Evidence of meeting #105 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Welcome to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, everyone.
We are continuing our study on cultural hubs and cultural districts in Canada.
We have a panel of witnesses today consisting of Kathy Ouellette, General Director of Centre Materia, Mark Sandiford from Creative P.E.I., and David Moss and David Santelli from La Piscine.
We will now move on to presentations, starting with Ms. Ouellette, from Centre Materia.
Kathy Ouellette General Director, Centre Materia
In 2000, the Maison des métiers d'art de Québec, the MMAQ, created the Materia Gallery, located on the ground floor of its eight-storey building, in the heart of the Saint-Roch neighbourhood, in Quebec City. At the time, there were no presentation venues for crafts in Quebec. By adding a public gallery to its premises, the MMAQ opened itself up to the world by attracting the attention of passersby, but also by allowing master craftspeople who came from all over to showcase their work and make it known.
In 2003, the Materia Gallery became the Centre Materia, an artist-run centre overseen by a board of directors operating at arm's length from the MMAQ's board of directors. Materia's sustainability is due, even today, to the considerable financial support from the MMAQ.
Materia's mission is to spread and promote research and creation in crafts, nationally and internationally. As the only Canadian artist-run centre for fine crafts, Materia is working to highlight the work of the biggest creators, as well as emerging artists, by presenting it in a professional context. Material is becoming a unique site for presenting and interpreting current fine crafts. Over the years, the excellence of events presented at Materia has contributed to changing mentalities and opening up perceptions on crafts.
Since its creation, the centre has presented the work of nearly 600 craftspeople selected by juries of their peers. At a rate of five or six exhibits a year and a number of satellite activities, such as conferences, seminars, videos and publications. So far, Materia has coordinated over 100 exhibits and welcomed nearly 70,000 visitors. Altogether, that represents direct benefits of $680,000 for artists, be it in copyright royalties, exhibition fees, professional fees or sales. The impact on the community is not only monetary; it is direct and daily on all types of users.
The main challenge, for Materia, has to do with operational funding. Some artist-run centres that are recognized and supported for their mission, but others, such as Materia, are recognized but are not supported. For nearly 18 years, the centre has been hoping that its mission would finally be recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts.
We occasionally receive funding for projects from the Canada Council for the Arts. That funding is certainly essential, but it focuses on the short term. Strong strategies with a sustainable impact on a community are not built in a hurry.
According to Mana Rouholamini, of the Canada Council for the Arts, last year, the money allocated to projects increased by 224%, while the money allocated to operations increased by only 55%.
I am the director of an artist-run centre that employs four people, three of whom are permanent employees. As the general director, I have a bachelor's degree, and my salary is $29,700. The project coordinator, who holds a master's degree in museum studies, earns $22,300 annually. The person in charge of the public and set-ups, who is a technician with a college degree, earns $15,600.
It is extremely difficult to retain staff. On average, general directors remain for 3.4 years, coordinators for 1.4 years, and those in charge of the public, 0.6 years.
Those staffing changes considerably slow down the centre's development and make it difficult to establish stable connections. Because of those changes, canvassing is almost non-existent and organizational functionality is precarious, not to mention the cost and time spent on hiring and training staff.
The solutions adopted to balance budgets have the least impact on the quality of exhibits. In those conditions, it is practically utopic to hope to unlock an organization's full potential.
The anemic funding and the non-indexing of subsidies to operations have direct impacts on the centre's sustainability.
In Quebec, in May 2018, minimum wage will increase by 6.6%. Artist-run centres cannot increase their prices to make up for the losses. The impacts will be felt on workers involved in cultural fields, be it through reduced work hours or job cuts.
Finally, in our opinion, increasing the money provided for operations and the number of centres entitled to those subsidies is critically important. Financial assistance for the mission confirmed over several years—for example, three years—would enable artist-run centres to plan their cultural offer more adequately and take the long-term into account. Most importantly, it would greatly improve the quality of life of passionate artists and cultural workers.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
We will now hear from our next witness.
We're going to go to Mark Sandiford of Creative P.E.I., please.
Mark Sandiford Executive Director, Creative PEI
Hello. Thank you very much for inviting me to appear before this committee.
I'm Mark Sandiford. I'm the Executive Director of Creative P.E.I. We're the sector council for the cultural and creative industries in Prince Edward Island.
