Canadian Heritage Committee on April 4th, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Good afternoon, everyone. You're stuck with me again as chair.

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 14 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

I would like to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Pursuant to the motion adopted by this committee on Monday, January 31, 2022, this meeting is studying the Status of the Artist Act and its impact on improving basic working conditions for artists.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room, and remotely using the Zoom application.

I'm going to skip over the part about people who are attending in the room. I think we all know those rules.

For members attending by Zoom, I will recognize you by name before speaking. Click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. Please mute yourself when you are not speaking. Interpretation is available for those on Zoom. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those of you in the room, you know what to do.

For those on Zoom, raise your hand if you wish to speak. If you lose interpretation, please raise a point of order as quickly as possible. In accordance with the routine motion, all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

We will now begin with opening comments and statements. Each group will have five minutes to speak, and that can be divided up among different witnesses within that group.

We will begin with the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Mr. Thomas Owen Ripley and Ms. Kelly Beaton, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Thomas Owen Ripley, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello everyone.

Thank you for inviting us here to join your discussion today.

I am also joining you from the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.

Canada's Status of the Artist Act arose out of the recognition of the fact that the path taken by artists is difficult. Despite the value of their work in our lives and in our society, many artists have to fight to get the income and working conditions they deserve.

The Act was adopted in 1992, but its origins go back to 1980, when UNESCO presented the Recommendation concerning the Status of the Artist, which recognizes the atypical ways artists earn their living and proposed measures that UNESCO member states could take to improve the socioeconomic situation of artists.

Canada's Status of the Artist Act is composed of two parts. Part I, which exposes a host of general provisions, falls under the purview of the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It serves as a pillar for part II of the Act, which sets out a framework to govern the professional relationships between artists and federally regulated producers. This second part is the responsibility of the Minister of Labour.

The general provisions in part I of the Act include a recognition of the important role artists play in our lives, our society and in our economy. What is more, they establish a link between this recognition and the importance for artists to receive compensation for the use of their works and to have a social status representative of their contribution to society. This recognition of the wealth that artists provide to the lives of Canadians and our collective responsibility to recognize and compensate these contributions fairly are at the heart not only of the Status of the Artist Act, but also of what we are working toward at the Department of Canadian Heritage.

The events of recent times have only heightened the importance of these objectives. There’s no getting around the devastation of the pandemic on the arts sector. We’ve heard from performing arts centres, theatre and dance companies, cultural hubs, arts training institutions, artist and technician unions and other partners since their world and ours came crashing down two years ago. We’ve seen the numbers. We know from labour force survey data that 2020 saw a 29% decrease in hours worked by self-employed artists—the lowest level on record. We know from our own survey, at the Department of Canadian Heritage, of Canadian artists and content creators that 62% have experienced a loss in income since the outbreak of COVID-19. We heard Sophie Prégent, president of Union des Artistes, report to this committee in February that 40% of that organization’s membership had considered or were still considering leaving their artistic careers in the long term.

These are times of unprecedented need. Throughout the pandemic, the department has worked hard to disburse funds to help keep the arts and culture organizations that hire and support artists afloat, and we know that these investments are having positive effects. The department recently conducted a survey of approximately 10,000 recipients of the $500-million COVID emergency support fund. More than three out of every four respondents, or 77%, indicated that the fund helped their organization remain in operation, and almost every respondent, or 95%, indicated that they were satisfied with the timeliness with which the funds were disbursed. We can also see that arts, culture and heritage sectors are starting to bounce back from the pandemic’s impacts. We can now focus our efforts on supporting the recovery of those sectors hardest hit by the pandemic through, for example, the recently launched $60-million performing arts workers resilience fund, which will deliver direct financial support and supportive programming to arts workers through the guilds, unions and associations that are closest to them.

Even though most workers and workplaces in the cultural sector are regulated by provincial or territorial labour laws, Canada's Status of the Artist Act remains an important tool in protecting the rights of artists through collective bargaining. What is more, it includes in its general provisions the crucial recognition of everything that artists contribute to our country. This is a tool that helps support artists and creators, but the primary goal is to ensure that artists are supported, that they receive fair compensation and that they are given the status they deserve in return.

Thank you.

Meegwetch.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Ripley. That was almost exactly on time. It's like you practised that beforehand. That's great.

