Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 7th, 2022

[Annick Charette]

This can play a role, that's for sure. Some artists are more determined than others, but some have exhausted their resources. Some venues have also exhausted their human and financial resources. The last lockdown was the final blow to many people and many venues.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Excuse me for trying to speed things up, but our time is limited, as my colleague Mr. Bittle said earlier.

[Annick Charette]

I too try to be as brief as possible.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You mentioned something that really struck me, which is that access to funds is doubly important.

[Annick Charette]

Yes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I feel that access to funds is often a big problem. Do you find that the programs put in place are often too complex and discouraging for those who have to apply? Do you ever feel this way?

[Annick Charette]

People in the community generally agree that things could be simplified. We understand that civil servants must ensure the proper use of public funds, but sometimes there are many barriers to entry. This discourages people from applying. We need to engage the cultural community. Only artists and craftspeople can revive the activities of the community, but to do so, they must be rallied and motivated to do so.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

The Canada Performing Arts Workers Resilience Fund was announced last week. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we were expecting an emergency assistance fund for self-employed cultural workers who are not eligible for the various EI and emergency assistance programs related to COVID‑19. As it is, we have a program that does not simply provide emergency assistance, but that also aims to fund projects, which are worthy, I'm sure. However, don't you think that, once again, the process has been slightly complicated, when self-employed cultural workers needed a breather and financial assistance that was available quickly?

[Annick Charette]

This program is well intentioned, because it focuses on mental health and so on, which is not a small part of it, but it went slightly off course between its announcement in the fall and January. As I said, I think it was well intentioned, but it won't be enough. To get back on their feet, cultural workers are going to need help over a longer period than many other workers. The special assistance for cultural workers should be maintained until there is a solid, documented, and quantified indicator of the recovery of the culture sector.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Very quickly, Ms. Charette, what do you think of the revision of the Status of the Artist Act?

What should be included in this legislation on the federal side?

[Annick Charette]

I obviously cannot answer that in 15 seconds. However, I can tell you that we really want Bill C‑11 to be passed as quickly as possible and that we will support the government in this regard.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

We will have the opportunity to discuss this again, I am sure.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now I'll go to the fourth person in this round.

Peter Julian, from the New Democratic Party, you have six minutes.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for coming forward today. All of you represent organizations that help tell our stories to Canadians and to the world. We deeply appreciate the work you do every day, and we hope you and your families are staying safe and healthy during this pandemic.

I'm going to start my questions with Madam Noble and Madam Blanchette from ACTRA. You put forward a really effective case, Ms. Noble, in talking about what happened to seniors. The fact that many seniors are now homeless as a result of these government decisions is catastrophic. The government needs to act immediately.

We also saw, prior to Christmas, a very abrupt ending of the CRB that cut off 800,000 people virtually overnight, stopping them from having the wherewithal to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Were ACTRA members impacted by that abrupt ending of the CRB? What would you say is the situation now for ACTRA members across the country? How are they making ends meet?

[Eleanor Noble]

Yes, they were impacted. Our profession is precarious by nature, and having everything cut off like that when we weren't fully up and running in the capacity that we used to be was detrimental to many members.

As for the GIS, our seniors felt stabbed in the back. We got many calls from them saying that they had contacted the CRA and there were different answers for the whole thing all the time. They had even stopped the CERB and paid their taxes on the CERB, etc., and then their GIS was taken away. The response to them was to apply for the CERB again. They said, “But then I'm going to be stuck in the same position.”

That was really very unclear. The help was not there from the CRA to be clear on what was happening, and it seemed like they were stumbling through and didn't know. The people who were affected by that were our vulnerable seniors.

Lisa, do you want to add anything to that?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

To answer the question of where ACTRA members are right now, you're putting the case that there needs to be more supports in place. The idea that this is all over with and we can just wrap up and go home is not an effective way of dealing with the pandemic, which continues to profoundly hurt the arts and culture sector.

[Eleanor Noble]

That's correct.

One of the things on our sets is that we work in close contact with each other, and when we call for “action” to record, we remove our masks. We're in a vulnerable state.

We have been following protocols across the country, but the thing is that we're vulnerable in those positions. Because of that, we aren't at full capacity on our sets. We don't have our full background.

