Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 30th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move on from here.

Mr. Housefather, you have five minutes, please.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you very much to all the witnesses.

I'm going to be sharing the last minute of my time with Ms. Dabrusin.

What I think I heard from each and every one of you is that the programs that we need to provide for financing have to be sustainable for at least two years, preferably longer, for all of your industries, museums, theatres and festivals to get back on track.

I would like to begin with Mr. Turgeon Thériault.

I want to start by congratulating you on the Festif! of Baie-St-Paul. I did not know you were its founder. That's really an incredible asset for the Charlevoix region. I think that, last time I attended, 70 musicians were participating. It's really amazing.

[Clément Turgeon Thériault]

Thank you.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I understand what you are doing for your festival, but what about the other festivals you represent? Is REFRAIN new for this year? Why did you decide to form a group during the COVID-19 pandemic? Are those all outdoor festivals with musicians?

[Clément Turgeon Thériault]

Yes. REFRAIN was created during the pandemic. It is an initiative from Patrick Kearney, the organizer of a Montreal festival. The goal in the beginning was to create a discussion group between the organizers of some 10 festivals to share our best practices and concerns, and to talk about new funding measures in our regions.

We quickly saw the interest of joining together, and REFRAIN now consists of 80 festivals, with some just starting out and others more established, such as ours. I represent a lot of music festivals, but there are festivals across all disciplines: visual arts, circus arts, literature, and even recreational science. The festivals take place both indoors and outdoors, in the regions or in cities such as Quebec City and Montreal.

We now have a panel of people from some 10 festivals that meet every week, and a committee that brings together the organizers of 80 festivals that meets bi-weekly or monthly to discuss new government announcements. Some organizers are a bit less familiar with the structures and steps involved in funding requests. We are submitting joint requests to the government. Soon, we will develop portals to help promote all those festivals.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

That's amazing.

I see that the truly important thing is to know what health measures must be complied with so that organizers of outdoor festivals can recruit artists and open again next summer. That is important.

I have a question for you, Ms. Richard. I understand theatre shows a bit better. You represent about 170 members, and you have at least 200 performance halls. Do you anticipate reopening next summer if you know what sanitary measures must be followed? I know that organizing an event requires a lot of work, probably a year of planning, but I am not sure.

Can you tell me about the process?

[Julie-Anne Richard]

Of course. Most of the 350 performance venues that are members of RIDEAU are broadcasters with a season that lasts more from September to late May or early June. Some of our broadcasters have a more specific offer during the summer, but that is a minority. That is why the short opening time we had this summer has not affected our members tremendously. They were more focused on restructuring and planning their fall, which unfortunately did not bear fruit as they had hoped.

I still have some hope that next summer will be a structuring moment. We anticipate that our members will resume or renew activities more in September 2021.

[Anthony Housefather, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Richard.

I'll pass the time to Ms. Dabrusin now.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone.

Your comments have been very interesting.

Ms. Cole, it's been great to see you again and to talk with you about museums.

You talked about volunteer museums and small organizations. I was wondering if you've had a chance to touch base. I understand that 72 small museums and heritage organizations did receive emergency funding, including Natashquan—it has a small organization—Star City Heritage Museum in Saskatchewan and Elnora & District Museum in Alberta.

Small museums that became eligible for emergency funding through an expanded museum assistance program for emergency funding included seasonal museums and ones that only had volunteers.

Have you had a chance to touch base and see how that was received?

[Catherine Cole]

I have spoken to colleagues who have received the funding. That was the example I was giving where it was very easy to get the money. That was great. The only concern is how long that funding will last. As my colleagues in the performing arts were saying, this is just the beginning of the recovery period.

It's necessary to do it again and again for the next couple of years. But yes, it was very welcomed when received.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Unfortunately, I have to cut it right there.

Thank you to our panellists for joining us today, Madame Richard, Monsieur Turgeon Thériault, as well as Ms. Cole.

We're going to try to make this as seamless as possible for our next panel. We're going to suspend for a few minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Okay, everyone, welcome back.

This is, of course, pursuant to standing order 108(2), a motion adopted by the committee of October 23. The committee resumes its study on the challenges and issues faced by arts, culture, heritage and sports sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At this point we have three guests with us from three different organizations. We have, from Arts Commons, Alex Sarian who is president and chief executive officer; from the Canadian Association for the Performing Arts, Frédéric Julien, director, research and development; and from ParticipACTION, Elio Antunes, president and chief executive officer.