As with every province and territory, the cultural industries are extremely important to P.E.I., both socially and economically. But what I believe makes P.E.I. unique is our ability to collaborate across disciplines and with other sectors. This is the gift of being a small, tightly connected society. As a result, we have a lot of cultural hubs, both formal and informal. This morning I would like to walk you through some of our experiences.
Let's start with a definition. For me, cultural hubs are places where people gather to participate in cultural experiences. Historically on P.E.I., that would have been in churches and kitchen parties, libraries and dance halls, but now we have the kinds of cultural hubs we're discussing here today.
In P.E.I., cultural hubs typically start with anchor facilities, such as the Confederation Centre in Charlottetown, the Victoria Playhouse in Victoria-by-the Sea, Artisans on Main in Montague, and Green Gables House in Cavendish. These anchors serve as magnets for other cultural activities and enterprises that eventually grow to form a full-blown cultural district.
In our experience, successful anchors are often single-purpose facilities. The multidisciplinary aspect of a hub only emerges later as the anchor is joined by others. I think this is an important note. Cultural hubs are stronger if they're encouraged to grow organically rather than be over-designed and over-built at the start. The key to starting a hub is to create a well-focused, robust, sustainable, limited purpose facility. The key to growing a hub is to encourage other players to establish additional facilities within walking distance of the anchor.
P.E.I. is lucky to have low real estate prices compared with the rest of Canada. One of the keys to our success in growing our culture sector has been affordability for housing and commercial rent; however, we are beginning to see our own gentrification challenge. P.E.I.'s population growth is great, but it is also putting upward pressure on affordability that may soon need to be addressed.
Recently I've been thinking a lot about public libraries as a model for cultural hubs. Canada has a large built infrastructure of libraries, all dedicated to serving a cultural purpose. Now that the need for lending physical books is declining, it may be time to think about how libraries can be repurposed as cultural hubs.
There is strength in networks. In P.E.I. the professional theatres have recently formed a network to support each other. This network allows smaller rural theatres, such as Watermark in North Rustico, to work with larger theatres, such as the Confederation Centre and The Guild, in Charlottetown, on things such as training, staffing, and joint marketing.
Film P.E.I. recently opened a media-focused hub that is actively reaching out beyond its core membership to offer their facilities and programming to other groups, such as the P.E.I. Crafts Council and the Mi'kmaq Confederacy. Fostering these horizontal connections between hubs is the key to maximizing the impact of investment in infrastructure.
This leads me to the topic of programming. Facilities are great, but I think that too much emphasis has been put on infrastructure and not enough on programming. Canadian Heritage needs to extend its excellent cultural spaces fund to give hubs the consistent organizational funding to allow hubs to be staffed and to deliver programming.
Finally, I would like to talk about economic impact. In P.E.I. this is closely linked to the issue of seasonality. P.E.I. is a tiny market. Our population is only about 150,000 people. Every summer, however, we welcome more than one and a half million visitors.
This situation creates two very different cultural realities. From June to September, all of the theatres are packed, there are festivals galore, and artisans do a booming business. By November 1, in rural P.E.I. pretty much everything is closed. Cultural activity shrinks to Charlottetown.
Given this situation, it is amazing that P.E.I.'s cultural sector performs just under the national average in terms of jobs and GDP. It's pretty much all accomplished in four months.
Seasonality is very tough on workers. I believe part of the solution to this problem is to find a way to refocus the off-season on providing cultural experiences for our own residents. Cultural hubs could be the ideal vehicle for making this happen.
In Charlottetown, we are already seeing the beginnings of how this could work. The Confederation Centre and The Guild shift their programming focus to serve a local audience. Dance classes start up. Winter festivals bring people out. We are also seeing some fascinating new initiatives that could accelerate this process: a potential new discovery centre focusing on the STEAM disciplines and a possible makerspace, all being planned to exist within the cultural district.
What we need to do now is to figure out how cultural organizations and all levels of government can partner to encourage the growth of these kinds of initiatives.
Thanks very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
Thank you.
We will now hear from David Moss and David Santelli, from La Piscine.
David Moss Co-Executive Director, La Piscine
Good morning. Thank you very much for inviting us to speak to the committee on the subject of cultural hubs and cultural districts in Canada.
