Thank you.
Good morning. I'm so pleased to be presenting to you today. I am the Director and CEO of the Ottawa Art Gallery, and I suppose my voice is representative of the many municipal and regional art galleries across Canada. Some of you may have heard that we opened our doors to a new gallery this past weekend to huge success.
Many people, including the media, were positively surprised at the dominance of women in our project. I and our professional team, primarily made up of women, to our P3 private partners led by females, to key members of the building project team, pulled off an incredibly complex $100-million project. We apparently blasted through some biases of who and what it takes to get the job done.
As our organization embraces the time of transition and growth, it is timely to reflect on this transitional culture of gender parity as it relates to leadership, to what barriers might still exist in the sector, and to its impact on the decent work movement within the arts. We are certainly encouraged by the recent announcements made by Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Cultural Human Resources Council to support training and funding eligibility as it relates to a respectful and harassment-free work environments. This is a crucial step in working towards a new environment of arts leadership for the better.
According to a recent Canadian art magazine study based on the Canada Council for the Arts' recipient list of core funding, directors and curators in Canadian visual arts galleries are made up of 70% women and 30% men. This is seemingly good news, until you start to review important positions in the most powerful institutions across Canada, and North America as a whole. It's then that you see a complete reversal, with very few women in top positions and the women earning 20% less than their male counterparts. There is, unfortunately, what appears to be a glass ceiling in major institutions. There are, however, some notable exceptions, past and present, particularly in Quebec.
Steps need to be taken at the highest levels of organizations across Canada to nominate more females for executive positions. Executive search firms need to expand and put forward more female prospects, and those making hiring decisions on the CEOs of galleries and museums need to consciously check biases and recognize that expertise can be gained within Canada and in female form.
Many HR research reports I have read suggest that males come out stronger in articulating vision and exemplifying confidence and experience, thus resulting in a perception of a stronger candidate. This is a bias that our sector perpetuates. From my own experience in hiring practices, I have seen female candidates who are well equipped to lead. In interviews, they generally adopt a different style. They may assert their experience while acknowledging risk, attributing credit to others where credit is due, and acknowledging areas for improvement.
These qualities must no longer be attributed to weakness or a lack of confidence but rather to strength and the ability to honestly communicate the full picture of activities and realities. Vision is not about bolstering egos or using fancy lingo to steamroll an organization through unsustainable plans. Vision is about recognizing the unique set of circumstances that affect an organization and collectively driving an organization forward.
Across Canada, the arts sector has benefited from exemplary female leaders who have made positive changes in their organizations. Examples of these changes include rescuing galleries and museums in crisis, greatly increasing organizational capacity, building new and expanded facilities, raising major funds, and massively expanding audiences. This leadership style often promotes qualities such as shared and compassionate leadership and mentoring, an ability to embrace change and to pivot an organization to be more responsive, and a talent for providing sound fiscal management.
In 2017, the Canada Council for the Arts updated its policies and required that funding applicants commit to reflecting the diversity of their geographic community and region in organizational and artistic policies and programs. Now they've asked that we see diversity on staff and, most importantly, on the board of directors.
At the municipal and regional level in this country, the arts sector is dominated by female leaders who have risen from the ranks and have built strong ties to their community and an authentic style of leadership that often strives for sustainable excellence.
Women are leading the charge in ensuring that arts organizations establish, and maintain meaningful connections that are now being officially encouraged by our funders and our governments, and which have implicitly encouraged for decades, as not-for-profit arts organizations, a sense of accountability to their mission and communities. Yet, often, this commitment to diversity was not recognized, supported, or worse, at times, undermined by those in the leadership circle. That is a most unfortunate situation.
This authentic style of leadership, that has been recognized by national labour organizations within their decent work indicators, is becoming more and more prominent. In fact, our own organization was recognized by our work in the decent work movement through the Ontario not-for-profit network in their promising practice study.
Several of our practices were called out, including fair income and gender parity of wages; a platform for shared decision-making and ownership of planning and budgeting; flexible work environments that respect constraints around child, spousal and parental care; less contractual and more full-time permanent positions, mentorships, and opportunities for advancement; and wellness days replacing sick days.
Certainly, we know there are areas for improvement, including better health and benefit plans, as well as harassment policies that include a review of poor behaviour and practices.
In closing, I would like to echo other organizations' call, such as that of my colleague and the Canadian Arts Coalition, for you to consider the following recommendations: again, to instruct the Department of Canadian Heritage to conduct a literature review on gender parity in the arts, with attention to directors and board of directors, because the sector needs a comprehensive picture of the problem; work with the arts sector to encourage corporate headhunting firms to ensure that all executive searches include candidates who are not only female but also indigenous, disabled, queer, trans, and people of colour; encourage the Canada Council for the Arts to look to best practices, and to collect data regarding priority groups, as we really do need some comprehensive data; provide funding for human resource programs that address perceived barriers to female advancement; and provide mentorship opportunities.
Thank you very much.