The way we normally do this is you get up to five minutes to start your presentation. I will be a little lenient.

We're going to start with Mr. Sarian from Arts Commons.

[Alex Sarian, President and Chief Executive Officer, Arts Commons]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to speak to you about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Canadian arts and culture sector.

Before I start, I want to express my gratitude to the Government of Canada for your support of our sector. Most notably, programs such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency rent subsidy have allowed organizations like ours to navigate the pandemic. I'll speak more on this later, but I wanted to start by expressing our immense gratitude.

As a citizen of this country who recently returned to Canada after 35 years of living abroad, I am humbled by the committee's invitation to participate in today's session. It is my privilege to represent Arts Commons, the largest arts centre in western Canada and the nation's third largest arts facility. Occupying more than 560,000 square feet in downtown Calgary, Arts Commons stewards an artistic ecosystem that consists of six resident companies, each a world-class institution that contributes to the cultural fabric of Canada.

Under more traditional circumstances, Arts Commons hosts approximately 1,800 events per year welcoming 600,000 visitors of all ages and partnering with more than 200 local community groups. Our focus on collective impact allows me to speak to you today on behalf of a vibrant community of artists, arts professionals and audiences who continue to struggle in the absence of in-person cultural experiences that remind us of our shared humanity. This is a community that recognizes that, while science will get us out of this pandemic, it is the arts that will get us through it.

As the husband of a veteran New York City public school teacher, and in my role overseeing all global education and community engagement programs at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts before starting my tenure at Arts Commons, it became my core belief that one of the strongest ways for arts organizations to remain relevant is by embracing our civic responsibilities. There has never been a more urgent time to do that than now.

Understanding how we intersect with areas such as creative youth development, mental health, tourism and economic revitalization, just to name a few, allows us to measure our impact on society and reposition ourselves as massive contributors to the socio-economic recovery of our nation. While the pandemic has made clear that this civic call to action is necessary, it has also reminded us of the fragility of our sector. The financial implications of the pandemic are considerable. Financial oversight is and will continue to be extremely critical; however, that oversight cannot just focus on business results but must focus on our ability to operate compassionately as well, which is why Arts Commons has been active developing new programs and investing in our infrastructure and future while we remain closed to the public.

The business model needed to support a thriving arts organization has never been a simple one, and at Arts Commons we are critically aware of managing risk. In fact, in February, we moved quickly to implement our existing risk management plan. The plan could never have predicted the magnitude and duration of the pandemic. The financial impact to our operations was significant, including over 41% lost in earned revenues for our 2019-20 fiscal year alone. Despite this projection, we chose to not make quick decisions around cutting expenses in the short term. Instead, we focused on three primary objectives.

One was remaining a values-led institution, two was protecting and retaining staff, and three was focusing on the future. While our goal was to manage the crisis, ultimately the question that guided all of our decisions was whether we would be able to reopen by focusing on the right priorities, keeping our people safe and preparing for a future that would need the arts more than ever. Over the last 10 months, we have built reopening scenarios, researched government support programs and drafted budget forecasts countless times. Through our efforts, we have accomplished many successes, but I'd like to call your attention to four of them.

First, we have retained 93% of our salaried staff at full pay and kept them engaged in the maintenance of our facilities, the creation of new programs and the development of re-entry and reopening protocols. Keeping our core staff employed was made possible by the federal government's Canada emergency wage subsidy programs resulting in recoveries of over $1 million.

Second, we provided our casual staff with a week's pay following our closure and provided them with access to our employee family assistance program, giving them access to free, confidential services on topics such as health and wellness, financial planning and mental health wellness and counselling.

Third, we supported our resident companies by waiving all venue occupancy fees from April to August, saving them nearly half a million dollars. While this meant revenue loss to Arts Commons, we have been able to recover just over $298,000 through the Canada emergency commercial rent assistance program.

Fourth, not only did we pay all artists the full value of the contracts that could not be fulfilled for the remainder of our season, but we hired more artists and technical support staff in the creation of new programs that allowed us to remain connected to our audiences in safe ways, while supporting local freelancers who were most impacted by the loss of opportunities in the gig economy.

I am proud of how Arts Commons has navigated this pandemic to date, and I am grateful to all orders of government for their support.

With that said, the ongoing effects of the pandemic are deteriorating our ability to generate any earned revenue during our current fiscal year. It is clear that we are running a marathon, when what we trained for was a sprint.

It is with this in mind that I humbly urge the committee to consider the following three things.

