Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 7th, 2022

[Terry Huisman]

I would think that we will continue to use those items. Obviously that will be a person's choice whether they want to wear their masks in the arena, but they will still be offered as they walk through the door, and there will still be those expenses as well.

As we move forward and levels of COVID start to drop or continue to drop, I would think that some of that stuff would probably be alleviated from the arena.

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

With respect to food, you stated that you're not serving food now and that when you reopen, it's anticipated that you would be resuming the sale of food.

[Terry Huisman]

Yes. I think once the provincial restrictions get eased hopefully this week, they'll reintroduce our ability to have food and beverages back in the arena.

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

Do you anticipate any increased costs due to that because of some problems that we are having in our supply chain?

[Terry Huisman]

No. I believe that those expenses have already been incurred.

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

Okay, wonderful.

My next—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Lewis. Your time is up.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry about that.

Now I would like to move to the Liberals, Mr. Chris Bittle, for five minutes.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

For my first questions I would like to go to the Canada Games Council. We're excited in Niagara to be hosting the Canada Games. It would have been nice to do it last year, but unfortunately COVID-19 pushed that back to this summer.

You'd mentioned the inability of the host societies to access programming. I was present at an announcement last year where an additional $1.1 million was offered to the host society in Niagara to cover the additional costs of postponement. Is that true?

[Kelly-Ann Paul]

Yes. It wasn't a typical program that was actually struck by the government to support COVID relief funds though. It was literally Sport Canada finding some additional money to support the COVID piece, but it wasn't one of the prime funding programs for COVID relief that were available to the rest of the NSOs and the NSO community.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Again, it was the government finding that hole that existed and filling that hole for the host society in Niagara.

[Kelly-Ann Paul]

The support towards it, yes.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you.

I can move on to Mr. Huisman. Perhaps it was just an unusual question, and I'd just like to clarify in terms of the question. The question was about language by the Prime Minister impacting your business. I think you've said it in your other statements. Can you confirm that the restrictions that have been placed on your business are entirely from the Province of Alberta. Is that correct?

[Terry Huisman]

Yes, they are.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Okay. The prevalence of a highly infectious disease and thousands of deaths in your province probably greatly contributes to people's hesitancy to attend a sporting event. Is that a fair assessment?

[Terry Huisman]

I would say that is a fair statement.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much.

If we can move on to the Canadian Arts Coalition, I know you've discussed the federal government programs that have come into force. I just want to counter a couple of the items Mr. Julian talked about in terms of the banking industry, and the federal government ignoring the arts sector. I would like to point out the $500 million in the 2020 economic update, $281 million in the fall economic statement and $500 million in the 2021 budget.

I appreciate that more is necessary, but I was wondering if you could comment on what the impact of the existing federal programs has been on the sector, and if you've seen the arts sector as a priority of the federal government.

[Sarah Iley]

Thank you for the question.

I can certainly say, on behalf of all the membership—and we have surveyed people right across the country—that those particular programs you have listed were absolutely essential. I think we've heard that from a number of people on this panel today. They have been described as absolute lifelines to the arts community. There were some hiccups in terms of some of the designs of the wage subsidy at the beginning. It was very welcomed that the community was asked to provide suggestions about modifications to the programs, and we were able to do that.

There's no question that the list of letters that Jacoba read off has been terribly important—the wage subsidy, the rent subsidy, the CERB and so on. The concern, of course, is that the pandemic is still not over. The audience hesitancy continues. The capacity challenges are still there.

The real concern is that these programs have been essential and will continue to be essential. It's fantastic that the arts recovery program has been announced. Again, we look forward to working with the government to help make sure that it meets the unique needs, not just of the performing arts but also of the visual arts and the other segments of the arts and culture sector, for which these continue to be very tricky days.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Very quickly to ACTRA, has production bounced back towards prepandemic levels?

[Eleanor Noble]

Production has been pretty good. We've been very impressed with how it has come back, but as I said before, we are at half capacity on our sets, so the number of people being hired is not the same. Also, when we went into the pandemic shutdown, the industry changed for performers across this country. We no longer go to casting houses to audition. We had to buy and equip ourselves with our own equipment. It was costly and time consuming, and it came out of our own pockets.

Yes, we're doing well on the production side of things, but we are not at full capacity from a hiring standpoint, in terms of how many members are working on sets.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. Noble and Mr. Bittle.

We now move on to the next round.

It's the Bloc Québécois with Mr. Champoux for two and a half minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to address Ms. Noble from ACTRA.

Ms. Noble, we spoke to each other some time ago and we discussed the issue of employment insurance reform and the basic conditions that we wanted to offer to people working in the culture sector. We also had the opportunity to talk briefly about this project that we want to put forward on the reform of the status of the artist within the framework of the federal legislation.

What do you think we should definitely prioritize when we get ready to study these issues?

[Eleanor Noble]

Yes, we really want Bill C-11 to pass and to modernize our Broadcasting Act. It's time. We need media giants like Netflix and Disney+ to be contributing to our industry so that we can develop Canadian stories and production. We have talented Canadians writers, producers, directors and performers across this country, and we need to start producing our own work and—

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Ms. Noble, I must interrupt you.

Perhaps my question was not properly relayed. I’m talking about the reform of the EI program and the federal Status of the Artist Act that we want to undertake. We had these discussions when we met some time ago. You pointed out some things to me, and I would like to know what specific aspects you would like us to examine when we talk about these reforms.