Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2020

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

How am I doing?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I'm afraid that's it, sorry.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That's all right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I'm going to try to work on getting back towards the second round.

Mr. Waugh, you have five minutes, please.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's nice to be back in Ottawa.

Thank you to our three groups here this afternoon.

I want to talk more about the foundation and the endowments. We're going to start with Lisa Rubin.

Twenty-eight million dollars in endowment.... You're at a time now when, as you mentioned, you're not really open, so how do you go about growing that endowment and using some of that money to save face and grow the Segal Centre for Performing Arts? Could you maybe just talk about that? Without government, I do see that you are trying to get a buy-in from the general public here.

[Lisa Rubin]

Yes. We are really unique in that our government funding represents about 4% of our revenues. Unlike many other arts organizations, which live and die by their public support, our endowment revenue is keeping our lights on. It is supporting our infrastructure. It is supporting our building right now, which is why we're giving it away for free to support artists who want to come to work.

Outside of that endowment, our fundraising is our number two source of revenue. Ticket sales are only about 20%, so it's fundraising and endowment. The fundraising has, as expected, taken a big nosedive. We always know that the future is in the endowment. To really safeguard institutions, this is the future, so we are embarking on a life and legacy campaign and really encouraging donors.

Also, I should say that our endowment is this big because of the matching program. It's because of the incentives from Heritage—the incredible matching program that bridges the philanthropist with the government. I have been on committees to try to keep that going, and it has worked, so thank you very, very much. That philanthropists can dump a large amount and know that it's going to be matched is the greatest incentive to help us continue to grow and to help all these organizations to build their endowment. I think all not-for-profits should be working towards that at the moment.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I agree.

I'm just going to move on here, if you don't mind.

Sophie, you talked about 10 times...the amount of foundation money that is.... That's not sustainable. A million dollars this year from the union, the artists that you have.... If you don't mind, could you talk about the million-dollar foundation that your organization put out this year?

[Sophie Prégent]

You probably know that Netflix offered us $500,000 to distribute to the people essentially working in audiovisual. The Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec made $2 million available through the Fondation des artistes. It's a bursary —let's call it that—of $2,000 per person. Consequently, a thousand people can use that fund, those bursaries, essentially identified for the performing arts. So Netflix made available funds for audiovisual, and the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec provided $2 million for the performing arts.

At the foundation, we have a number of funds. We also have affiliates. One day, the Union des artistes received a bequest of several million dollars in the name of one of its members, Ronald France, to be specific. He was someone who had been in the business, working in dubbing, and had no family. He made a lot of money and he left it to us. That is how the Fonds Jean-Duceppe has been able to distribute more than $500,000 since April 1, which the Foundation was not in the habit of doing. We had never dipped into that bequest. We were living on the interest from the bequest and that was enough, but it is no longer the case now. We dipped into our piggy bank to provide artists with more and better help, given the extreme urgency of the situation. It is not yet over. What Ms. Rubin was saying earlier is true. The situation is going to last for months.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Prégent.

I appreciate that. Sorry, I always feel like I'm cutting you off. I apologize.

Mrs. Bessette, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Lyne Bessette, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Good afternoon.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Song, thank you for your sparkling testimony. I am proud to be able to say that Orford Musique is located in my constituency.

I am very happy to learn that Orford Musique was able to receive government support, right in the middle of the current crisis. I also see that your organization is resilient in terms of its financial set-up, especially because of your self-generated revenue. Can you tell us more about that type of revenue? How were you able to achieve that resilience?

[Wonny Song]

Thank you.

Perhaps this is not the right answer, but I believe that, given the size of the Orford Musique team, we arrange for each donor and sponsor to experience the same adventure as we experience. I believe that credibility has been built over the years because we work with them a lot and we have them dream our wildest dreams with us. It means that they are often with us on our journey.

As you know, this year truly was not a normal year for business because of the pandemic. We want to encourage our people, not only our artists and our young people, but also our donors to create inspirational projects together. However, in the short term and perhaps even in the medium term, if we can't provide concerts and festivals, I am afraid that we may lose those precious relationships that are so precious for organizations like ours at Orford Musique.

[Lyne Bessette, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you very much.

The living arts are so complex that transmitting them through technological means is very difficult. Orford Musique seems to have made an interesting technological shift. We know that Internet connection is vital for organizations like yours. That is true both for the broadcaster and for the consumer. In fact, without a quality Internet connection, some might not be able to have equal access to culture. Can you tell us about the challenges of online distribution, both for the broadcaster and the consumer?

[Wonny Song]

The pandemic has forced us to bring our technology plans forward by several years. It is the same in all cultural media, especially in classical music.

Fiber optics go through Magog, but not through Orford at the moment. We had to undertake additional initiatives to bring dedicated fiber optics to us. It is a major issue for us: we absolutely must have a very good Internet connection for our activities.

At the start of the pandemic, our management meetings on Zoom were quite the headache. Our employees live around the region, in Sherbrooke, in Eastman or in Hatley. Personally, I am in Magog. We all had to pray to God that there would be no wind, because if there was, our faces froze on the screen hilariously.

For virtual meetings, we designed webinars with our artists for our loyal supporters. We quickly learned that it was risky to broadcast them on our sites because our Internet connection was not stable. We had to appeal to the generosity of Kezber, an IT company in Magog. We moved to their offices temporarily so that we could broadcast quality webinars.