We really appreciate the care that has been taken by the committee in its thorough study of these two timely and interrelated subjects for Canadian communities from coast to coast to coast. Please note that in our testimony we use the terms “creative hub” and “cultural hub” interchangeably.
I will preface our testimony with a brief overview of what La Piscine is and does and of its anchor project Le Rodier, Montreal's first site that will be dedicated to cultural and creative entrepreneurship.
La Piscine is a non-profit organization created in 2015, whose mission is to catalyze and cultivate the first-ever ecosystem dedicated to the development of entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative sectors in Montreal and across Quebec and Canada. Its expertise, and consequently the primary activities it pursues, are first, the design and delivery of customized acceleration programs to accompany the development of creative and cultural entrepreneurs and companies with high growth potential, and second, the design and animation of the very first-ever site in Montreal dedicated to cultural and creative entrepreneurship. This site will be a veritable cultural hub.
La Piscine is focused upon innovation and value creation allowing entrepreneurs in the cultural and creative industries to realize their full potential from an economic growth standpoint, as well as the social impact that they have on their communities at any scale. In July 2017 La Piscine and its real estate partner Gestion Georges Coulombe announced the acquisition of the Rodier building, situated in the heart of Montreal's Quartier de l'Innovation in downtown Montreal.
The purchase of the building from the City of Montreal was effectuated within the framework of a call for proposals that responded to economic, social, and cultural development objectives and opportunities. This iconic building was erected in 1875 and is a notable part of the city's historical and architectural heritage. It is currently being restored and renovated and will soon bear a new vocation as a cultural hub entirely dedicated to cultural and creative entrepreneurship.
I'd like to show you a few pictures of this building, which you may recognize.
On the left-hand side you have a picture of the Rodier Building around 1901 and a more, I would say, modern picture that was taken in the 1980s. Next is a side view of the building. It is known as “Montreal's Flatiron Building”, referencing the New York Flatiron Building. Here is a picture that was taken just before the purchase last year. What you have here are architectural renderings of what the exterior of the building will look like by the end of this year, from the north side of the building facing downtown Montreal and from the south side of the building facing Montreal's Old Port.
Creating a strong link between Montreal's heritage and cultural innovation—actually a long link in the case of the history of the building—the Rodier will be a point of convergence for entrepreneurs, investors, and the entire community engaged in supporting the development and growth of culture and creativity in Montreal, Quebec, and Canada.
La Piscine is the project partner driving the development of the creative hub, which is targeted to open towards the end of this year and will be animated by the following five components. First, it will be a space dedicated to supporting the development and growth of cultural and creative entrepreneurship, with specific programs to accompany and support the incubation and acceleration of cultural and creative talents, organizations, and businesses. Second, it will provide open access for collaboration and experimentation, whether for testing new business models, products, or approaches to public engagement.
Third, it will be a place for organizations and businesses whose mission is to support the development of the cultural sector and creative industries. Fourth, it will be a public space that encourages experimentation in the culinary arts and elevates Montreal's innovative culinary community and the entrepreneurial spirit that emboldens it. Fifth, it will undertake a proactive engagement in the civic development and renewal of Griffintown, where the Rodier is situated, also in the heart of the Quartier de l'Innovation. It's is thus a veritable living lab ripe for experimentation with local residents for social impact.
I'm now pleased to provide an overview of our vision for a cultural hub and cultural district.
A cultural hub is a physical space that provides accessible opportunities for a mix of actors in the arts, cultural, and heritage sectors, creative industry enterprises, and individuals to work, to engage with one another, and to collaborate.
The community that breathes life into a cultural hub is representative of an ecosystem that includes artists and creators of all types; arts, cultural, heritage, and creative organizations and enterprises; service organizations; and expert professionals in the field of cultural and creative industry and related business development support—for example, capital investment, market development, etc. They come together for the express purpose of working, collaborating, and benefiting from the synergies that a diversity of expertise, experience, capacity, contacts, and opportunities present when they converge into a hub.
Cultural hubs convene, and they curate this community and support the development of entrepreneurship and business skills, encourage this collaboration, share knowledge and best practices, and showcase their work with the express intent to create value and develop opportunities for the participants' economic growth and their social impact.
