Heritage Minister James Moore announced consultation plans for the Canada Prizes on Monday at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. (CBC)

The Canada Prizes for the Arts and Creativity are scheduled to be awarded for the first time in 2011 and the federal government says public consultation will help establish the structure for the prizes.

Heritage Minister James Moore announced the consultation process Monday at a press conference in Toronto.

He has asked the Canada Council for the Arts to administer the prize and confirmed that Ottawa will give a $25 million endowment to establish it, which was already included in the 2009 federal budget.

"This $25-million endowment is to be the primary source of funding for the prizes. The Canada Prize may very well be the most generous award for arts in the world and it's here in Canada," Moore said in his presentation.

But the questions of whether it will be a Canadian or international prize, what artistic endeavours may compete and the size of the awards are all still to be decided.

Instead the minister has appointed an advisory council that is to consult with the artistic community at open hearings and invite comments from the public online.

The group has a mandate to report back with recommendations by the end of this summer.

The advisory committee includes Joseph L. Rotman, chair of the Canada Council and Simon Brault, CCA vice-chair and director of Montreal's National Theatre School. Other members include Toronto businessman Tony Gagliano, Manitoba arts administrator Liza Maheu and Vancouver's Jennifer Clarke.

Rotman said one of the aims of the committee is to create a prize with international stature, though the decision of whether there will be international participants has yet to be made.

"We hope to achieve an international profile in the same way the Gairdner Prize did for science and research," he said.

Public consultations to be held

Rotman said the committee had as yet made no decisions. Consultations with the public will be held in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal over the next two months.

The original proposal was for a prize centred on emerging artists in dance, music, theatre and visual arts, but it has yet to be decided what stage in their career artists must be and whether film or media arts might be included.

"The committee has some serious work to do to give a creditable proposal," Brault told CBC News.

Decisions will have to be made about fundraising and administering the $25 million endowment, he said. Investing the endowment might provide enough for about $1 million in prize money annually, he said, but the committee might opt for a more ambitious proposal, depending on the number of Canada Prizes awarded and the size of the prize.

The idea of a Canada Prize was first put forward by Gagliano and David Pecaut, the late Toronto philanthropist, in a breakfast with the minister. Moore acknowledged Pecaut's important role in his announcement Monday

But the initial announcement of a high-profile prize drew a backlash from arts groups, who had recently been stung by cuts in funding for international touring.

Reaction was particularly strong in Quebec, where arts groups feared any prize would have a Toronto focus.

"The dust has settled," on that initial controversy, Brault said. He said the arts community has had ample opportunity to discuss the idea of the prize and will have many ideas to bring to the table.

"The Canada Council for the Arts is investing its credibility as a well-management arts organization into the process — its peer assessment, its judging excellence," he said.