Canadian Heritage Committee on March 4th, 2009

[Alain Dancyger]

I don't know anything about cars.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

--against artists?

I saw your comments, and I thought you didn't actually mean that.

[Alain Dancyger]

My point was actually to say that when you have a thriving cultural industry it seems very logical, or even strategic, as I mentioned in my discourse today, to support it. It means we could be even more competitive because we know the product is very strong out there.

At the end of the day, how much money are you talking about? You're talking about $3 million. And I do understand that this government, like any government, has to make choices, but are those choices strategic?

I have to tell you that when I heard in Cairo that our name was mentioned as one of the key partners of the prizes....what do you call it?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

The Canada Prize--

[Alain Dancyger]

In fact, nobody called us. You're talking about $25 million to reward excellence for international companies while the whole performing arts sector is in demand outside of Canada for $3 million.

I was the Canadian in Cairo trying to raise money, and I had to explain why the Canadian government is not supporting the tour to the Middle East when Shimon Peres and Susan Mubarak will be present at our galas in Tel Aviv and Cairo. These are difficult questions to answer. I'm a moderate, I think, and I'm always trying to find the positive in everything I do, but honestly I use that to respond to challenges every single year.

Believe me, I think the not-for-profit arts organizations are used to doing a lot with little money. This is $3 million. We have all those contracts out there, but we have to say no to them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you for that.

We move now to Mr. Simms, please

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

I have a couple of comments to follow up.

We keep hearing from my colleagues about the overall amount of money. What I find more interesting is the fact that whether it's less or more by $2 million, $3 million, or $10 million, it's a question of how it is spent.

In this particular situation you make the case for a program that is certainly exhausted with not much more demand on it. Culture.ca is perhaps not getting the pickup that it was, and to a certain degree that's understood, but what's lost in the narrative is the communications.

I would put this on Mr. Del Mastro's radar. You say in the particular situation of the north, of the over-air transmissions for people with televisions that are not hooked up to cable, yes, they're going digital, and yes, they will be obsolete, but that still doesn't solve the situation of whether these people have a right to receive that information. This is what Barack Obama is battling with now in providing coupons for set-top boxes for digital transmission. I just want to take a little bit of an issue with that.

In this particular situation I have a simple question. For 2011, it's a pretty bold tour you have here, with the United Kingdom, France, and Holland. I apologize if you didn't cover this off the top, but I want to ask again, if that's the case, where do you go? How are you going to do this in 2011? What is your plan B?

[Alain Dancyger]

Particularly for the large cultural organizations, we plan at least three years ahead of time. We have short-term and long-term concerns, but touring altogether, the short-term concerns are obviously the Middle East right now, where we are confirmed to actually do two performances as part of the centennial celebrations in Tel Aviv. We are the only large cultural organization, with La Scala de Milan, to have been invited. We have one performance in Jerusalem and four in Cairo.

We are, like all of my colleagues, waiting until the last minute, and we're also trying everything we can to raise the money. That's the reason I was in Cairo. We did raise $50,000 from Egyptian companies supporting the presentation of Les Grands Ballets in Cairo, which is quite amazing. We are anticipating $250,000 from PromArt. That's very difficult for us to raise, particularly in view of the current economic situation.

That's a long answer to your question, but in terms of touring, we have already cancelled tours. I mentioned the tour to the U.S. and to Poland. We have frozen our negotiations with Venezia. With regard to the Middle East, honestly, I don't know what to do, particularly if Shimon Peres and Susan Mubarak attend. I would hate to cancel. It's just bad to do that.

Can we afford the deficit? No, we can't. We will cancel the tour in England if we don't have the money. We will certainly not go on tour and incur a deficit. That doesn't make any sense.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

That's despite the demand.

[Alain Dancyger]

That's despite the demand, but that doesn't make sense either when your product is in demand, particularly in times of recession. It should be logical that you invest in products in Canada, which also gives work to Canadians.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Before I get others to respond, I'll throw this in as well.

I guess you're going to be in a situation where what you normally book for administrative costs would now have to go for a potential tour that you cannot cover from funding that you've received before. Would that be correct?

[Alain Dancyger]

We have a number of activities, and the council supports our products and creations, but PromArt was actually the only program at the federal level that supported touring. If we don't have PromArt, then basically we'll get rid of that part of the activity.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Any others on perhaps the short-term and long-term plans?

