Evidence of meeting #4 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
As an Individual
Yes, I did. I was on a number of juries with the Ontario Arts Council, and it was a very efficient process.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
I know you can't say what you haven't overseen yet, but I'm trying to get a sense of it. Have you looked at the review process, the mandate process of the Canada Council, and how it is approving grants? Do you have a sense that it's working well? Does it need to be improved? Are there areas when you go in there that you think you're going to be looking at?
As an Individual
I have not identified problem areas, if I can put it that way. Every conversation I've had to date with artists in the community and with people who have worked in the sector has reinforced that the Canada Council has an extraordinary record in the peer assessment process. My experience in the Ontario Arts Council validated that, because we were very much based on the model of the Canada Council when the Ontario Arts Council was established in 1963. There was no question that the issue of the mandate of the Canada Council is something that's supra council. It's really a government issue.
The mandate of the Canada Council is set out in legislation, as you know, and I am sure that during my time there will be discussion on this subject, but it will not be driven by the Canada Council as being an issue. We are there to fulfill the mandate of the legislation given to us by Parliament.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Again, I'm asking all hypothetical questions because I'm trying to get a sense of your vision for the arts. There are a great number of funding requests coming to the Canada Council, and they're coming from very divergent disciplines, and some of those disciplines are very costly. Theatre costs a lot more than an individual art project when you take a theatre tour across western Canada.
When you look at the overall view of the Canada Council—of course, we should ask for more funding in every element, but we aren't going to be there today—are there areas that you think need to be addressed? Are there areas that you see in terms of a certain discipline that may be falling through the cracks, whether it's aboriginal theatre or writing? On a global perspective, and I'm not asking you to commit to changing, but I'm just asking from what you've seen.... You obviously must have studied the Canada Council before you came forward.
As an Individual
There is no specific area that I am seeing as a priority for shifting money within the Canada Council at this particular moment. What I'm very conscious of is that although the Canada Council is, in my opinion, the most important instrument for stimulating the creation, production, and dissemination of the arts, it is not the only instrument. The growing proactive work of the Canada Council in recent years in trying to establish closer partnerships with other funding bodies, with other sectors of society, strikes me as being a very desirable and positive direction for the organization to engage in going forward.
It doesn't address your question singularly, but I'm hoping it addresses the idea that the organization should be trying to find strategies for leveraging more activity in society as a whole, or in the sector as a whole, and not simply seeing itself as the only player.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to put on the record that I'm very pleased that our process has involved a search firm and that the representation that is being brought to us and the candidates who are being brought to us speak very much to the call we put out from this committee in the last Parliament and in this Parliament.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also wanted to thank Mr. Sirman for attending. Given the fact that he's going to be supervising the distribution of resources to many artists throughout Canada, I think it behooves us to become familiar with him and to develop a relationship with him.
As with any changing of the guard, there are going to be some concerns. Is there going to be a major change of direction? Stakeholders obviously want to know. You've indicated in your answers to Mr. Angus that you don't sense, at this point in time, that there is a major change of direction. Am I correct in assuming that? Or is there perhaps a change of direction that you can foresee coming down the line?
As an Individual
Again, these are very telling questions, because it's impossible at this moment for me to know whether there will be a change of direction.
I think I was trying to indicate to Mr. Angus that there is not any specific part of the Canada Council's work that I see requiring, at this moment, a reorientation or a redistribution of resources. However, I don't believe this is an issue of policy. I believe this is an issue of philosophy, so I'm prepared to stick my neck out here.
I believe that the world today is different from the world of 50 years ago, when the Canada Council was founded. If the Canada Council and the policies of public funding in the arts are to succeed for the next 50 years, we will probably have to evolve and shift priorities going forward. This suggests to me that we are not going to just toe the line and hold the course endlessly year over year.
My dilemma and my challenge is to figure out exactly what that evolution will look like and who the players should be in helping to shape the direction for the future. I believe that the next 50 years of the Canada Council should be as significant as the past 50 years. But they will not be if the Canada Council just does more of the same.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I'm pleased to hear that you're comfortable with adaptation. I think we need that. You're absolutely correct; our environment is changing rapidly.
One of the innovations you thought might be brought to bear is greater leveraging of resources. That's a statement you've made. Can you show one or two examples, from your experience with some of the other arts groups you've worked for or with, of where that has been done?
As an Individual
Well, I definitely can speak to my experience at the National Ballet School. At the National Ballet School, when I joined the organization, we were far more dependent and reliant on government funding than we are today. The interesting thing, though, is that the government funding has actually increased. The quantum has increased, but the percentage of the organization's budget has decreased.