Next up we have the Canada Industrial Relations Board, represented by Ginette Brazeau, chairperson of the board.

Madame Brazeau, the floor is yours.

[Ginette Brazeau, Chairperson, Canada Industrial Relations Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the committee for the invitation.

The Status of the Artist Act was adopted in 1992 and enacted in 1995, just over 25 years ago.

Part II of the Act establishes a framework for collective bargaining between artists who are independent workers and producers who want to retain their services for specific projects. The purpose of this legislation was to allow for the negotiation of framework agreements between artist associations and producers in order to establish basic working conditions for designated sectors.

The federal Status of the Artist Act has limited application, in other words it applies when the producer is a federal institution, in other words a federally regulated department or agency, for example the National Film Board, or a broadcaster as defined by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, such as TVA, Radio-Canada or CTV.

The Act is largely inspired by the Canada Labour Code with respect to the accreditation process for artist associations as negotiating agents and the terms surrounding collective bargaining. However, there are specific distinctions that are necessary for adapting to the realities of the artistic field and the nature of the relationship between the producers and artists as independent workers.

As you are aware, the act also established a specialized tribunal to deal with these matters. The Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal, or CAPPRT for short. Legislative amendments were made in 2012 that abolished that tribunal and assigned the responsibility for part II of the act to the Canada Industrial Relations Board.

I was the executive director of the board at the time and was directly involved in that transition. The board immediately initiated consultations with the artistic community in an effort to develop and adopt procedural regulations that governed the handling of the cases that were to be filed with the board under the act. This resulted in the adoption of the Status of the Artist Act procedural regulations in 2014, which provide transparency on how these matters are processed before the board.

The former tribunal, CAPPRT, was very active in the early years following the coming into force of the act. The tribunal was called upon to define the various sectors and to certify the various associations as the representatives of artists in those sectors. There are currently 26 sectors that are recognized under the act and for which an association is certified to represent the artists in those sectors. The board maintains a register of certifications issued under the Status of the Artist Act, which is available on our website.

There is now limited activity under the act. The board has only received eight applications or complaints under the act since 2013, when the duties were transferred to the board. When an application or a complaint is received, we immediately assign a board officer to engage with the parties involved, to assist in clarifying the issues that need to be addressed and to gather the necessary information for the board to be able to make a determination. In some cases, the matter is resolved through a mediated settlement.

I am aware that previous witnesses who appeared before the committee expressed the importance of having complaints or applications dealt with expeditiously. I can inform the committee that the median processing time for all matters that come before the board is just under six months, and that's from the date of filing to the final determination. Some cases may take longer, depending on the issue being raised, whether a hearing is necessary and the availability of the participants in the process. We certainly strive to provide timely and effective dispute resolution services.

As the tribunal is responsible for interpreting and applying the provisions of the act, I will be careful not to take a position on policy issues, but I will be pleased to respond to any questions you may have. Thank you for the opportunity.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you very much, Ms. Brazeau.

We will now hear the presentation by Simon Brault, Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Mr. Brault, you have five minutes.

[Simon Brault, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Council for the Arts]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hello everyone.

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to your work.

The Canada Council for the Arts plays a fundamental role in supporting the country's artistic ecosystem as a whole. For more than 60 years, we have been providing subsidies to individual artists to support the creation and distribution of their works. We also support certain organizations to promote the production and distribution of artistic and literary works.

During the 2021‑2022 fiscal year, which has just ended, we paid out $314 million in subsidies under our regular programs and more than $141 million in additional emergency funding in an effort to mitigate the devastating effects of the pandemic on our sector.

While the pandemic has highlighted imbalances and inequities, it is important to understand that these precarities have existed for decades. The work that artists do is often misunderstood and frequently does not align well with how labour is valued in our society.

There is a combination of factors that make the arts sector different. First, there is the precarious freelance, seasonal or gig work.

Second, there is an objective need for an excess of artists, artistic proposals and offerings, compared to the immediate demand. It is this very excess of talent that ensures that we have a diverse, thriving arts sector. It is the same imbalance of supply and demand that has led to stark competition among artists for limited resources or work.

