Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Welcome back, everyone. It's good to see everyone. I can see everyone online.

This is different for me, because I'm actually now in the committee room itself. It's quite cavernous and echoey in here; nevertheless, it's always very nice to see everyone, whether it be virtual or not.

Now that I am here in person, I want to say thank you to our interpreters, our staff and our technical staff as well. I may not have thanked you before, but it's not because I wasn't thinking of you; it's because I am here now in person. Thank you so much for all that you do.

Let us now get to it. Today, of course, we're continuing our study. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on October 23, 2020, the committee resumes its study of the challenges and issues faced by the arts, culture, heritage and sport sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are going to have two hours of testimony, broken up into two one-hour panels, with three witnesses in the first hour and three in the second hour.

Here are our witnesses for the first hour. From Union des Artistes, we have Sophie Prégent, president, and Pascale St-Onge, president of the Fédération nationale des communications et de la culture. From Orford Music, we have Wonny Song, executive and artistic director. From the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, we have Lisa Rubin, executive and artistic director.

I can see hands waving already. What we are going to do is have opening statements of five minutes or less each. I will give you some leeway, but of course an hour runs by very quickly, so let's get right to it. I'll time you for the first five minutes.

First, we have two representatives from Union des Artistes. Could I see a show of hands to see who is going to do the speaking, either Sophie or Pascale?

[Sophie Prégent, President, Union des Artistes]

It's me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

That will be Sophie.

Thank you.

Take five minutes, please.

[Sophie Prégent]

First, thank you for receiving us and for taking the time to listen to us.

Let me begin my remarks with the accountability mechanisms.

We are very much aware that the various levels of government have earmarked funding for revitalizing our culture. We are extremely grateful for that. However, despite the value of this assistance, it is mainly for institutions and producers. Right now, thousands of people are being forgotten. The performers and professionals who are an integral part of the cultural milieu will find themselves completely excluded from these recovery programs.

Clear accountability mechanisms must be established to ensure that the money reaches artists and artisans, and programs must be created specifically for them. In addition, when funds are given to institutions or producers, contracts must be traceable, verifiable and honoured. This should be a prerequisite.

The floor is yours, Ms. St-Onge.

[Pascale St-Onge, President of Fédération nationales des communications et de la culture, Union des Artistes]

Thank you.

Tens of thousands of people work on contract or freelance and do not have access to the Canadian social safety net because of their status as self-employed workers. They therefore must not be let down, as both the cultural and media communities would suffer considerably. It is urgent.

Our organizations want to work with governments and partners on long-term structural solutions, because the crisis has highlighted the need to rethink some aspects of our social safety net, such as a complete overhaul of the EI system and the creation of meaningful comprehensive and structuring assistance plans for the sector. As you know, in Quebec, venues will be closed until January 11. So it will soon be 10 months without work.

Our sector is among those in culture and communications that are not experiencing as strong a recovery as other sectors, and the people we represent find themselves in an extremely precarious situation. We were very enthusiastic about the announcement of the Canada recovery benefit (CRB) but some problems remain. The CRB is valid for 26 weeks.

One problem is that there is no mechanism in place to phase out the CRB. This means that contract workers receive either all or none of the CRB. The criterion of 50% income reduction on average weekly earnings makes it very difficult for many self-employed individuals with an average annual income of about $14,000 to access the CRB. If they earn more than $138 per week, they have no access to the CRB at all, which is extremely problematic.

In addition, there are many administrative delays, and responses to applications are slow. There is a great deal of concern about the files still under review. We are working in a significantly shaken sector, and the people we represent are experiencing a lot of anxiety because of this situation.

I will let my colleague take over.

[Sophie Prégent]

Thank you.

At the end of the day, in these extremely difficult times for our artists and artisans, I feel it is my duty to share my concern about a Telefilm Canada program, Talents en vue. It is a very well-intentioned program that, first, seeks to support a wide range of emerging filmmakers, producers, directors and screenwriters. Second, it seeks to accelerate their careers by giving them the opportunity to create their first feature film or web series.

One of the program's criteria is: “The average budget for feature film projects is between $125,000 and $250,000, but must not, as a general rule, exceed $250,000.” Frankly, making a feature film today with that sort of budget is problematic. The Union des artistes must express its concerns to Telefilm Canada about that particular criterion of the program.

With that cap, the artists and artisans inevitably end up financing the film projects of young directors. Without increasing the funding, the Crown corporation could, at a minimum, refrain from capping the total budgets of those productions.