Cultural hubs engage citizens, businesses, community organizations, and institutions where they reside, and they play an active leadership role in the development of the surrounding area. The local community can serve as an excellent testing ground for regional, national, and international development, scaling, and impact.
Cultural hubs are not a means to an end. In fact we feel that the idea is not to close artists and creative industry players in a building or geographic area per se and expect that they will come out the proverbial “other end” different and better, but to help create value and growth for entrepreneurs so that they can test locally and then develop internationally. We need to keep in mind that a hub is a passageway. It's like an airport, where people come and go, and then they come back on their way to another destination.
I'd like to speak to cultural hubs and the notion of community.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
I'll give you just a heads up that you're getting close to the end of your time. You might be able to bring up some of this through questions too.
Co-Executive Director, La Piscine
Thank you. I will expedite this.
In our view, cultural hubs, at their core, not only validate and recognize artists and creators in their valorization of their art form, creative discipline, practice, organization, or business, but to their community and society at large. They serve as community hubs, really. We believe that cultural hubs should have the soul of a community centre, where above all community is a value and a philosophy. They create a strong sense of belonging, a strong sense of place. They also uphold and cultivate the notion of community that transcends beyond the walls of the actual physical space and extends across geographic territory without limitations.
We operate within the realm of cultural innovation and entrepreneurship, and I would like to make a few points about this topic. That drives our vision for the Rodier building. It begins with the central idea that an artist is an entrepreneur. Artists by definition of their own creative research process are pro-active innovators at their core. They practice innovation.
We are convinced that this inherent sensibility can generate more economic value and social value.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
We're going to have a whole question-and-answer period, and you'll be able to bring in some of your information there.
Liberal
Liberal
Gordie Hogg Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
You can start by finishing what you were just doing there, using my time.
Thank you.
Co-Executive Director, La Piscine
I'm going to skip to cultural districts, if I may, and we have a few recommendations. I don't know whether you would permit me to make those recommendations.
Co-Executive Director, La Piscine
In summary, we feel that a cultural district can be summarized in two points. First, it's a space for living, where everybody meets, and it's a sort of a playground for those who use and share private and public space. It is also an experimental space where social, economic, and civic development can be enhanced.
Our recommendations are three-fold and summarize the way the federal government can encourage and support the development of both cultural hubs and cultural districts to realize their full potential.
One is to support the development of cultural innovation. Up to now, much attention has been placed on product innovation. We feel that cultural innovation, particularly as it pertains to organizational development or innovation and the veritable transformation that organizational models require these days, needs more attention and support to actualize the growth potential of the cultural and creative sectors.
Two, we feel that the federal government can continue to work even more closely with the municipal, provincial, and territorial governments and other federal departments to help ensure alignment of local priorities, opportunities, challenges, and programs. A lot of focus in this area has been coming out of economic development and innovation portfolios, from what we're seeing. We know that with the creative economy in the spotlight in many places throughout Canada in the technology sector, we need to keep in mind that the cultural and heritage sector operates on a somewhat different plane and has much to contribute to a more impactful and integrated creative economy strategy, and the federal government can certainly be a champion of this opportunity.
Liberal
Gordie Hogg Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
It's my turn again. Can we trade off a little bit here?
Liberal
Co-Executive Director, La Piscine
It's to support cultural hubs in their operation and their development. To actually operate these things, there are currently no programs available, beyond the infrastructure. We need to operate them and manage them effectively and we need to program them in ways that can catalyze the opportunities that are presented here.
Liberal
Gordie Hogg Liberal South Surrey—White Rock, BC
We've had three fairly significantly different presentations in terms of the level. I think the commonality I'm hearing is certainly the notion of cultural hubs' involving the sense of community, the sense of commitment, and the sense of belonging that's created through this type of process.
Can you tell me a little bit about your organizational model? You're all non-profits. How does that function and work? Is there an organizational model that would be more effective for you than the model you're currently functioning under?
Executive Director, Creative PEI
We're a one-person organization that presides as an umbrella over a whole bunch of other one-person organizations that all have their own boards and this sort of thing. It's a massively inefficient system, yet because of the requirements of funding, we have to stick to our box and those people have to stick to their boxes. We're thus trying to do as much collaboration as we can.
It strikes me that allowing industry to be able to bulk up a little bit, to be able to collaborate—not just to co-locate but to actually work as integrated organizations—would be a big step in the right direction.