I think what's happening is that the artistic milieu is getting larger and larger--the number of people who are in the sector, the number of organizations--and they are having to reach out to new partners beyond the traditional funders.
In my organization, the National Ballet School--the one I've been most familiar with for the last 15 years--this meant launching business ventures, for example. This meant taking more seriously the establishment of a foundation, a private foundation, which I established as a parallel foundation to the organization, to hold endowed funds. It meant seriously considering the earned revenues of the organization, not just passively looking at them but actually trying to analyze what other sources of revenue there might be to leverage the public funding I was receiving, which was growing, and make it a smaller percentage of the overall budget. I could actually grow faster than my government funding.
This is an example of the kind of leveraging activity that I believe is happening in society as a whole. No single funder is forcing it on the scene, but organizations in the community are recognizing the need to explore broadening--if I can use this word without being pejorative--the business base of running an arts organization in this country.
I don't use it as a big-B business case. But making sure that these organizations are run responsibly, have balanced budgets, can meet their artistic mandates, make connections with the communities they're trying to serve, do actual audience development--by trying to expand to new markets, for example--and orienting the organizations towards the changing demographics of Canadian society are strategies to allow the public funding to leverage more activity without itself being the sole determinant of the future course of the organization.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a fitting day for me, because I received correspondence just a short time ago about a proposal for a particular project in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. But it leads into a bigger question about this.
I'm not looking for how you're going to enact this, or a vision in this particular role--I certainly appreciate where you are at this time--but could you give me some insight as to where you would like to go with this issue?
Your experience is in Europe, I understand. Is that correct?
As an Individual
Is my experience in Europe? No, my experience is in Canada.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Okay, but you have worked with European agencies. Is that right?
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Maybe you could use them as an example; I don't know.
But I'll get to the gist of it, which is basically that the problem we have in smaller communities is a lack of capital funding available through private means, we'll say. The problem becomes not so much the money to help generate a particular project to get it off the ground, but the operational money that is involved.
I personally think there is a way for the government to get more involved than it has been with the arts community. The example I speak of is this. There is a town called English Harbour. There is a church in the small fishing village, which is pretty much a ghost town, given that the fishing industry has gone downhill. Two artists from Toronto bought this church, over 110 years old, refurbished it, and are turning it into a school for artists. It's a fantastic idea.
Where do you see the role of the council in helping provide some operational money for this type of operation—not for that specific example, but for an example like that in a smaller community?
As an Individual
I am going to try to speak to two issues.
There is the example you've used. The Canada Council wouldn't primarily be engaged in a training environment, as I understand it. However, the Canada Council is very present in smaller communities in Canada. You probably know that the grants last year were distributed in more than 560 communities in Canada. My understanding is that the Public Lending Right Commission actually distributes cheques to writers in more than 1,500 communities in Canada.
So the Canada Council is definitely present wherever professional arts activity is going on. The Canada Council does not discriminate between small communities and large communities. What it's trying to track is the evolution of professional arts practice in the country.
Beyond that, I am drawn into a debate about the Canada Council's practices, which I am really not in a position to defend or explain. But I do know that the criterion is not the size of the community; it is the presence of professional activity that has an audience, that has a community it's relating to, that is providing value in that community.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Does size matter? Pardon the expression. I'm talking about the size of your audience.
I'm glad to hear that you don't discriminate on the basis of the size of a particular community. I would like to see a more active role. Anything that goes on in smaller communities like these is usually under the guise of economic development, when in fact it should also be under the guise of artistic expression in the far reaches, we'll say. I hope you see that as a sincere expression as well, and that the Canadian government should be more involved in this type of affair under the council as well.
As an Individual
I'll certainly take it under advisement and be conscious of it as I assume these new responsibilities.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
In your experience in dealing with European countries, what do they do in similar situations? I don't know, so I apologize.
As an Individual
That's a big question. The major challenge here is that the European countries we're most familiar with, the western European countries, make a major public investment in arts practice that far exceeds the investment from any other part of the economy. For example, it would be perfectly normal for a theatre company, a dance company, a symphony, an orchestra to be totally funded by government in a European context, which is not the model we use in Canada and certainly not one we're familiar with in North America at all. It's hard for me to draw a relationship there.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
Okay. I only wanted to hear your concerns about this one, especially when it comes to outside the centre, as we say.
Thank you.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Good afternoon and welcome. Mr. Sirman.
During your exchange with Mr. Fast, you inferred that the way in which arts and cultural practice over time must evolve and that the relationship between the state and artists must also change.
Could you indicate to us how these changes might take place concretely?