That concludes our presentation. Thank you very much for listening to us. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask us.

Thank you, Ms. St-Onge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We thank you very much for your testimony.

I also want to remind our guests to please speak clearly and slowly for the sake of interpretation. We will interrupt you if we don't hear it, but nevertheless, try to speak as clearly as you can. Remember, try not to race through your comments. I'll give you the time and try to be as generous as I can. It's just that we're very sensitive about interpretation.

Up next we have Mr. Song from Oxford Music.

Go ahead, please.

[Wonny Song, Executive and Artistic Director, Orford Music]

Honourable members of the House of Commons, thank you very much for the invitation to speak to you today on behalf of Orford Music.

Located in Quebec's Eastern Townships, Orford Music is a place where people come from all over the world to learn, create and perform music together at the very highest level. In 2021, we will proudly celebrate our 70th anniversary, which is no small achievement for an organization in the arts and culture sector.

Orford Music is a charitable organization, and since 1951 we have offered high-level mentoring and training to emerging musicians between the ages of 18 and 25. Every summer, our international academy of classical music, one of the largest in Canada, welcomes world-class professors and artists to share their passion and knowledge with hundreds of mainly Canadian young musicians.

In parallel with the academy's activities, the Orford Music festival attracts more than 25,000 music lovers every summer. We present over 60 concerts, including several free ones featuring the academy's best musicians, at various sites in our region. Orford Music is a 365-days-a-year operation and hires nearly 70 permanent and temporary employees.

The pandemic has radically transformed our reality. Our flagship festival, group bookings and major annual fundraising events were all immediately cancelled. Our self-generated revenues, which represent over 60% of our income, disappeared overnight, and over 50% of our permanent staff had to be laid off.

In many ways, however, Orford Music has been very fortunate. With significant help from all levels of government, we were able to make a successful switch to online teaching this summer. We have invested in new technology and reorganized our workforce. We are trying to attract new audiences, and we are looking for opportunities to fulfill our mission in other ways.

In the midst of it all, we are very grateful for the support we have received from you and from the people who count on us to keep teaching and playing music, even in the darkest of moments. For Orford Music, however, the real threat of COVID-19 lies in the crippling damage it has done to our medium and long-term planning.

In the months leading up to the pandemic, we had been working toward agreements with federal, provincial and private partners to enable us to revitalize our aging infrastructure. A business plan was submitted to the Quebec government and a fundraising committee was created to approach donors.

The buildings of Orford Music are recognized as crown jewels of Quebec's contemporary architecture movement and have tremendous historical significance. Visitors to Orford Music can even experience the original Man and Music Pavilion from Montreal's legendary Expo 67, which was dismantled, transported and rebuilt on our site.

Our concert stage and classrooms have welcomed generations of great Canadian artists, from Maureen Forrester and John Newark to Gregory Charles, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Stéphane Tétreault, many of whom describe their time at Orford as being among the most creative and impactful experiences of their career.

But many Quebec winters have taken their toll, and today's music students have different needs and must access different kinds of resources to reach their full potential. We have very big dreams, including a virtual library for all artistic activities on site and a high-level technological pavilion for recording classical music. The preservation and adaptation of these buildings is critical to the future of Orford Music, and now COVID-19 has robbed us of the opportunity to address the situation in any meaningful way.

Orford Music may have navigated through the immediate crisis, but even our most optimistic scenarios suggest that it will take years for our self-generated revenues to recover to pre-pandemic levels. Our urgent infrastructure needs have become only more urgent in the last year.

We believe that the best way for the Canadian government to support us as an arts and culture organization is by providing funding for these types of essential infrastructure projects. Without revitalizing our buildings, our mission cannot be maintained in the medium term. We need your help to plan and build for the future so we can continue to play an essential role in the lives of young musicians, great artists, and ordinary Canadians, who need music now more than ever.

Our founder, Gilles Lefebvre, said that “the arts carry a message full of joy and unexpected delight”. It's a vital message, surely, for our times.

Thank you again for this opportunity and for your support.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Mr. Song, thank you so much.

Before we go to our next witness, I want to apologize. I called you Oxford Music, when actually you're Orford Music.

[Wonny Song]

Yes, it's Orford Music.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Yes. You picked up on that, I'm certain.

It's actually written here as Orford Music. Not having your glasses on whilst aging is probably not a good idea.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

You have my sincere apologies.

