Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 4th, 2020

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

You spoke the magic words to me: self-actualized. That's a very powerful message. Thank you. I wholeheartedly agree with you.

I'm wondering if you would be prepared to share some of that information, such as the feasibility study and that kind of stuff, with the committee. I would love to pore over that and understand it better, and perhaps do a bit to help with the next stages of it, if possible.

[Pitseolak Pfeifer]

Thank you, sir. I'll do that, absolutely.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Mr. Chair, that's pretty much all I wanted to focus on. I'm happy to give out some time to somebody else.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Aitchison, good job. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Up next is our newest permanent member here on the committee. Ms. Ien, you get to end off today. There you go; we're ending with the newest member.

First of all, thanks for joining us and congratulations on being here. You have the floor for the next five minutes.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you so much.

This has been such an interesting conversation. Thank you to the witnesses for sharing what you have.

I have just a couple of questions, the first of which is for Mr. Pfeifer.

Mr. Pfeifer, you talked a bit about the impact of COVID-19 on your communities in Nunavut and how you're just coming out of things now. The community has been ravaged in many ways. You also talked about mental health and the impact of arts on mental health.

Can you tell us a bit more about that and your experience with regard to it?

[Pitseolak Pfeifer]

Thank you very much, Ms. Ien, for your question and your interest. Congratulations as well.

The role of mental health in the performing arts, that connection, is really a very deep one. In the GTA and huge Canadian cities, in a very multicultural, faceted, intergenerational perspective, yes, there are a lot of very traditional foundational Canadian perspectives on what the performing arts are. In Nunavut and for Inuit, embedded in our cultural survival are the ability and the power of transmitting knowledge of a simple song within deeply coded cultural rules. It is that process of learning what might be a 30-second song that is really the code for becoming a strong, self-actualized, responsible person who takes control of that learning process, of becoming ephemeral with that song. It's such a.... I haven't had the pleasure of doing that; I wish I would.

That mental health component is really.... When you have the joy of young people getting together and learning a fun children's song, you can appreciate how, in any community context, that is such a return on investment. The point here is not to forget that Nunavut has so much beautiful land, so much beautiful sila, which is an important part of this connection with mental health.

If there is this connection between the land, the stories and the families, I think you start to see that there is an immediate remedy here. What the performing arts centre does is help to visualize in more of a.... Well, if you have sat in a theatre and experienced a play, we can all appreciate the joy that it brings. I think that's kind of the mental health aspect.

We have so many young people who are, unfortunately, experiencing and dealing with the effects of suicide and domestic violence. There are single moms, children who are in foster care. You can imagine how promoting and investing in performing arts is not something as flippant as saying, “Let's give these kids some money to develop a stage play.” It really is, ladies and gentlemen, much deeper, and I very much appreciate your question.

[Marci Ien, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Pfeifer, thank you so very much.

This last question is for all of our witnesses today. We spoke a little bit, and you did, about moving to the digital world and pivoting that way, but what I realized is that incentives have to be created for people.

Can we talk a little bit about that, or can you share with us how to get people to actively participate in virtual events for arts and culture, heritage and sport? Virtual attendance, as we have seen, has significantly low participation rates.

Mr. Peers, can we start with you? As a reporter, I covered the Calgary Stampede for several years. I know what it offers. Do you have any thoughts about how to move participation rates up and move in that direction digitally?

[Dana Peers]

Thank you for your question.

Yes. We certainly have seen, whether it's screen fatigue or whatever you want to call it, that participation can be difficult. I have to say, though, that for the most part, through our youth programs, we have seen a real uptake by the students and by the individuals, not only with programs such as the Young Canadians School of the Performing Arts, but with the others where we have pivoted.

They just want to be part of something they believe in strongly. They want to participate. It's certainly not the same experience, but most definitely we have had very good uptake.

[Marie-Christine Morin]

I'd add that the current way of connecting with arts and culture is like a big laboratory. We're in an exploratory phase and we certainly don't have all the solutions. We know very well that the current approach will never replace the in-person experience. We'll never have that feeling of being part of an event and sharing the moment.

However, the hybrid format of these events is one feature that will likely stick around. It would be in our interest to find ways to make this feature a high-quality and enjoyable format, so that a new audience can access the events.

Our members come from across the country. We've never been more connected to our events than since the virtual shift. It opens the door to discovery. It has shown us things that we wouldn't have been able to see otherwise. I think that we must look at innovative ways to ensure that these means of connecting with the works are as good as we could hope for.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mrs. Morin.

I have to end it there, folks. Thank you so much, everyone, for doing this.

I want to thank our witnesses, who did a tremendous job today. Mr. Pfeifer, thank you so much for joining us from the Qaggiavuut! Nunavut Performing Arts Society. Thank you, Dana Peers, president and chairman of the board, Calgary Stampede, and Marie-Christine Morin and Martin Théberge from the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française.

Thank you, everyone.

Have a great weekend, everybody.

Colleagues, we'll see you on Monday. We have the drafting instructions and committee business to discuss. Have yourselves a great weekend.

The meeting is now adjourned.