A huge percentage of our membership across the country is background performers. Where there would be hundreds of them on set daily, providing them a proper income, that has now been reduced to maybe a maximum of 10 people, who have to test negative every single day and are then in a vulnerable position where they have to remove their masks while we're shooting a scene. For performers and crews, it's changed as well.

We're all in the same boat. It's just diminished.

We haven't gone back to normal yet, because the protocols are still very strict, and our membership is working at half capacity, rather than at the fullness we were working pre-COVID.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much for that.

I'm going to move on to the Canadian Arts Coalition, and Ms. Iley and Ms. Knaapen.

Ms. Knaapen, if I understood correctly, you talked about 24,000 cancelled events and 20 million tickets that would have been purchased were not. This is catastrophic, as you've pointed out. Do you feel the federal government should be treating the impact on the arts and culture sector as the emergency that it is, and step up immediately with support?

The banking sector and pharmaceutical companies got massive supports. Shouldn't the arts and culture sector be receiving the same type of priority this government has given to banks and big business?

[Jacoba Knaapen]

The Government of Canada's commitment to a full recovery for the arts and culture sector is deeply appreciated. I want to mention one of the tools. One of the instruments we can leverage that's critical to our recovery is the box office refund, potentially being able to rebuild some of those losses. The losses to restart a show are never recouped. It's a loss of labour, and it's a direct hit to producers right across the country.

Realistically, in the longer term, a ticket subsidy is going to support recovery. A long-term strategy attached to that.... Just because we are allowed to reopen doesn't mean we've recovered. Revenue from 50% capacity doesn't sustain the expenses of live production.

Our members have been brilliant. They've pivoted. We've heard that “p” word so many times. They've created workshops. They've created panels. They are doing digital content. They've created podcasts and livestreams. Some really extraordinary digital offerings have emerged during this time.

We've on-boarded new audience members during this time, as well. We don't know if those digital new audience members will come back. Recouping the losses in our box office revenues is really going to be integral. We need to rehearse. We need to pay the musicians, the cast, the crew, and the front and back of house. Some of the spaces need to be refurbished, as well.

There are additional costs that are incurred through necessary health and safety protocols, which, of course, we're following. Looking at a ticket subsidy could have a real impact for our sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Peter. Your time is up. Those were good questions.

We're going to go to the second round.

We'll begin with Ms. Leslyn Lewis, from the Conservatives, for five minutes.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My first question is for Ms. Iley, and it pertains to the cancellations you just spoke about.

I would like to hear more about whether or not you had to refund some payments for cancellations, or if this was just a potential loss of revenue.

[Sarah Iley]

There were many requests for refunds. Many organizations would ask their ticket-buyers, “Are you willing to leave the money with us and trust us that we'll bring you the show when we're able to?” There were many ticket-buyers who did do that, but there were many who couldn't and wanted their refunds. There was refunding, and it's been really complicated going back and forth with partial reopenings, capacity limits and that kind of thing. There were refunds on top of the lack of capacity and the lack of sales.

I wanted to add to what Jacoba was mentioning around digitization. Lots of people and organizations decided that a good way to reach out to potential members, potential audience members, potential artwork buyers...and let's not forget the visual arts are all in this too. They said they couldn't reach people unless it was through a digital format, but there is no way those digital formats have had any way of monetizing.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you for that answer.

My next question is for Ms. George. I am curious about the several COVID measures that you highlighted and just the implementation of them. How would you assess their effectiveness in providing the financial relief needed, and where there any gaps and problems that you would like to highlight?

[Heather George]

In terms of the supports provided, I would say that thanks to government support, fiscal prudence and support from community members, many museums were able to weather this storm, as it were, and hopefully we're almost done. However, I would say one of the gaps is that all of these parts of funds are in different locations, which presents an additional barrier especially for small institutions that might only run seasonally or whose staff are primarily volunteers. I would say that is a major gap.

Then additionally, specifically to indigenous community organizations and museums, many of our organizations entered this from a position of already being behind the race in terms of funding and societal pressures. The entire pandemic, for all of our organizations and memberships that we represent, really spoke to the precarious nature of arts, culture, heritage and sport in this nation and the need for the federal government to address that.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Huisman. Your conversation, your answers to Ms. Thomas, I wanted to just expand on them. You stated that you had some increased costs, and you've noted signage and rapid tests and other items. Would you anticipate that these costs will even expand further when you reopen and you allow for things like food, given the cost of the increases due to our limited supply chain?