Third, unlike most workers in our economy, many artists will continue to create, write, rehearse and train, regardless of whether there is a promise of monetary compensation at the end of their efforts. Artists and writers are fuelled by passion and a thirst for creation, not only compensation. Many artists are working all the time. They're thinking, experimenting, training and so on, usually without any kind of remuneration. It has become the norm that artists should engage in unpaid, invisible labour.

This combination of factors illustrates why traditional economic models of labour, wages and social supports do not work well for the arts sector, and why more inclusive models to support artists should be explored.

The council will continue to directly fund thousands of artists and writers, which in turn contributes to the economic growth of the arts sector. To illustrate, in the year that just concluded, the council awarded $128 million to over 4,600 artists in grant funding. Of these artists, almost 50% were first-time recipients, receiving a total of $50 million.

While the Canada Council for the Arts supports the arts ecosystem in a broad sense, we have no control over the mechanisms and systems that are currently in place—such as employment insurance, income tax and legislation like the Status of the Artist Act—that directly impact working conditions. As a recent UNESCO report entitled “Re|Shaping Policies for Creativity” states, the pandemic highlighted that a stronger social safety net for artists is needed more than ever, and that there are multiple avenues worth exploring.

At the Council, we openly acknowledge that a lot needs to be done for our society to better support an artistic sector that contributes so much to the quality of life of each and every one of us.

We are asking the fundamental, courageous and complex questions that will have a major influence on our work in years to come. We are firmly committed to the path of decolonization, which seeks to make the artistic sector more inclusive, representative, equitable and sustainable.

At the Council, we are reflecting on the historic assumptions underlying our work. We are aware of the importance of moving past a Eurocentric vision of the arts. What does it mean to be a professional artist? How should we define excellence or artistic merit? What is or isn't art? These and many other questions are on our minds and we are looking for the answers with artists and the communities they belong to.

The pandemic has shown us beyond a doubt that society needs arts and culture. Imagine what it would have been like during the long weeks of lockdown, without music, without reading, without fiction on television or on the Internet. However, this same pandemic also made the situation for artists even more precarious. Let's not forget that there is no art without artists.

Thank you.

I would be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you very much, Mr. Brault.

We will now begin our first round of questioning.

This is a six-minute round. That includes both the questions and the responses.

The first round is the Conservative round and that goes to Mr. Waugh.

You have six minutes. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome, everyone, to our committee today. [Technical difficulty—Editor] as you can tell.

Welcome, Canadian Heritage. Once again, Mr. Ripley, along with Ms. Beaton, thank you for attending this Status of the Artist Act review.

It was brought in in 1992. Ten years later, we had an extensive review. Do you foresee another review coming, since the last one was in 2002?

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

Mr. Chair, may I answer?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Yes, go ahead.

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

I'm sorry. I didn't direct it to anyone. It would be for either you, Owen, or Ms. Beaton.

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Waugh.

You are right. There was a review of the act seven years after it came into force. At the time, the report found that, generally speaking, things were working well. There were no major recommendations to change the act at the time.

It's certain that we engage regularly with stakeholders in the arts and culture sector to hear about their concerns. At this time, no work is planned to modify the act, but we are certainly cognizant that the committee is looking at the question. We'll be following with interest any recommendations the committee ultimately decides to put forward.

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

It seems a little odd because it's been 20 years since 2002. You didn't make many changes then, if at all. Now 20 years later, you're expecting maybe another evaluation, but don't you think there will be any changes?

[Thomas Owen Ripley]

I think a couple of things are relevant, Mr. Waugh. One is that the concepts in the act are relatively flexible. The concept of artist as defined is quite broad and captures a wide slice of artists and creators, even as technology has evolved.

The second piece, and my colleague Ginette and I spoke to it a little bit, is that the federal Status of the Artist Act is only one piece of the puzzle. It's perhaps a smaller piece at that because labour law more broadly and status of the artist acts at the provincial level are the pieces of legislation that govern anything not considered to be a federal producer, so to speak. Those pieces of legislation are quite critical to understanding the bigger puzzle.

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

You're right on.

I'll move to the Canada Council for the Arts.

Mr. Brault, you had a lot of numbers there. There were $314 million in grants and $141 million in additional grants, I take it, that you handed out in the last year or so.