Next, from the Segal Centre for Performing Arts, we have Lisa Rubin.

[Lisa Rubin, Executive and Artistic Director, Segal Centre for Performing Arts]

Thank you so much for having me.

Can you hear me okay?

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

We certainly can. You have up to five minutes.

[Lisa Rubin]

Great.

So who are we? Who is the Segal Centre? We are the largest not-for-profit English theatre in Montreal, with an operating budget of $6 million and 35 full-time staff. We have a very large endowment, which we're so proud to have built up, of $28 million and counting.

Prior to the pandemic, we were a wonderful developer of new musicals: Belles-sœurs: The Musical, which was headed to Broadway; Mythic, which was headed into the Mirvish season; and Piaf Dietreich (The Angel and the Sparrow), in Montreal, was a best-selling production for Mirvish and was headed to England. We were just on the rise.

Of course, then COVID happened. We laid off a ton of people.

Oh, and we also just won the prix du jury from the Conseil des arts de Montréal for our indigenous musical Children of God with Urban Ink.

Things were looking great. Fast-forward, and of course we had to cancel everything. We did a lot online. We shifted. We're just in the middle of rehearsing for Underneath the Lintel, a co-production with Théâtre du Nouveau Monde and the National Arts Centre that was scheduled to be live, in person, beginning next week. We're moving that onto livestream now.

What is the good? The good in all this is that culture is needed more than ever. We know this. Artists are resilient. We're continuing our mission of bringing people together.

As far as our institution goes, it's interesting what UDA was saying, but we're okay. Thank goodness we have the tremendous support of our public funding bodies. We have the support. We have these top-ups. We have these incentives. We have the wage subsidy. Thank goodness for all of this to help our employees.

Okay, but why are we here? What can I tell you? The industry is obviously crumbling, as are people's entire careers. They're leaving the business. Different provinces have different trajectories and visibilities. In Quebec in particular, we've been yo-yoed around. Even though we recognize that everybody is doing the best they can, we're still at the mercy of public health.

In the interest of time, I'll give you the top five things, and one for good luck, of how you can help.

Number one is insurance. Theatre is a front-loaded investment. People look at us as the show, but before the show, there is concept, creation, development, production and then presentation. It's interesting; Telefilm and Heritage have come up with a wonderful plan to insure film sets. Theatres need something similar. To continuously hire people with the hope that they're going to perform, only to shut them down on opening night—it just can't continue to happen. On top of that, it means forcing us to do modest productions, one-person shows, because if someone gets a sniffle, we have to cancel the whole thing. We just can't take on the risk. So that's insurance.

Two is recognizing the length of time, the timelines. Even though we're getting this great support now, our concern is really in the recovery period. What happens when all of this support goes away and we will be in a state of recovery probably two or three years out?

Three, we need you to stand up for us. There is a distortion that theatre is like a rock concert. But with reduced seating, with the safety measures we have put in, theatre—trust me, I was in a Winners lineup yesterday—is a very safe place to be, especially with the tremendous effort we've put into all of the safety protocols. When we hear messages from the government that theatres can't open but bars and restaurants can, it gives the false perception that our workspaces aren't safe and that we can't go on and conduct business.

Four, remember that live doesn't mean digital. It's a tool for access. We have all pivoted to online, but it is not a replacement for live theatre.

Five, keep these subsidies going as long as possible, but we also need programs to offer incentives for the production chain, as I was mentioning before, for the development, and not a focus on just the show. In these times, it's too hard to say we can have a show; we need the investment so that we can give the money to the artists, the expectations are managed, and we can plan for the recovery.

Those are my top five. My one for good luck is along the same lines as that of our colleague here at Orford. It is our infrastructure and our need for renovations. The Segal Centre embarked on a renovations project in 2015. We were granted funding for phase one in 2017 because our roof was falling down. In 2018, we got our accord de principe from the ministre de la Culture et des Communications, which led us to apply to Heritage. We were able to hire a project manager and get going on the completion of our renovations.

The elapsed time forced us to re-budget and re-analyze. We are now in a holding pattern with crumbling windows, crumbling stonework and 30-year-old seats. Wouldn't it be wonderful for us to be able to renovate during the shutdown? That is the greatest gift we could have—having been planning these renovations since 2015 and waiting for the funding to come through—so that we can come back with a strong organization and give people a reason to come back, with our infrastructure.

Thank you very much for having me. I hope that was clear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

That was quite clear, Ms. Rubin. Thank you so much.

