Canadian Heritage Committee on March 4th, 2009

[Jennifer Dorner]

I'm sorry, that's wrong. It wasn't $100 million; it was at $150 million, and it was increased by $30 million.

The biggest problem for our sector is that by the time the money trickles down to the media arts, it's not that much. Especially because right now with the whole shift to HD technology, our production centres across the country have equipment that's so outdated that within the next couple of years, artists across the country will not have access to television broadcasting, which is a major problem. So we need even more funding for the Canada Council.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay. Actually, the Canada Council was $100 million prior to 2006, but I'm not going to argue on the numbers with you.

[Jennifer Dorner]

No, it was $150 million. I was very much involved with that lobby.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

But you're getting away from the point, which is if we're increasing that, doesn't that also take away from the argument that we're moving to commercial media instead of supporting artists? I don't quite understand.

[Jennifer Dorner]

That's the one thing we were very excited about, I will not disagree with that. I think the $30 million that was invested in 2006 was welcomed by all of us, and we were involved with meetings at the council to look at how it was being distributed amongst all sectors. We're all fighting for that, because it's just not enough. It doesn't even come close to being enough.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

What is enough? I guess that's the question.

[Jennifer Dorner]

What we were asking for was that it be doubled in 2006, and $30 million wasn't double. Our campaign was $5 per capita, which would have been from $150 million to $300 million. The $30 million was just a little bit, and we were, like, “Yea!”, but it doesn't come close.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay.

I just have one more question for you, Mr. Dancyger. Let's see if I can find it here. The National Ballet of Canada were out pretty strongly on the budget. Their comments were that they were very thrilled to see that the National Ballet School would benefit.

Kevin Garland, general director of the National Ballet, was reported as saying “We're really thrilled that there's a strong minister and that there were [two] pages in the budget devoted to the arts, which is a first in my history.”

Do you agree with his comments?

[Alain Dancyger]

Do you know that the National Ballet of Canada practically does not tour internationally?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay. But obviously—

[Alain Dancyger]

I'm here to testify that we need to support international touring. The National Ballet of Canada tours across Canada, mostly to the west, but very rarely tours internationally.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

But I'm assuming that they would provide some of the dancers and so forth to your....

[Alain Dancyger]

They don't.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

They're not training any dancers of the future?

[Alain Dancyger]

As Lorraine was saying, ballet companies are international companies. We have dancers from Quebec, dancers from Canada, dancers from all over the world. And, yes, some dancers come from the National Ballet schools, some come from the Winnipeg schools, some come from Juilliard, some come from the Conservatoire de Paris, and so on. So we are an international ballet company, like all major international ballet companies.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

The $100 million for marquee festivals....

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

This is the last question. Keep it pretty short.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Certainly.

There's been an awful lot of talk about how investments generate spinoffs and that then generates other economic activity.

The $100 million for marquee festivals.... By the way, one of the reasons we're doing it is that advertising dollars...as you mentioned, in the United States, the private sector is not supporting the way they were. Will this not create significant economic spinoff in arts and culture? Will it not assist in productions right across Canada?

[Alain Dancyger]

Well, we all contribute to the Canadian economy. As a matter of fact, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens is one of the very few ballet companies in the world that has initiated reciprocity agreements with our sister companies.

I will give you an example. We saved the presentation of the Les Grands Ballets in Houston during the tour to the U.S. I referred to, which had to be cut down to four cities. One of those four cities was Houston. Why? Because we had a reciprocity agreement with the Houston Ballet. They came to Montreal, and they usually don't tour. Ballet companies like ours provide a yearly season, all year long, whereas festivals have their roles to play at specific times throughout the year. I guess we all contribute to the Canadian economy.

The dance world is in jeopardy, because what's happening now is that the elimination of PromArt is eliminating, basically, all activity of dance internationally, which will result in a loss to the Canadian economy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.

I thank you so much for hanging around and letting us get our votes done. I thank our committee members for coming back afterwards to accommodate our witnesses who have come quite a distance to be here today. Thank you very much for your candid remarks.

The meeting is adjourned.