What was the process for getting that money out? Did you first look at new ones or old ones? Was it only the past recipients that actually got the first kick at the can, at the money, if you so chose?

[Simon Brault]

Normally, we distribute money through a jury process. Artists or organizations apply to the Canada Council and juries made of specialist artists are assessing each demand. They decide how and what money will be received.

During the pandemic—last year and the year before—a lot of money was added by government to support the sector that was in a very difficult situation. We established a balance between supporting what we call core-funded clients of the Canada Council.... These are the organizations that normally receive operating grants from the council. That money was basically top-up money. We counted on the previous assessment and we gave a portion of their regular grants to those organizations.

During the pandemic, we also insisted that the Canada Council would continue to use the juries to support what I would call the independent scene. Those are the artists and collectives of artists across Canada who are still trying to work and to create. I'm very proud to say that we reached the highest level of support during the pandemic. In fact, as I said in my notes, more than 50% of the artists receiving a grant were first-time recipients. They had never before gotten money from the Canada Council.

I think we succeeded in casting a very wide net in order to cover the entire sector and make sure that there would still be a lot of artistic and literary creation during the pandemic. Actually, all Canadians will see that work now that it will be presented.

I hope that answers your question.

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

Gig work or freelance has certainly gone up in your business over the years.

Could you speak about that if you don't mind, because many people are on semi contracts? They go from job to job.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Mr. Brault, if you could do that in about 25 seconds or less, that would be great.

[Simon Brault]

Actually, you're right. In the arts sector, we have some artists working permanently for companies, like Stratford, or other big companies, but most of the artists are moving from one project to another. That's the reality. In between those projects, they are trying to survive, continue to work, and be ready to work. That's the reality of artists. You're right.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you Mr. Waugh and Mr. Brault. Kudos for getting the Stratford reference in there.

Mr. Louis, you now have the floor, for six minutes.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our panellists for being here today, and expressing the importance of what you're doing.

I would like to continue that line of questioning with Mr. Brault. You mentioned that 50% of the recipients were first time, that balance between core funded and first-time recipients. Previously, that had been a barrier, because independent artists had difficulty getting grants.

Do you have a rough breakdown of the amounts of grants, sizes of the organizations, and the number of applicants that apply? It sounds like these independent artists are getting the same opportunities. In my experience, those smaller financial supports to independent artists have a compounded beneficial result.

With the newer model that you had in the past year, would you consider using that same model moving forward?

[Simon Brault]

Absolutely. Actually, over the years, and especially over the last two years, we created a system at Canada Council where people could apply. Their demands are assessed, and we support their demands on a merit basis. However, we also make sure that we calibrate the level of success from one region to another in order to make sure that no matter where they are from, and no matter what they do, they need to have the same fair chance of getting support from the Canada Council.

I'm very pleased to say that over the last years we maintained a national success rate that was more or less equal across the country.

So, yes, it has been a good period for supporting more artists, and especially independent artists. Frankly, they are absolutely vital to the quality and the future of our sector.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I'm certainly glad to hear that, thank you.

In line with that, more artists are looking to technology to expand their careers, and the pandemic has highlighted the importance of that.

Are there streams of funding, through Canada Council for the Arts, for training, specifically for digitalization and promotion, that can help share in our stories not only across Canada, as you mentioned, but internationally, as we are really strong at exporting our own talent to the world?

[Simon Brault]

Absolutely. There are streams of funding for training. During the pandemic, it was incredibly important for artists all across the country, no matter what they did, to master more digital capacities, production, dissemination, and presentation.

It is very encouraging to see that we are in a stronger position right now to offer a quality product, even for the people who normally work on stage. The sector is recovering. Many theatre companies want to maintain a hybrid model, and offer, obviously, things on stage, but also provide digital access.

So, yes, I think we have made very important progress over the last two years in terms of mastering digital in our sector.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

That's encouraging to hear, thank you.

Maybe I could direct my questions to Mr. Ripley at Canadian Heritage.

Listening to our artists during the pandemic—besides listening to them in their art— and listening to their feedback, as you just heard, is so important because of the lessons we can learn. I'm quite grateful that you reached out to artists for their feedback during this pandemic.

Could you share a bit of that report? What kinds of things were you hearing directly from artists, as was mentioned about theatre, and possibly staying hybrid in the future?