Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 13th, 2018

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Considering large cities separately from smaller municipalities, we need to think about another problem that can arise, namely gentrification. We know that gentrification often forces lower-income residents out of certain neighbourhoods.

How can we promote the creation of cultural hubs or cultural districts in a way that will not harm local residents and will reduce the negative views some people may have of culture and the presence of government?

[Lise Laneville]

That is a great question. I'm sure municipalities have been hard at work on that lately.

Our sphere of influence is limited to the Canada cultural spaces fund. We support projects that come from the community and that represent the community.

[Ramzi Saad]

We do not support a space just because it is located in a cultural district. We are going to take all that into consideration, but we also need to determine how well the space responds to needs.

If there are any key benefits, that is an important factor to consider, and we are going to find a way to recommend a project in a cultural district. However, there is no criterion or parameter that makes it mandatory for a space to be part of a cultural district. We respond to needs, and we have some flexibility in our recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

Now we are going to Mr. Eglinski, for the Conservatives.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank both presenters today.

I have a question. I'm going to slide off the topic for a moment, then I'm going to get back to what we were talking about, cultural centres and creative hubs. I want to get a definition of art by your department.

I love art on the walls, but I also like art on the ground, rolling vehicles, for example. I attend many car shows throughout Alberta and British Columbia. To me, it's art. Some of these vehicles are so well done—a classic Duesenberg or something like that—yet I never see any funding or support for that type of art, which represents a fairly large group of people. The largest gathering in our community, in any one of my communities in the Yellowhead riding, would be the local car show that's held maybe two or three times in the summer.

Therefore, I ask, what's the definition of art?

[Ramzi Saad]

I will take an opportunity to respond to that, but also tie in to where creative hubs can come in and what the vision is.

For us, as you implied, the arts are defined in terms of the professional excellence around the creation, production, and presentation of artistic work. We categorize them in three areas—performing arts, visual arts, and media arts, in principle without getting into every single subsector of the arts. That said, in the performing arts, we're looking at theatre, dance, opera, and live music. In visual arts, it's crafts, photography, sculpture, paintings. Media arts are digital arts and new media arts. Those are the well-established and understood definitions of the arts.

Did I miss any disciplines?

Is there anything else you want to add to that?

[Lise Laneville]

I would add that those are the disciplines that comprise the cultural satellite account, and how we measure the economic impacts.

[Ramzi Saad]

Is that clear? Does it answer the first part of your question?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Yes.

[Ramzi Saad]

The question now gets into how we are dealing with the creative sector, how we are dealing with all of those who are using their creative ability and talent, yet they're in an economic sector that is defined very strictly. For example, I may work in the automotive sector, but I'm an industrial designer.

I think today the idea of a creative sector, the way in which we want to look at creative disciplines, especially with what the government has put forward in its creative Canada policy framework, is really to open up support to ensure the inclusion of architecture, fashion, and design. Design design is where you're going to get into the industrial piece and question of whether that is automotive design or any other form.

The point of creative hubs is that we want to bring that creative talent, regardless of discipline, together with the arts and cultural and heritage sectors to incubate and develop the content that is required.

By opening up our support, by bringing the creatives together, there is now an opportunity to have that conversation. That's clearly articulated in the framework. So you have arts, and then you have the opportunity we have before us.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

Now I'll go back to the subject, cultural districts and creative hubs. We have a building, and I have a couple of these centres in different small towns in my area. We have an area in Edson called the Red Brick, which was a school built in the 1930s and then closed down and then reopened as, I believe, both a creative hub and a cultural district. We hold everything from community meetings there, senior gatherings, to any one of the arts you want to bring in. We have a theatre in there.

They're always struggling for funding, whether it's from the municipality or from the province. Can a very diversified group like that ask for cultural district funding and for creative hub funding, and would it be acceptable? They fit both.

[Ramzi Saad]

For cultural district funding, there's no one centre where you go to apply to be a cultural district. Depending on your business, what you would do is to seek support from many levels of government and many funding programs in government to be able to animate the work you want.