The first is to continue supporting organizations most impacted by ongoing closures through the continued extensions of programs such as the Canada emergency wage subsidy and the Canada emergency rent subsidy.

The second is to recognize, in the development of these programs, that not all businesses will resume at the same speed and to work closely with performing arts centres to create ongoing, sector-specific supports, as the timing for the reopening of our facilities remains unknown.

The third is to work closely with our organizations to reimagine a more sustainable future. In particular, Arts Commons recently announced the design phase of the Arts Commons transformation project, which would launch next year. Canada would be the first country to have a performing arts centre be designed since the pandemic started.

We have a wonderful commitment from our municipal and provincial governments, and we are looking for this committee's support as we continue discussions with the federal infrastructure minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you.

Monsieur Julien, you have up to five minutes, please.

[Frédéric Julien, Director, Research and Development, Canadian Association for the Performing Arts]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before the committee today.

No matter what Statistics Canada indicator you look at, live performance industries are the furthest away from recovery. As a matter of fact, they haven’t even begun their recovery. According to the labour force survey, the broader arts, entertainment and recreation sector lost 37,000 jobs in October alone.

However, let’s zoom in and have a look at the performing arts, spectator sports and related industries.

As the charts in our reference document show, the performing arts and spectator sports subsector never recovered from the first wave of the pandemic. In October, employment in this subsector was even lower than in April. Compared to last year at the same period, employment is now 32% lower. That’s 48,000 live event workers.

Performing arts companies are the hardest hit among the hardest-hit industries. Data for this industry group is now getting so sparse that it must be interpreted with caution. However, if figures I was sent by Statistics Canada are accurate, then almost three in four performing arts workers lost their job in October, compared to last year at the same period.

Participation in the labour force is also declining, which suggests a migration of the workforce to other sectors. The labour force shrank by more than 20% in October. This subsector risks facing a major shortage of skilled workers when live performance activities resume.

GDP statistics are equally troubling. In spite of modest growth over summer months, the GDP of the arts, entertainment and recreation sector in August was 52% lower than a year ago. In comparison, the accommodation and food services sector was 33% lower than last year.

We’ve heard from restaurant owners how they need almost a full week to get their supply chain in motion after a shutdown order is lifted. In the live performance sector, it’s a matter of two to three months. The critical path for resuming a live performance series involves several activities: negotiating and signing contracts with performers, booking tech crew and front-of-house staff, promoting the event, selling tickets for at least four weeks and, finally, holding the event.

If the vaccination campaign goes well, some small-scale festivals may be allowed to take place during the summer months. However, the real recovery of the sector will only begin in September 2021, when theatres, concert halls and performing arts companies launch their fall and winter seasons. This is a long time without much earned revenues.

The recovery of the sector will be a slow one. Under normal circumstances, national and international tours are planned and booked 18 to 24 months in advance. The time frame for the recovery of the sector is the lifting of all restrictions on gatherings, plus at least 18 months.

Let's turn to gaps. Venues owned by municipalities and educational institutions are not eligible for the wage subsidy or the new rent subsidy. As a result, most have had to permanently lay off staff.

These publicly owned venues are a strategic part of the performing arts value chain. They serve as mid-points in touring circuits that also involve not-for-profit presenters in rural and more remote areas. Their participation in national tours makes the difference between a tour that is financially viable and one that doesn’t reach the break-even point.

I will now switch to French to talk about support measures.

Considering the event sector's current devastation, its revival or, rather, its rebuilding will require a holistic approach based on a range of measures. The government will have to ensure to support all the players in the event value chain. As long as the emergency phase lasts, the government will have to continue to provide emergency support measures targeting the hardest-hit industries.

In addition, measures specifically targeting event industries will have to be implemented before the recovery phase begins. Those measures could include funding for creative projects, touring and performance presentations, strategic support to help the sector adjust to the changes in cultural consumer behaviours following the pandemic, assistance for workforce training, as well as leverage funding for activities likely to generate own-source revenues or other types of revenues.

When it comes to existing programs, it should be noted that investments over two years earmarked by the federal government in budget 2019 will end on March 31, 2021. I am talking about the Canada arts presentation fund, the building community through arts and heritage program and the Canada music fund. That funding must be extended. The government should actually consider those programs as recovery tools and set aside additional money for them.

Finally, organizations that use performance halls will need investments in infrastructure, so as to bring their facilities up to date based on the risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and with other pandemics that will come sooner or later.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, Mr. Julien.

