surprising to people reading the letter is that, despite the four different areas of focus, there has been a lot of overlap between those efforts by the ministry and community groups.

An example of that was the work done during Theatre Calgary’s presentation of A Streetcar Named Desire to champion a greater understanding of the need to work with boys and men on gender violence.

“Since having the honour of having this, this portfolio of Arts, Culture and Status of Women, how much I’ve learned, and how much it’s opened my eyes to I think it would really surprise people when they learn about how pervasive gender based violence is and how it’s not specific to one background or community or socioeconomic status,” said Minister Fir.

“It really affects everyone… and how it can tie into different communities and organizations to all work together on it, because it affects everyone, whether it’s directly or indirectly.”

All of the 2025 mandate letters for Alberta Government Ministers can be found on Alberta’s open data portal at open.alberta.ca/publications/mandate-letters-to-ministers-2025.