Evidence of meeting #95 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 hub.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Absolutely. We have proactive disclosure of the full list of recipients every year. I'm happy, depending on which periods you're looking for, to provide that information.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
If you could provide the current list, that would be great.
9:40 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Absolutely. We'll get that list to you, yes.
February 13th, 2018 / 9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
It helps identify that.
You talked about the variety of pots of money out there: you have $36 million, you have $30 million, you have $168 million over two years, you have $300 million over 10 years. I'm not an accountant, so I'm trying to figure out what's available in any one given year, and is it matching by provinces and municipalities, or are they separate? You've got a lot of moving pieces in here. It's a little hard to figure out who gets what in a specific year to deal with.
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yes. That's why we have the jobs we have.
How can I start this? To begin with, the programs are oversubscribed across the board in the arts sectors. We are not able to respond to the demand that we receive across the country. That being said, for each of the two programs I've identified, we look at the profile across the region in terms of attributing an allocation for each of the regions. Depending on the program, we have different parameters in place to identify that allocation.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I understand that, but can you tell me how much money you're going to spend in 2018?
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Oh, yes. We will use up the entire budget, so the budget for—
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
I've got $36 million, $30 million, $168 million, and $30 million. It's $300 million over 10 years, so is that $30 million a year?
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yes. For the Canada cultural spaces fund, we'll be adding $30 million per year, for 10 years, to the base budget. In terms of grants and contributions, that will come out to $55 million a year that we intend to spend over the next 10 years. That will be the envelope for cultural spaces. It includes creative hubs. For the Canada arts presentation fund, the budget is $32 million per year.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
The $168 million over two years was an investment as part of the immediate boost to infrastructure capital through the Government of Canada for 2016-17 and 2017-18. That additional $168 million ends on March 31 of this year, so the additional $300 million begins as of April 2018, moving forward.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
It's all direct grant, with no matching of municipal and provincial funding—it's not a third, third, third?
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Because the program is oversubscribed, we cannot provide matching. We receive a proposal for application, we assess it against the merits, and we look at the partners that are coming forward. We must ensure—for a physical infrastructure piece—that two-thirds of the funding is provided, and then we make decisions based on the merit and viability of the project.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
No. There's no guarantee that just because the provincial investment is $5 million, you will get $5 million. The regional envelopes in some cases are not more than $5 million.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
You said they had to have two-thirds. Something has to be in place before you can apply to get anything.
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Correct. Usually the applicants will come in having done their own fundraising through private sector donations. They will also most likely come in with municipal or provincial partners, who have all confirmed their sources of funding before we can make an assessment or a recommendation to the minister.
9:45 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Sorry if I rushed the responses.
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
9:45 a.m.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Laneville and Mr. Saad, thank you for your very illuminating presentations today.
I am very pleased with the clarity and especially the precision of your statements about the different funds. It is not every day that we get the chance to speak with specialists like you.
I want to add to what Mr. Van Loan said earlier about the regions and their cultural hubs or festivals. It may be a feeling I have, but we often feel overlooked compared with Quebec's large urban centres like Montreal or Quebec City.
Take, for example, the Canada arts presentation fund. It is described as funding for organizations that hold arts festivals. That encompasses a wide range of events. I want to be sure I understand what kinds of festivals are eligible and what the selection criteria are. There are lots of festivals all over Quebec. I will focus on Quebec because that is where I am from. Organizations and municipalities are working hard to make their communities dynamic. They often hold festivals to attract visitors during the summer or at other times of year.
You gave many examples when you were talking about the Canada cultural spaces fund, but you did not give any examples of festivals like these. Do you fund smaller festivals in the regions, or does the money mainly go to the big festivals in Montreal and Quebec City? We often hear about the grants awarded in those large cities.
Tell me about the criteria. What do organizations have to do to access this funding? I am thinking of events like the international song festival in Granby, in my riding, which is the largest French-language song festival in America. Our region does not receive this funding, yet the festival draws Americans, Europeans, and francophones from across Canada.
Tell me about that, please.
9:50 a.m.
Director General, Arts Policy Branch, Department of Canadian Heritage
Certainly.
It depends on the nature of the festival. The department also has a program for local festivals. The name of the program is building communities through arts and heritage.
By contrast, the Canada arts presentation fund is for professional arts festivals. That means we have two programs, one for supporting professionals and one for supporting local communities. They each have their own criteria. I can explain the differences, but I do not have the French criteria in front of me.
I will just respond in English. For the professional arts presenters, the mandate is really around professional activities. The activities have to showcase artists from at least two provinces or territories, they have to last a minimum of three days, and the artists must be remunerated. That's what we look at for the professional festivals.
Then, complementing that, if you're a local festival that is really centred around cultural events, celebrations, or historic activities, you can go to the building communities through arts and heritage program, which allows you to have artists showcase from a specific region or territory or province. The requirement is that a festival is only available for a minimum of one day.
The criteria are not stringent, unlike those for the Canada arts presentation fund, which supports professional presentation. We allocate funding based on the nature of the festival.
That being said, as I mentioned, our statistics show that most of our arts presentation funding goes to festivals in rural regions or small urban centres. In fact, 67% of our arts policy funding goes to rural regions.
