Simon Brault

Early Life and Family

Simon Brault was the eldest of eight children born to a father who struggled as an artist. Brault grew up in the working-class Montreal neighbourhood of Villeray. Despite his lifelong appreciation and love of the arts, his father — who was a painter and ceramicist but worked as a teacher — had difficulty making ends meet in the pursuit of his art. Brault recalls his father working all day and painting all night, which could leave him in a bad mood. The young Brault came to associate art with disappointment, frustration and poverty. He once told La Presse that he grew up thinking that artists lived in conflict with the world, and suffered for it.

However, Brault had a better example of success in the arts in his uncle, the poet Jacques Brault. Jacques Brault published 40 collections of poetry between 1966 and 2016. For Simon, his uncle’s recognition proved that one could succeed in the arts. Brault also writes poetry, but he does not show his poems to others.

Education and Early Career

At age 20, Simon Brault enrolled in law school. He dropped out after two and a half years and switched to training as an accountant. He also travelled to China. He returned home broke, a new father, and without a job. As he described in interviews, at the time, Montreal did not yet have its reputation as a vibrant cultural metropolis. Despite that, Brault knew he wanted to work in the cultural milieu, even if he didn’t quite know where he would fit. Looking through the newspaper for a job one day, he found a classified ad for a factotum — clerk — at the National Theatre School (NTS).

Career Highlights

Beginning in 1981, Simon Brault spent more than three decades at the NTS, working his way up from his very modest entry-level position through the accounting department to eventually becoming the school’s director in 1997. During this time, Brault managed the renovation of the Monument-National, a historic and architecturally significant performing arts centre in Montreal that serves as the NTS’s principal venue.

Brault was one of the founding members of Culture Montréal, as well as its elected president from 2002 to 2014. Culture Montréal operates as an independent and non-political cultural advocacy group and as a regional cultural council for the City of Montreal. Brault is also one of the founders of Journées de la culture, a Quebec organization that runs a three-day, province-wide cultural festival with free activities.

In 2004, Brault was appointed vice-chair of the Canada Council for the Arts. He continued in the role until 2014, when he became its CEO and director.

From 2007 to 2017, Brault was on the steering committee of the organization Montréal, Cultural Metropolis. This group brought together different levels of government and government agencies to promote Montreal as a major international cultural hub and to improve Montrealers’ access to culture.

In August 2024, Brault was appointed president of the Festival de Lanaudière, an annual classical music festival held in Quebec’s Lanaudière region.

Author

Simon Brault published his first book, Le facteur C: l’avenir passe par la culture, in 2009. Immediately acclaimed, it was translated and published as No Culture, No Future in 2010. The book was described as a manifesto for the democratization of culture. One of Brault’s principal arguments is that people who love and appreciate the arts have a responsibility to share the arts with society at large, and that a prevailing mentality of exclusivity to enhance the value of the arts is ultimately self-defeating because societal elites are not powerful enough to protect the arts by themselves. Brault argues that by making the arts more accessible to all strata of society, it becomes much easier to support the arts, particularly in a country like Canada where public investment in the arts is necessary. Brault has also been outspoken about the need to better pay Canadian artists and to better recognize the role the arts play in our society.

Other Activities

At the first G7 Culture Summit, held in Italy in 2017, Brault represented Canada as a cultural expert.

In 2019, Brault was elected chair of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA). He was the first Canadian and the first francophone to lead the organization. IFACCA was created after the first World Summit on Arts and Culture, held in Ottawa in 2000.

Honours and Awards

Simon Brault was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005. He was recognized for his commitment to the promotion of culture across Canada and for his expertise in cultural policy. In addition, Brault was recognized for his numerous initiatives to expand cultural access, such as through his chairmanship of Culture Montréal, and for his successful effort restoring the Monument-National.

In 2011, Brault was named an Officier of the Ordre national du Québec for his vision and leadership in the cultural domain, as well as for the specific projects he led to improve access to and encourage interest in culture in Montreal and Quebec.