Well, here's an organization that's no stranger to anybody in this country, is it? It's ParticipACTION. Talk about a national reputation. My goodness, you're up there with Hockey Night in Canada.

Mr. Antunes, you have the floor, sir, for up to five minutes.

[Elio Antunes, President and Chief Executive Officer, ParticipACTION]

Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today, and I also appreciate the recognition that our brand has with the committee.

Since 1971, ParticipACTION has been working toward a Canada in which physical activity is a vital part of everyday life. As Canada's leading physical activity organization, we deliver innovative engagement initiatives and thought leadership activities to help Canadians be more physically active and less sedentary no matter where they live, work or play.

ParticipACTION is part of what is often referred to as the SPAR sector, which stands for sport, physical activity and recreation. This includes organizations at the national, provincial, territorial and municipal levels working together to promote participation in physical activity and sport.

There are over 33,000 SPAR organizations in Canada, of which 71% are community organizations like the local YMCA or hockey association or curling club that are such an essential part of our collective social fabric, delivering programs and helping build strong communities.

The pandemic has left its mark on virtually every aspect of our lives, and the thousands of organizations I speak of are no exception. From the 2020 Olympic Games to the local soccer league, there have been widespread cancellations and suspensions of programs and events, affecting not only revenues but the ability of Canadians to participate.

The results from a recent national survey of SPAR organizations indicate a dire need for support. Some 99% of these organizations have been affected by COVID, and 21% may not recover without additional support, resulting in fewer opportunities for community programming. Programs that once may have had thousands of eager Canadians waiting to join are now running at an average capacity of 45%, and almost a quarter of the organizations in our sector are not currently delivering any programming at all.

The relief measures provided have been pivotal to the continued survival of so many of us in the sector, and we thank the government for its support. However, 65% of local community clubs and associations have not been able to access emergency funding.

As important as it is to consider the impact of COVID on organizations, we must not forget its overwhelming effect on individual Canadians. Physical activity levels have endured significant and sustained decline since the pandemic was declared, an unintended consequence of abiding by public health guidelines, resulting in the closure or suspension of facilities and programs across the country.

This past April, in the midst of the pandemic surge, fewer than 3% of Canadian children were meeting recommendations for physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep—a stark contrast to the already low 15% doing so before the health crisis.

Canadian adults are not faring any better. Since March, many of the daily rituals that were the foundation for much of our incidental movement, like commuting, grabbing a coffee or walking to a meeting, have been reduced or eliminated, resulting in incidental physical activity, which is the majority of activity we get each day, remaining alarmingly low. Not surprisingly, more than 60% of Canadians report spending more time using the Internet and watching TV during the pandemic, significantly increasing our unhealthy sedentary behaviours.

The pandemic and its resulting restrictions on social and economic life have also had a widely reported impact on mental health, with over half of Canadians reporting worsening mental health as a result of COVID. There is well-documented evidence linking the benefits of physical activity to mental health, such as decreased anxiety and depression, improved resiliency and lower stress. Unfortunately, however, most Canadians are not engaging in physical activity and sport participation as a coping strategy.

The pandemic is also deepening pre-existing inequities. Significantly fewer individuals belonging to visible minority groups are physically active compared to those identifying as Caucasian. Further, only 6% of girls versus 13% of boys are meeting physical activity guidelines.

Considering that research overwhelmingly supports the positive association between physical activity and various facets of health, including mental health, it's essential for the Government of Canada to recognize the powerful role that physical activity and sport participation can play in our collective efforts to help Canadians recover from the impacts of COVID. We therefore recommend two key initiatives.

The first is the delivery of a national public education campaign to motivate and support Canadians to get outdoors and be active while still abiding by public health guidelines. Different jurisdictions are finding it challenging to navigate public health requirements of distancing while promoting the importance of staying active. There is a need for consistent and clear messaging on how physical activity can be done safely and on its mental health benefits.

The second recommendation is to declare June 2021 Canada Moves month, in which sport, physical activity and recreation organizations at the community level will be encouraged and resourced to provide free programming as part of ParticipACTION's existing Community Better Challenge, an annual initiative to find and recognize the most active communities in Canada.

The spring of 2021 will be time to bring the country together, connect with one another and celebrate our communities while charting a path forward beyond COVID-19.

It is also ParticipACTION's 50th anniversary, an ideal opportunity to help celebrate an iconic Canadian brand by helping us do what we do best, encouraging Canadians to get healthy and get active.