[Lorraine Hébert]

We conducted a survey of dance companies, and particularly the Grands Ballets Canadiens. Already this year, they have had to consider reducing by six the number of guaranteed weeks in next year's annual contract for a certain number of dancers.

In addition to that, they are changing a full-time position into a part-time position in the outreach department. As time goes by, if things don't improve, they will close the outreach department. And here, we are talking about the largest company, so you can imagine what it's like for the others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We've gone past our time.

Mr. Pomerleau, please.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Hébert, you talked about the fact that art has the effect of uniting societies. It seems to me that is obvious for people who are either involved in artistic activities or part of their audience. This summer, I intend to go to the Stratford Festival, in the riding of my colleague, who is chair of the committee. There is no doubt in my mind that art brings people together within society and that I am going to like Shakespeare's Macbeth. I will be spending a lot of money in my chair's riding and I am most happy to do so.

Art does, indeed, unite societies and produce economic spinoffs. You referred to its effect on the young people coming up behind who have invested a lot in it. As Mr. Labossière was saying, it takes as long to train a dancer or an actor, in some cases, as it does to train an engineer. These people receive training to become creators in areas of endeavour where they know for a fact that they have little chance of making money. It's really too bad for them.

You say that you will be affected by the cuts being made in this sector. Are there any other programs that could replace the ones that are being cancelled? Is there something we could do now to try and resolve the problem, before the situation turns disastrous?

[Lorraine Hébert]

The funding has to be restored. It's urgent. In April, people have to be able to file their applications in order to save what they can for next year and two years from now.

We are talking of about $3 or $4 million. A transfer of $4 million for the performing arts must be made to the Canada Council for the Arts as soon as possible.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Labossière, I really liked your example. You compared an MBA to someone who receives training in the arts. We too often forget that art is profitable; it is not an expense. It is in large part for that reason that we have problems when the time comes to set priorities. We see art as a form of education, as something that generates spending, when in actual fact, it is an investment, just like the bailout of the auto sector or building roads and bridges. It is a long-term cost-effective investment that allows people to earn a living, to do business and to forge relationships.

Will the budget cuts affect lot of arts organizations in your community? Will they affect the entire artistic community?

I believe you work in the museum community.

[Robert Labossière]

We represent art museum directors. They're the managers of the larger or smaller institutions that present art work--art exhibition performance forums, and so on.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Have you made use of the PromArt Program for foreign travel?

[Robert Labossière]

There are impacts within the museum community from the travel support programs, but I really can't speak to those issues. I don't have the specifics. I'm sorry about that.

I think what you're getting at is interesting, because the issue of management within the arts has developed in a very interesting way over the last 15 years. With the cuts that happened in the nineties when there was another severe retraction in the economy, the whole discourse within the visual arts sector turned toward self-generated revenue, sustainability, and so on. We've had that discourse developing over the last 10 to 15 years.

That has put a lot of pressure on management to find ways to make economic arguments that justify their institutions, but also to find ways to diversity their funding sources. So whenever there are changes in programs or programs are gone, you hope other programs will come into place, but it requires adjustment at the management level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay, we're out of time.

I'm going to go to Mr. Del Mastro for the final question, please.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Dorner, I listened to your comments as you talked a bit about television and new media and so forth. I just wanted to point out to you that the budget, of course, included $200 million for the renewal of the Canadian Television Fund and $28.6 million for the Canada New Media Fund.

I wanted to get your reaction on this. The Canadian Film and Television Production Association were quoted as saying they were pleased that the government is listening, given the two-year extension of the Canadian Television Fund and the Canada New Media Fund.

Valerie Creighton, president and CEO of the Canadian Television Fund, said “The Government's commitment to Canadian television ensures the continued viability of this growth industry.”

Do you disagree with those two individuals?

[Jennifer Dorner]

I don't disagree; however, it's a totally different sector from the one I'm representing.

It seems, again, that the current government is really shifting funds to commercial, entertainment-oriented spending. Those funds do not fund any of the members I represent--none of them. The Canada New Media Fund is for websites that are, for example, cooking shows or that sort of thing. Looking at how that fund has been spent in the past, I would say that out of the 12,000-plus people we represent, none of those people would qualify for that fund.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Is increasing the funding for the Canada Council for the Arts from $100 million to $181 million—