If audiences in our region want to see our broadcasts but if reception is bad because of a poor connection, they certainly will not like our content, unfortunately. We are working very hard to find solutions at our end, but, if people don't have a proper connection that allows them to consume our content in the regions, it is very difficult to reach them.

[Lyne Bessette, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask one quick question. Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have 10 seconds.

[Lyne Bessette, Liberal, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

It's an important question. All areas are turning to virtual modes and the trend is growing.

Mr. Song, you were able to take advantage of the funding provided by the Canada Arts Presentation Fund. Was that the money that allowed you to make the virtual shift? How can we best help artists in the living arts to broadcast content online?

Could you answer in 15 seconds, if possible?

[Wonny Song]

All assistance provided has been very valuable. For all our festivals, we have tried to find solutions that allow us to meet the needs.

As for the IT problems, the fund's assistance was huge. For us, a good Internet connection in the region is the most urgent of our needs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, sir.

I'm sorry about that, but we are pressed for time and we have to go now to our second panel.

I want to thank our witnesses from Union des Artistes, Orford Music, and the Segal Centre for Performing Arts. We thank you so much for joining us folks.

We're going to suspend to do some sound checks and we'll be back very quickly with our second panel.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We're back in session for our second panel.

Thank you for joining us. Now that our audio checks are done, and seeing that we're ready here technically and our interpreters appear to be ready, we're ready to go.

I want to say a big welcome to our witnesses.

From Diversified and Event-Funded National Sports Organizations, we have Katherine Henderson, who is the CEO of Curling Canada. From Fringe Theatre, we have Adam Mitchell, executive director and today's recipient of the award for best beard. Congratulations, sir.

Also, from Regroupement des événements majeurs internationaux, we have Martin Roy, chief executive officer, festivals and major events. He also has a nice beard, apparently. Yes, we took a vote, sir. You're both doing really well.

We will now allow you up to five minutes. I'm going to be a little bit strict because I want to get all four parties represented at the table on two rounds.

We'll start off with Katherine Henderson, for five minutes, please.

[Katherine Henderson, Chief Executive Officer, Curling Canada, Diversified and Event-Funded National Sports Organizations]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much to the committee members for allowing me to speak today. I do apologize for the lack of beard.

My name is Katherine Henderson. I'm the CEO of Curling Canada and I'm here in my capacity as the spokeswoman for Diversified and Event-Funded National Sports Organizations. We're a group of six NSOs that have come together because of the distinct nature of our organizations' funding model and the impact that COVID is having on Canada's youth sport system.

Our organizations include Curling Canada, Canada Soccer, Hockey Canada, Tennis Canada, Skate Canada and Rugby Canada. As NSOs with the largest commercial and grassroots operations, the total participation reach of our sports is over 10 million Canadians. While we are different in many ways, the common thread that ties us together is that our funding is predominantly generated from non-governmental sources, namely commercial events, hosting of domestic and international competitions, sponsorship, broadcast rights and registration fees.

Thanks to the revenues from these commercial operations, as non-profits we invest heavily in grassroots, community sport and high-performance sport. Unfortunately, these revenue streams have been greatly impacted by the pandemic. While we are grateful for the federal government's $72-million support of the NSO and sport sector and the emergency programs like the wage subsidy, the truth is that Canada's sport system is in dire straits. To put Canada's response into perspective, just last week the British government dedicated emergency funding to the equivalent of $500 million for sports in the U.K.

Let me be crystal clear with the committee today. We are at a critical juncture, with some of our provincial and local associations on the brink of collapse. We have already furloughed staff and we're depleting our reserves. We need financial help—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Ms. Henderson, I apologize for interrupting; I need you to hold your microphone closer.

[Katherine Henderson]

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

There you go. It's for interpretation.

[Katherine Henderson]

I apologize.

We've already furloughed staff and depleted our reserves, and we need financial help just to emerge from the pandemic. We do know that we are not as important as front-line health care workers. We do not operate in life-and-death situations, but we do know the important role that sport plays in the lives of millions of Canadians for their health and their mental health, for their wellness and, importantly, for joy.

Canada's sports system is a collaboration between government and NSOs. We are already a delivery partner of the federal government, with our clubs and local sports being part of that system. With your support, we can stand together to ensure that our system does not fail.

We are seeking a dedicated stream of funding to replace the net revenues self-generated by our events, which would be reinvested into our grassroots sport. Let me share an example.

In March, the World Figure Skating Championships were mere days away from taking place in Montreal when COVID hit. That cancellation meant that $6 million in legacy funding for local area figure skating clubs in Quebec didn't happen. This is just one example of the types of events that were meant to take place in the country this year and support all of our grassroots programming.

Our system is not focused entirely on high-performance athletes. It is also on the little girl hitting the field or the ice for the first time or the young boy competing in his first bonspiel. We want to partner with the federal government to keep grassroots sport alive and preserve the healing power of sport at the community level for kids and for Canadians at a time when we feel they need it the most.

In closing, I encourage you to think of Canada's sport system as a tree. COVID has forced our organizations to trim the branches to keep it alive. We can trim, but if the roots die, it won't be there when we are out of this storm. Planting a brand new tree will take years, and it won't be there when people need it the most. Rebuilding the sport system will mean we've lost decades of growth for amateur sport and sport development, so the decisions made right now will impact generations of both amateur sport and our high-performance athletes.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

That was a good job, and with a great sense of humour, I might add. That was very nice at the beginning.

Now we have Mr. Mitchell for up to five minutes, please.