One obvious source of stress for presenters is not knowing whether the $16 million allocated to the Canada arts presentation fund for two fiscal years will be renewed, or whether it will be made a permanent part of the program. These amounts expired on March 31, 2020. Presenters have nonetheless counted on this revenue. Some presenters that were unable to access the program because the funding was too limited could be completely excluded from the program. We must quickly find out what will happen to this money in the budget.
I'll address the Canada emergency wage subsidy. It has really helped keep the presentation organizations running. We know that the economic recovery will take a long time and that, for now, the timeline is extended to June 2021. However, I want to point out to the committee members that it would be useful to adjust the wage subsidy based on the recovery of the various sectors.
Once again, the situation isn't consistent from one economic sector to the next. Some sectors have been able to benefit more from the recovery, which has been slow to start. However, in the arts sector, we can see that everything is still closed right now. The situation varies from sector to sector. This astute implementation of the grant would be an important part of the assistance that we could receive.