If you're an arts presenter, you'd go to the Canada arts presentation fund. If you want to build a building, you'd go to Infrastructure Canada to get the core support. If you are looking to enhance your artistic work, you would apply to the Canada Council for the Arts.

The answer is that there is a lot of opportunity and a lot of federal programs, as well as the support that each of the arts councils within the provinces can provide, depending on what the project is.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Great. Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Ms. Dzerowicz for five minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much. Thanks for the excellent presentation this morning.

I'm very blessed. I have a very rich artistic community in my riding. It's crazy. I actually didn't recognize it until I came into office. Literally every artistic person I meet on the street will say, “I live in your riding.”

I was very interested in your presentation. Thanks for taking us through the two main mechanisms that you've been funding: cultural hubs and creative spaces, and creative districts in Canada through your Canada arts presentation fund and Canada cultural spaces fund.

One of our key questions is how can the federal government foster and support their additional development? We have the two funds now. If you were to make additional recommendations to us, what more could we be doing? That's my first question.

Secondly, I hold strategic arts round tables with my community, and I often ask what I can do to be helpful to them at the federal level. They often say, “Julie, if there's any way that you can better collaborate with the other levels of government, that would be really helpful.” It's one of the things they say to me, particularly around additional spaces, funding, or bringing things together.

I just want to get your thoughts. We have two amazing funds now. They're doing some really good work. If you had to make some additional recommendations in terms of additionally fostering and supporting their development, what would they be?

Is there a way that we can work better with the other levels of government?

[Ramzi Saad]

Given what I'm trying to achieve, I'm not in a position to make recommendations at this point, but I can tell you that our two programs do not support programming or what's going to happen inside a creative hub, but that's something we are hearing is a need.

That said, I think that is potentially one of the things that we would potentially want to do, namely to look at support through the municipal and provincial governments, to look at the role of our portfolio organizations, as well as the fact that the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development has also come forward with a $1.26 billion program in the strategic innovation fund that allows partners to come together to look at developing innovative tool kits for that support.

We look to the Canada cultural spaces fund for the proponents to bring together the private resource support to look at the programming within the space, but the fund does not support the operations, maintenance, and programming within the space. We're very much focused on the physical conditions that are in place. Right now, to my knowledge, there is no support for programming from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

In my riding, MOCA, the new museum of Canadian contemporary art, is opening up. Because of a huge concern in the community that now that we have this great big museum, it's going to eat up all the smaller visual art galleries, they've formed an alliance with the local community, which they call the Akin Collective. They're going to be working together, which is amazing.

We've tried with some small theatre and dance groups to get them together, but they're so small that they don't have the leadership resources or capacity to be able to form the type of collective that allows them to apply for these kinds of funds or to get private funders. There's a sophistication there, and I wonder whether there's some sort of funding or support that we could provide to build the capacity of some of these small organizations that are very professional, but that spend all of their money and time just doing their services. I wonder if you might be able to address that.

[Lise Laneville]

There is a program at the Department of Canadian Heritage called the Canada cultural investment fund that is also under the direction of our policy branch. Its focus is to help organizations build their capacity and build better business practices. One of the program's strategic initiatives is to encourage collaboration, organizations working together, so they are able to develop their capacities.

For example, one of the projects that has been supported through this program is called “artsVest” through Business for the Arts. It is delivered nationally in communities and offers capacity building for arts and heritage organizations to build their fundraising capacity so that they are able to get sponsors and additional support from their local communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much.

We are now going to Mr. Shields for five minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for your presentation today.

Just for clarification, is the National Gallery something funded by your department, or is it totally separate?

[Ramzi Saad]

National galleries?

[Lise Laneville]

The National Gallery of Canada?

[Ramzi Saad]

That's a crown corporation, yes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I just wanted to make that clear.

You identified 600 different groups receiving money during the year. Is that 600 an ongoing average in a year?

[Ramzi Saad]

The answer is yes. Arts presenters are those who put on festivals and performing arts series and, as you know, they occur annually in each community. The arts presentation fund has recurring clients come into the program, and that's why we can estimate the average. We have about 600 because we see the proliferation of the diversity of festivals in communities across the country.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Would you submit the list of those to us?