Canadian Heritage Committee on March 11th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Are you sharing your time?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I may, Mr. Chair. I promise I'll keep you posted.

Thank you very much for taking the time to appear before us today and for all the hard work you do on behalf of artists and culture in this country. We appreciate it a great deal.

One of the points in contention that we make on this side is that we have put a lot of money behind artists, that we are supporting touring, are supporting artists abroad, and are supporting the arts domestically. You already indicated, for example, that PromArt has nothing to do with the Department of Canadian Heritage, and I appreciate that.

Trade Routes was a model for funding artists abroad, but the Canada Council is also supporting artists abroad through a number of programs that they have. Perhaps you can touch on the additional money we have provided to the Canada Council. And secondly, can you talk a little bit about how the Canada Council is supporting artists abroad?

[Judith LaRocque]

Thank you.

The Canada Council has, as I said, $13 million that it provides to artists for work both domestically and internationally. They support international touring and exhibition of Canadian artists and art works. For example, they have international touring grants, and there are visual and media arts exhibitions abroad that they support. They provide support for the promotion of arts organizations or artists abroad—showcases, art and book fairs, pre-tours, translations, etc.

They have a program that's called the support for international reciprocity, which is a visiting foreign artists program, foreign tours in Canada, but primarily their support goes to a wide range of disciplines in Canada, including aboriginal arts, dance endowments, media arts, music, theatre, visual arts, writing, and publishing. Even though the department is separate from the Canada Council, which is a crown corporation in and of itself, we tend to work in partnership.

For example, if it is the time for the Hamburg book fair and we are trying to promote our authors and publishers at that fair, we would work in tandem with the Canada Council and with other partners in town.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

I want to track some of the growth of the Canada Council, because the Canada Council is artists helping artists. It's free from what the opposition would call ideology. Of course, I would contest that all political parties have an ideology.

Can you explain to me or give me some scope as to how much the Canada Council funding has grown over the last number of years? I know Trade Routes came in in 2001. Can you give us some scope as to what the Canada Council funding was in 2001, what it is today, and what the growth has been specifically since we came to office in 2006? Can you give some idea of that?

[Judith LaRocque]

We will get that information for you.

Perhaps I'll turn to Pablo to answer it.

[Pablo Sobrino, Director General, Strategic Policy, Planning and Research Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage]

The Canada Council received an additional annual funding of $30 million a year in 2006, and that's been ongoing. It's for a total of $181 million; it had been $150 million before that. That funding is ongoing at the moment.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Uppal, did you have a question?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

I do, thank you.

I just want to get back to the Trade Routes program for a second. Trade Routes was established as a spinoff from the trade investment development directorate. Can you walk us through the need for that program, the rationale behind establishing it?

[Judith LaRocque]

Trade Routes was indeed launched in November 2001 as a trade development program designed for the arts and cultural sector, including the performing arts, visual arts, crafts, design, film, television, sound recording, publishing, heritage, and new media. It was established to ensure that Canadian arts and cultural exporters had the same kinds of export services and business opportunities that were available to other priority sectors of the economy. It supported both profit and not-for-profit in the arts and cultural sector preparing to export and sell Canadian artistic work and cultural products in international markets.

Somebody mentioned earlier, maybe it was Mr. Del Mastro, that the Canada Council really does support artists. At the Department of Canadian Heritage we do not have a direct support route to artists because we prefer the arm's-length peer review opportunity of the Canada Council. But we do help cultural businesses. We help them export their goods, and that was why the Trade Routes program was originally created.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Just ask a very short question.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Do you feel that Trade Routes has met its mandate and accomplished what it set out to do?

[Judith LaRocque]

I feel that the Trade Routes program was very expensive to run, and that there are ways for us to maintain our nimbleness and be able to shift priorities as new markets develop. New governments come in. Priorities change. When you have a fixed model that has trade officers in five cities, and five cities alone, to dismantle it takes quite a bit of time. We feel there are more flexible ways to help cultural businesses in this country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Ms. Dhalla, please.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Thank you very much for taking the time to come here today.

If you sense some frustration on this side of the room, it's because of the frustration and anger we have heard, not only from the organizations that have come before us at this committee but also from the e-mails and the phone calls and the meetings we have had with a number of individuals.

You talked about having a strategic review take place, new governments coming in and governments having their own individual priorities. When you in the department did your strategic review, how did you consult with the organizations you were doing the strategic review on?

[Judith LaRocque]

We were under a budgetary process model, which means that we were not out there consulting broadly on matters that would be considered by cabinet. We used information in previous evaluations. We have an ongoing relationship with our clientele. We did analyses and assessments, and all that was fed into the cabinet process.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Did you ever contact any of the organizations that would be receiving cuts or were under review? Did you ever speak to any of the individuals within the organizations?

[Judith LaRocque]

No, we would not have, prior to cabinet's making its decision.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

In terms of doing the review--because no one knew, and obviously that was for the cabinet to decide--did anyone from your department consult with any individuals at any of these organizations about how their programs were running, what the administration costs were, what the costs were for distributing the program itself?

[Pablo Sobrino]

That's an ongoing dialogue that we have with the organizations. We run 60 programs in the department, and our officers and directors general and all that have a lot of contact with the organizations and understand the pressures they face. That information was fed into our process as well.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Just to let you know, every single organization that we have heard from, each and every one of them--and I have the transcripts right here, which I'm sure you guys have looked at as well--has said that they were not consulted. I don't know what type of ongoing dialogue there was, unless these individuals are lying to us, but they have all told us unequivocally that they were not consulted.

[Judith LaRocque]

I think they were all clients of PromArt, or many of them.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

No, they were not.

This is my second question, because we're limited for time. When the decision was made by this Conservative government and cabinet to cut the particular programs, being the clientele of Heritage Canada, how were these organizations informed that they would no longer be receiving this funding for the programs that they distributed?

[Pablo Sobrino]

When the government decided it was time to announce, we contacted the heads of organizations, our third-party delivery agents, by phone. A director general responsible phoned the organization directly and letters were sent out to those organizations. Where there were programs with many recipients, such as Trade Routes, that information is posted on the website, because it's an annual application process and not necessarily everybody applies every time. But in Trade Routes, for example, we did talk to our advisory committee. Phone calls were made the day of the announcement.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Sobrino or Ms. LaRocque, you may want to go back and talk to your department, because let me read you one of the transcripts when I asked one of the organizations that was present.

I asked, “How did you find out about the fact that your organization was receiving a cut?” One of the individuals said they got a call on August 8. I asked someone else, who said they had a phone call. I asked another individual who said that they found out through the media. Someone else said they found out through a television interview. Someone else said they found out through a website.

I don't know where there's been a breakdown in communication, but a number of the organizations, I would say over 90% that have come forward to this committee, had absolutely no knowledge their program or their funding was getting cut, other than learning or reading about it through a newspaper or watching it unfold on television.

[Judith LaRocque]

It's very hard for us to know without the names being given to us, but we had a systematic communications plan for every program that was cut, with phone calls and letters and websites, whatever happened to be appropriate in that circumstance.