Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to everyone for their excellent presentations.
Ms. Morgan, it was actually in Davenport, the riding I represent in downtown west Toronto. I hold these artist strategy sessions two to three times a year, and it was out of a discussion that I had at the last one when we talked about Soulpepper and the situation that had evolved there late last year that led to me put in a motion to have this study done. Soulpepper was very much a part of inspiring this whole study, and I think this is a positive thing.
A key fact that came out was that, with artistic directors, there is a low number of women artistic directors, and you correctly reinforced that as part your presentation. I want to talk about that for a minute and maybe see some specific recommendations that we at the federal level can do to be helpful around this.
We heard from Ms. Pigott that funding for women in programming is less than for men, so we know that's part of the issue. We heard that there is a handful of really tiny organizations and some really big ones, so it's really hard to build that capacity. How do you help build that?
I wanted to maybe just pause for a second to see whether or not there's something we can do in that area in terms of helping to build that capacity or helping a bit more in terms of those senior leadership roles within the arts and culture sector. What might be specific recommendations, beyond maybe ensuring there is adequate funding, particularly for those plays or artistic endeavours that are led by women?