Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 7th, 2022

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I want to come back to the impact of event cancellation and postponement. Is there anything that you would add in terms of the impact that has had on the Hurricanes and those within our community who are engaged?

[Terry Huisman]

Obviously when there are unforeseen circumstances and postponements because of too many players on the team having the COVID-19 virus and we get into those protocols, it really does put a barrier on our system. We have to struggle to get in multiple games at the end of the season. We have to extend the season, which means that we have to extend further out with other events, including the playoffs, the Memorial Cup and those sorts of things. There are a lot of factors that are involved where that is concerned. If we didn't have to deal with that, obviously, it would be a perfect world, but that's what we're living in and the players have to deal with that on a regular basis.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Fair enough.

Mr. Huisman, in your estimation, would you have everything in place to be able to go back to normal?

[Terry Huisman]

I believe that we do have everything in place to return to normal, whatever that normal will be. We'll be here, ready and willing and excited for that to happen.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

That's awesome.

Ms. Paul, I have the same question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Thomas, you have 22 seconds.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Yes, thank you for interrupting.

Ms. Paul, would you mind commenting on that quickly?

[Kelly-Ann Paul]

Sure. The council is a funded MSO and we were eligible through the Government of Canada for additional support. The host societies aren't. Our temporary organizations that are funded temporarily by the Government of Canada were not eligible for some of those additional emergency programs and they needed to be.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay. Hopefully we'll have a chance to come back to that through another questioner.

[Kelly-Ann Paul]

Yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Michael Coteau is the Liberal questioner for six minutes.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to all of the deponents today. The arts, culture, heritage and sport sectors, even in the best of days, often struggle to keep going. There are lots of challenges in those sectors. I just wanted to say thank you for all the work you're doing to really help Canadians.

The depositions were fascinating. I learned some things. I have a couple of questions. I'll start with Jacoba from the Canadian Arts Coalition.

It sounds like you've done a lot of research in Toronto. You mentioned there were 164 members prepandemic and currently there are 107 members who have survived COVID over the two years. Can you talk about the loss of almost 60 members? Resources and money, I can imagine, were number one, but what were some of the other reasons they had to close their doors?

[Jacoba Knaapen]

Thank you so much for the question, MP Coteau. It's a good question.

In Toronto, the challenges that our members were facing due to the pandemic were triplefold. We were dealing—and continue to deal—with very expensive housing and venue costs. The affordability to continue operations.... Some of these smaller, non-venued, independent companies were amongst the companies that withdrew their memberships. They simply couldn't continue. These are companies that are non-venued, as I mentioned. They typically don't receive operating funding—only project funding. They're very small, independent, grassroots companies that are often producing very provocative, risk-taking work.

These are further impacted by the mental health impact in terms of working with very limited funds and few resources. It's what we call the balancing act. Like so many Canadians, we're juggling working from home with families and children—

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Because I only have six minutes, if you don't mind.... Thank you so much.

I just have a follow-up question. There were 60 organization members that we saw not able to keep going during COVID. What do you think we can do to get them back into operation? Specifically for those small organizations that even under normal circumstances find it difficult to operate, what can we do federally to better position those organizations and perhaps have some of them return to operation?

[Jacoba Knaapen]

Thank you.

I think paying the bills and enjoying a reasonable standard of living are universal hoped-for outcomes in any career pursuit. Our request for support of a universal basic income or a basic income guarantee is really important in terms of being able to level the playing field for all arts workers and beyond, like gig economy workers. We're seeing the impact, of course, in the tourism and hospitality sectors, as well.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Let me jump in again. I know that my time is running out. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

In the coalition as a whole, many of the organizations were able to continue to operate. What programs were offered by the government that actually contributed to that success overall? What did you hear from your members were the key programs?

[Jacoba Knaapen]

I'm going to say a bunch of acronyms. Thank you for CWLB, CERB, THRP and for the newly announced CPAWRF, which is the resilience fund.

Injecting additional recovery dollars into Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council, similar to what was provided in the fall of 2020 and the summer of 2021, is really going to have an impact.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you so much.

I have a last question for Heather George from the Canadian Museums Association.

You talked about the digital transformation that took place during the two years. Did we see a massive shift to embracing more digital technologies within the museum sector in Canada?

[Heather George]

In terms of programming, there was a big shift. There's also been work by small museums to network their databases to provide more access. A lot of that has to do with MAP funding.

Unfortunately, that is not an equitable approach to museum work. It leaves behind very small communities and northern and indigenous communities that don't have access to proper telecommunications to support this programming. Especially at a time when the entire country is talking about reconciliation, I think an important issue to consider is that digital technology works for the majority of the population, but it certainly does not work for everyone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Ms. George.

Thank you, Mr. Coteau.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

In the next round is Martin Champoux from the Bloc Québécois for six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I will immediately turn to Ms. Charette from the FNCC.

Many things in your opening speech struck me, Ms. Charette, and rightly so. You talked about the disengagement of cultural workers. You also talked about psychological distress, which is more prevalent in the cultural industry than in other sectors. I would have asked you how you could explain that, but, for me, it is obvious: it is because the cultural sector is more affected than other sectors.

Tell me a little bit about the consequences of this on the daily lives of your members. I would like to hear more about these very worrying issues.

[Annick Charette]

All arts associations saw their membership decrease significantly during the pandemic. Obviously, although money matters, it is not what motivates artists first and foremost. As you have seen, they are almost all living below the poverty line, but what motivates them above all is to be seen, heard and recognized. Obviously, the lockdown has deprived them of this source of motivation. When an artist cannot exist as an artist or practise his art, he must find another way to exist. This is also true for people in other professions, but in the case of artists, they have been deprived of performing or of being able to collaborate on projects greater than themselves. That is what we mean by psychological backlash.

What worries us in the sector in particular is that not all of these people will come back. It’s the same with audiences, by the way. Not all of them will come back either, because they have developed other habits during the pandemic. Will everyone return to the venues, to the festivals, to the concerts? God only knows. Perhaps we will see a new economic model, a redefinition of the economic or profitability model of the cultural world.

I think that we should hold a sort of general meeting on the recovery. There are a lot of converging factors. It is not a simple matter of reopening. It’s not like a restaurant, where you just buy food, hire people and open the dining room a week later. You have to relaunch projects, relaunch people who are doing projects, put together funding structures, reopen venues. We know how difficult it is to recruit staff to relaunch venues. We talked a lot about festivals earlier, which receive subsidies and benefit from community investment. These investments must be relaunched. The work that needs to be done in the culture sector will be titanic over the next two years, and we need the government’s recommitment and a massive reinjection of public funds.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

I have a question about what you just said.

Do you feel that since artists and cultural workers are aware of the work involved in rebuilding the cultural industry and recreating the cultural habits of consumers, they will be discouraged and that this could contribute to their leaving the field?