Canada as Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020

The Department of Canadian Heritage (PCH) has a requirement for managing the Canadian book publishing industry’s involvement in Canada’s Guest of Honour presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020. The purpose of this Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) is to signal the government’s intention to award a contract for these services to Canada FBM2020. Before awarding a contract, however, the government would like to provide suppliers with the opportunity to demonstrate that they are capable of satisfying the requirements set out in this notice, by submitting a statement of capabilities during the 15 calendar day posting period.

On October 6th, 2016, the Government of Canada signed the contract for Canada to be the Guest of Honour (GoH) at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2020. While PCH is the lead organization on Canada’s GoH presence in 2020, the contract with the Frankfurt Book Fair requires that the project be carried out in close collaboration with the Canadian book publishing industry. As the GoH in 2020, Canada is required to establish a Committee responsible for the development and coordination of the various elements of its GoH presentation. This Committee, named the Frankfurt 2020 Steering Committee, must comprise representatives from Canada’s publishers’ associations. Through this Steering Committee, we must also have representation of a broad spectrum of both state and nongovernmental representatives from Canada’s cultural and creative sectors, including PCH. The Frankfurt 2020 Steering Committee is comprised of two members from each of the following organizations: PCH, Global Affairs Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and Canada FBM2020. The main deliverables for Canada as Guest of Honour include:

1. A Guest of Honour pavilion presenting an artistic vision of Canada
2. Literary program at October 2020 Book Fair
3. Cultural Programming across Germany during 2020
4. Fund for translation of Canadian-authored books into German
5. Canada-Germany publishing-industry trade missions

Responsibility for these main deliverables have been divided between the four organizations sitting on the Steering Committee (with responsibility for some deliverables shared between organizations). Through this contract, Canada FBM2020 will be delegated responsibility for a portion of item 1, and full responsibility for items 2 and 5 (with oversight from the Frankfurt 2020 Steering Committee).

Since Canada’s publishing industry is represented by several national and provincial publishers’ associations, the industry together formed Canada FBM2020, a not-for-profit corporation managing the Canadian book publishing industry’s involvement in Canada’s GoH presence in 2020. Canada FBM2020 receives input from its independent board of directors, comprised mainly of representatives from the book publishing industry, but also including representatives from other cultural and creative sectors (a key requirement in the contract with the Frankfurt Book Fair). FBM2020 has the explicit endorsement from the national and provincial book publishing associations to act on their behalf in representing the book publishing industry in the planning and execution of Frankfurt 2020.