I just want to say thank you. You're the first witness I've ever had who has actually timed themselves with a timer. That's quite something. Thank you for being cognizant of that.

Now we're going to go to our question round, where we go from party to party to ask the questions. We'll start with the Conservatives in just a moment.

Before I do that, I'd just like to say to our witnesses who are here that if you wish to get in on the conversation and you weren't specifically asked, try to raise your hand so that the questioner can see you. I will remind my colleagues to have a look at the other witnesses who are there to see if they want to weigh in on some of your questions.

We're going to start with the Conservative Party.

Mr. Rayes, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I want to thank the four witnesses for using their valuable time to come and talk to us about the challenges of their organizations.

Before I get into the post-COVID details, I would like to take advantage of the presence of the Union des artistes representatives to ask them a question about the broadcasting bill, which may well have an impact on their work afterwards.

When the bill was introduced, you said it was time; it was long overdue. However, after some analyses, you expressed some reservations.

What would you like to see amended in the bill? Please be brief, if possible.

[Sophie Prégent]

We are going to submit a very clear document. I have all the information in front of me, but it would take too long to read it to you. I know that time is short.

Our requests for amendments are very clear. The Union des artistes thinks it is important to make a distinction between a Canadian product and an original francophone product, which the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has always been empowered to do before. There are some concerns because we see them as two different things. The distinction between a Canadian product and an original francophone or anglophone product is very clear. It seems to us that the definition of original Canadian product needs to be elaborated a little more.

That is the first thing. I don't want to expand too much on the subject. I have the document in front of me, but we would need more time to clarify the issue for you. We can certainly get back to you with something more substantial on that.

Ms. St-Onge could comment while I look at my papers.

[Pascale St-Onge]

It is important that Canadian online businesses remain Canadian-owned. The bill could be improved in that regard. In addition, social networks are excluded from the outset. It seems to us that the CRTC should have the opportunity to comment on the contribution of certain social networks, especially when it comes to business transactions.

That's a quick overview. We are also concerned about jobs, business ownership and ethics.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I will ask one last question on that.

With regard to copyright, would you have liked to see the obligation to pay royalties for 70 years instead of 50 years included in the minister's bill?

We have been asking for this for a very long time, and it would be a fairly simple update to protect our authors.

[Pascale St-Onge]

I'm not sure about the legislative process, whether this is part of the broadcasting bill or the revision of the Copyright Act, but the revision must be done as well. Either way, of course, we believe that this amendment must be made.

[Alain Rayes, Conservative, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Earlier, you said that it is important that federal government assistance not be solely for institutions and producers, which I like to call the big players. We often forget ordinary workers. We see it when billions of dollars in subsidies are given to industrial and commercial enterprises, while SMEs say they have difficulty obtaining loans and government assistance and the paperwork is cumbersome.

What I take from your comments is that the self-employed and artists have concerns, that the money isn't getting to them and that other people are watching their own backs, so to speak. I liked the three things you mentioned. Could you elaborate on them?

Your concerns seem serious. You said that we need to ensure that all assistance is traceable and verifiable, and that artists' contracts must be honoured. You are probably mentioning this because artists on the ground and self-employed individuals must have expressed concerns.

[Sophie Prégent]

Yes, and these are not just concerns. I sincerely think this is the reality in our sector. I would like to point out that we have mentioned it to all levels of government.

We are very aware that a lot of money has been injected into the cultural sector, but there is very little money going directly to the people on the ground. If they don't have contracts, there's no trace of it. Even if they have contracts, there are no guarantees anymore, because the pandemic is an act of God. There is no way to enforce a contract. The difficulty in our sector is that we are self-employed.

It's sort of like the CRB, which relies on the previous year in terms of compensation. There can be a $60,000 difference in my compensation from one year to the next. If I rely on the previous year, I can be heavily penalized because my salary is not constant. This is the reality of self-employed workers.

If my contract falls through, nothing is guaranteed and there is no trace. That's sort of the mentality behind subsidies, whatever they are. We are in good standing with the associations and suddenly there is no enforcement measure or traceability of the contract. The subsidies are offered in good faith, but the measures and regulations in the Labour Code govern them.

We have to ensure the traceability of the subsidies granted. At the very least, this could be a prerequisite establishing that, if contracts are not honoured, there are no subsidies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Ms. Prégent.

Mr. Housefather, you have the floor for six minutes, please.