Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the committee.
My name is Dave Forget and I am the national executive director of the Directors Guild of Canada. With me today is Sam Bischoff, public affairs manager.
We appreciate the committee's invitation to present DGC's comments on the federal Status of the Artist Act and its impact on working conditions for artists.
The DGC is a national labour organization representing key creative and logistical professionals in the film, television and digital media industries. Today, we have over 6,000 members covering all areas of direction, design, production, logistics and editing. In 2018, the Canada Industrial Relations Board updated the DGC certification to represent the functions of director, assistant director or first assistant director, computer graphics designer, set designer, location manager, picture editor, sound editor, and art director, excluding artists covered by the certification granted to other artists organizations.
First enacted in 1992 and substantially revised in 1995, the federal Status of the Artist Act is directed at improving the economic and social status of professional artists. In practice, this federal legislation presents a number of limitations. While its purpose is to establish a framework to govern professional relations between artists and producers, our experience as a labour organization is that it’s not achieving its initial promise.
At the moment, the only group represented by the DGC that is covered under the act is directors and assistant directors working on National Film Board productions. The act does not have the reach to cover most self-employed creators working on film and television production.
The reality is that federally regulated employers such as the CBC or other private broadcasters no longer typically hire DGC members directly under contract as they used to. Instead, they commission content to be produced by independent producers, who in turn enter into contracts with DGC members under a DGC collective agreement. Therefore, in practice, only a very small proportion of DGC members are working under the jurisdiction of the act.
Nonetheless, we do have some experience working with the act and have some comments on how the act is functioning for artists working under the National Film Board production contract.
First, the Status of the Artist Act lacks effectiveness and provides little provision to reach a scale agreement. In practice, even when a party is willing to negotiate, additional issues may arise. It has been difficult, for example, for the guild to conduct a complete negotiation to secure both the initial and subsequent agreement with the National Film Board. Our initial agreement took over five years to negotiate and our subsequent renewal agreement, which was just recently ratified by our director members, took over two years.
For this reason, the DGC recommends including a provision in the act that ensures binding arbitration for a first contract as is currently the case in Quebec's Status of the Artist Act, as well as in provincial and federal labour codes.
The benefits to artists derived from the act are only available once an agreement is secured. Keeping in mind the precarious nature of working conditions, any delays in the process only further negatively impact the artists. Any measure that would ensure meaningful bargaining would be a significant improvement.
Moreover, even in such a clear example as with the National Film Board, in our experience, whenever the NFB collaborates with the co-producer, often the co-producer becomes the engager and the agreement falls to the side. This includes all the protections that have been negotiated, such as collective rights, minimum rates of pay and contributions to health plan and retirement plan, among other things. Of course, this also further diminishes the effectiveness of the act.
Furthermore, we've noted in our experience how much technology redefines the work of artists and their categories. This prompts the need to make the act more flexible and responsive to technological change. It has become necessary to update the definition of what an artist is and simplify the recognition process. The DGC recommends updating the act's definitions and language to move beyond traditional filmmaking into more digital spheres of audiovisual endeavours.
Based on our experience, we hope we've provided practical recommendations for improvements that would serve to strengthen the act.
Members of the committee, I want to thank you for your time.
Samuel and I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.