Canada Moves would allow families and vulnerable groups to experience sport and physical activity programs without having affordability as a barrier to participation. It would help stimulate re-engagement in local sport and physical activity programs by enabling community organizations to retain members and continue to deliver essential programming. Essentially, we would provide 2,500 community organizations with grants to offer free programming for the entire month.

COVID-19 is more than a generational health and economic crisis. Our government should be commended for its efforts in mitigating the spread of the virus while protecting the livelihood of everyday Canadians, but we need to work just as hard to address the enormous social impact this pandemic has had on our communities. Now more than ever, physical activity and sport participation need to be promoted and prioritized to help Canadians stay healthy in mind, body and community spirit.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Thank you, sir.

Let's go straight to the questions.

Mr. Shields, you have up to six minutes, please.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses being on here today. I totally agree with ParticipACTION. Students have stayed home for months on end; this is a serious problem. The program that was involved in schools for many years, ParticipACTION, was dropped. I don't know why it was dropped from the school system, but that's a challenge.

Welcome to Arts Common and Mr. Sarian. That's a great part of the Calgary arts scene and the Canadian arts scene. It's a fantastic place in theatre.

One of my former students from a university class, Craig Hall—

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Sorry, Mr. Shields, we'll just stop the clock for you right there. Ms. Dabrusin has a point of order.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

I'm really sorry, Mr. Shields. It's not about your question. It's that the sound is really hard on the ears.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

I think it might be the same problem we had prior. I'm going to get Mr. Shields to move just a little farther away from his microphone and maybe we could lower the volume within this room, because Mr. Shields is in this room right now with us.

Please proceed, sir.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Ms. Dabrusin, sorry to have been so loud.

Craig Hall, a former student in a class of mine at university, is director of Vertigo Theatre. It's a great place.

I introduced my kids to arts in the Arts Common and we've attended many events there over the years.

I want to go back to your last three points. I think you were just getting into them, and you didn't have time for the last one, the future that you're looking forward to. Could you spend a little more time on that?

[Alex Sarian]

Absolutely, and thank you for giving me the time to do that.

Number three is really about empowering arts organizations to reimagine what it means to be sustainable. As you can imagine, in coming to Calgary from the United States, the funding model is completely different. In the United States, we are at risk at being perhaps overly dependent on the private sector, whereas here the perception might be that we are overly dependent on the public sector. One of the things that we want to come out of this is to be able to diversify our revenue streams as much as possible, so that when pandemics do occur, the rug is not pulled out from under us.

One of the ways in which Arts Commons is attempting to tackle this is by the development of what we're calling the Arts Commons transformation project, which is an expansion and modernization campaign that consists of building a new extension to our facility and almost doubling our square footage, because our facility has been operating at capacity literally since the year we opened in 1985.

It would do a couple of different things. It would allow us to monetize and commercialize activities in a way that then allows us to bring that money back into our local economy and back into our local residential companies. As you know very well, Arts Commons, much like Lincoln Center, is based on this idea of an ecosystem, where we need to be talking about economies of scale and we need to be talking about shared resources.

A performing arts centre like Arts Commons allows organizations such as Theatre Calgary and the Calgary Philharmonic and so many other community-based companies to access a world-class venue and tap into audiences at a fraction of the cost of what it would normally be, but that business model requires Arts Commons to sustain that practice. The ability to increase our square footage allows us to generate more commercially based earned revenue to then pour back into our ecosystem.

The only last thing I'll say on it is that this has been a project that has been in the works for many years, but there has been a unique opportunity, given the investment in infrastructure, to revisit this right now. In the near term, this would create over 3,000 jobs in construction and would add hundreds of millions of dollars to Alberta's GDP. In a time when the arts sector is normally seen as hemorrhaging money, this is an opportunity for the arts sector to give back in times of crisis.

We have launched the RFP for design consultants around the world and locally, and what we are hearing is that people are chomping at the bit to work on this, because it would be the world's first performing arts centre to be designed since COVID hit. It would be a manifestation of what we are learning in terms of HVAC, security and health, and in terms of how people navigate through space and what it means to have a flexible performance and cultural centre.

It's a great opportunity. As for the timing, it's one of the silver linings that has come out of this for us. In the long run, it will lessen our dependency on government funding, because we will have the ability to monetize and activate this new building and our increased square footage in brand new ways.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you. I really appreciate the forward thinking that you're looking at.

If there were one other thing that you would ask for from the federal government, what would it be?