Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to speak with you today.
My name is John Lambert. I am an artist's agent. I represent Canadian performing arts companies that tour internationally as well as in Canada. I'm from Toronto originally—western Ontario—and I live in Montreal. I represent artists from British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. I tour these companies to major festivals and venues in Canada and abroad.
The Canadian market is somewhat limited because of the size of our population, and so I tour them primarily internationally. I export them, as it were. This international export of productions by these performing arts companies sustains the jobs of approximately 200 people—201, if you count me.
In Canada, I tour them to such places as the National Arts Centre and the Citadel in Edmonton. Internationally I tour them to the Sydney Opera House, to the Kennedy Centre in Washington, to the Barbican in London—all around the world.
These festivals pay a fee to cover the administrative cost—salaries, etc.—of the companies as well as provide hotels and per diems for the artists when they perform in these venues.
PromArt was a program administered by Foreign Affairs Canada that had a budget for international cultural exchange of about $3.7 million, and $3 million of it went towards the export of our artists abroad. This investment went to cover some of the travel costs and some of the cargo shipment costs—simply that. The total investment of both PromArt and to a lesser extent of the Canada Council has shown itself to be less than 20% of the budget of these tours. This money has pretty well gone directly to pay for plane tickets, to Air Canada and to Canadian cargo companies.
So the money received from government went directly to Canadian businesses in the travel and cargo shipment sector. In return, the Canadian economy has earned foreign currency generated by the fees earned by these companies abroad. Our industry has figures to support the assertion that every dollar invested in the cargo and shipment costs of the productions to get them to the international market has actually generated five times this amount in revenue.
The sudden ending of PromArt has had a dire effect on this Canadian export industry, which has worked productively and effectively for the past 40 years. Perhaps the government feels that Foreign Affairs Canada is not the appropriate department to administer this investment. If that's the case, the government needs to transfer the responsibility and the associated funds to the Canada Council, a body that is already set up to administer these funds.
By cancelling PromArt and erasing $3 million from the overall government budget, the Canadian government has radically destabilized a fully functioning and highly successful export industry that is now being brought to a grinding halt. This Canadian industry has a clear market advantage internationally. One would think the government would want to invest more, not less. The cancelling of PromArt without transferring the administration of these funds has cut this Canadian export industry off at the knees.
Over the past 50 years, through the Canada Council Canadians have invested in the research and development of the performing arts in Canada to create internationally acclaimed productions. The quality of the productions has evolved and sustained itself because of this investment, so that now Canadian productions are recognized for their quality. Canadians' productions are distinguishing themselves through the integration of new technologies and innovation with the forms of performance, mixing disciplines of theatre, circus, and music in a highly and uniquely Canadian fashion.
With the announcement of the termination of PromArt, upcoming tours that have been contracted as far back as 2007 and 2008 have found themselves without sufficient financing to deliver the productions to market. Some tours have been cancelled.
Foreign producers are now becoming wary when negotiating with Canadian companies. We're spoiling our markets and undermining business relationships that took years and millions of dollars to build. Tours projected in 2009-2010 are being cancelled as international festivals and venues cannot assume the cost of our artists' travel and cargo shipment. They will instead purchase productions locally or from countries such as the U.K., France, or Australia, where our competitors' governments sponsor these same travel and cargo shipment costs. This is the standard internationally.
An example of how the international exposure of our artists can interact with other countries and cultures, perhaps in a way that diplomats, business people, and even politicians cannot, is found in the example of Glenn Gould's tour to the Soviet Union in 1957--one great event in Glenn Gould's life that had a long-lasting effect on the performer and audiences and would influence future generations of Russian musicians. Gould was the first western musician to perform in Russia since the Second World War. He left Canada as a well-known Canadian musician and returned as a worldwide sensation. Gould's tour was made possible with government grants.
These are the opportunities--economic, cultural, and diplomatic--Canada is losing by completely withdrawing the $3 million budget administered by PromArt and not transferring these funds to another administrator, such as the Canada Council.
Thank you very much for your time.