Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the committee for undertaking this in-depth look into the challenges related to the recovery of the arts, culture, heritage and sport sectors that have been so deeply impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as my fellow witnesses have certainly made clear.
Jacoba Knaapen and I are here as volunteer members of the Canadian Arts Coalition, which is a coalition of artists and arts organizations that first came together in 2005 as a non-partisan advocacy movement of volunteers.
You can imagine that, when the pandemic hit and the sector was shut down in March 2020, the coalition redoubled our efforts to gather and share information about the impact of the pandemic on all of our members, large and small, who are active in the performing, visual and literary arts, as well as in cultural industries right across Canada. We've been very active over the past two years to try to help the government understand the needs of the sector.
To provide an idea of the challenges, my colleague, Jacoba, is going to provide a snapshot of what's happened to her organization's membership. Jacoba is the executive director of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts, with 164 member organizations in March 2020.