Yes, it's there. It's—
Evidence of meeting #8 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 for Canadian Heritage in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
There's a point of order. Excuse me, we cannot have a debate going on between the minister and the member of Parliament.
Please ask your question, Ms. Thomas, and allow the minister to answer it. Thank you. You have 13 seconds left, by the way.
4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB
Minister, my question is simple. Are you willing to clarify the legislation in order to make sure that the CRTC is given strict boundaries within which it has to function when it considers criteria as to whether or not content will be regulated, or have you purposely designed the legislation to be muddy in nature?
4:30 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I think the legislation is quite clear. Listen, we're always open to any suggestions, but we think that the legislation does the job. There were problems in the past. We admitted that, and we fixed them. We provide that sandbox to make sure there are specific criteria. New subsection 2(2.1) is very clear. Users are out. They're out. New subsection 4.1(1) means the content is out, with only one exception, which is there, so—
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Ms. Thomas, you're doing it again. Excuse me. Order, please.
Thank you very much, Minister.
Minister, I want to remind you that you very kindly gave us an hour of your time. You have now been here for an hour and three-quarters. Do you want to stay or do you want to leave? I don't know what your schedule is.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Pablo Rodriguez Liberal Honoré-Mercier, QC
I could stay for hours, Madam Chair, but I do have to take care of something that I have to announce.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Thank you.
I want to thank the minister for taking the time and for overstaying his time.
That is so generous of you.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
Now we're going to move to the officials. We will continue the round once the minister has left the room.
We will suspend.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Hedy Fry
We're ready to begin again, everyone.
The next person coming up on this round will be Michael Coteau.
Michael, go ahead.
February 28th, 2022 / 4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you very much, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.
Thank you for being here. Welcome to the committee.
We heard from many of the deputants about in-person attendance in the performing arts subsector of the larger sector as a whole, and how it was really hit hard during the pandemic.
I know the department put in place a program, the Canadian performing arts workers resilience fund. There were other initiatives as well that were put in place to help mitigate some of the negative impacts on the sector because of COVID.
Can you talk a little about the performing arts sector and that in-person issue?
4:35 p.m.
Joëlle Montminy Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yes, there is the resilience fund that we talked about. We've made a number of investments in different kinds of programs since the beginning of the pandemic. At the very beginning, there was an emergency fund that provided support through a number of programs, including live performance. As we progressed to the economic update in the fall of 2020, there was $181 million that was also provided, with a focus on the performing arts. That money went to small festivals, large festivals and the music fund.
In budget 2021, there were further investments across a number of programs. I could list them all. The minister mentioned that budget 2021 had $1.9 billion spread across a number of programs. Again, in terms of large festivals, small festivals and music, all of these were covered.
I would like to also mention that we maximized the scope of those programs by reaching out to new clients so that we could go further within the ecosystem of the performing arts. For instance, in a music fund, we supported venues that typically we would not be supporting, but because they are so important in enabling musicians to perform in front of an audience, we supported the venues as well.
We stretched every way we could in order to be able to support the industry of live performance, knowing that they were the hardest hit.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
One of the biggest challenges the department had to go through, I would assume, was really trying to figure out the balance between regional organizations, large-scale organizations and very small-scale, community-based organizations. You have multicultural groups, and of course you have groups that weren't traditionally funded, like the organizations that have been there longer.
We heard from a few of the deputants who came in and people who have spoken to you about organizations that don't have a relationship with the federal government. They could be smaller, Indigenous or Black organizations. What kind of strategy did you put in place to find that balancing act? It would be very difficult trying to support all of those different types of organizations and, at the same time, thinking of the GDP and also about good governance and good public policy.
4:40 p.m.
David Dendooven Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Corporate Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage
One thing we certainly did when the pandemic struck was to speak with our stakeholders, as well as with our provincial and territorial counterparts, to get a sense of what they were doing in their jurisdictions.
The minister referred to the emergency support fund, which was the first one. One of the things we certainly did within the department was to make sure we kept in mind the different EDI stakeholders and didn't go only to our known stakeholders, because there were others out there. We did make a point of ensuring that we had that in mind when we provided support.
Of course, we also weren't the only ones who provided support. The Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm and others did as well. That was something that they also kept in mind and was part of their thinking.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Coming out of the pandemic, new relationships have been forged, especially with organizations that traditionally may not have had that relationship. Are you coming out of this knowing more of those organizations and understanding the challenges in general that they're going through?
4:40 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Corporate Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage
Yes, because of course we had additional money that allowed us to create those new relationships, and so yes, we are. We had a survey as well that was undertaken after the emergency support fund. We plan do the same thing again with the new funding that was received. That gives us better insight in terms of what they're actually witnessing on the ground.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Michael Coteau Liberal Don Valley East, ON
I'm assuming there is just a stronger relationship with the territories and provinces—
