A big part of it is definitely about the way certain venues are structured—the not-for-profit and the for-profit divide.
Traditionally, the federal government has seen venues as not-for-profit theatres and performing arts centres. I'm painting with a bit of a broad brush, but that's a pretty good way of putting it. A lot of operators don't necessarily want to structure as not-for-profits, but that doesn't mean they're making money hand over fist. They're still investing in the same types of expenses. They're still paying artists' fees in the same way that theatres and performing arts centres do. They've just chosen to structure differently for reasons that are complex—and which are too complex to go into today.
The for-profit and not-for-profit piece is a big one. Over time, my sense is that this divide has become ingrained and instantiated in the way federal funding has been rolled out. It's as if it's assuming structurally that for-profit venues shouldn't be funded because they're for profit, but when you look at the profit margins in these spaces, they're incredibly low. For example, in the U.S., I think 64% of independent venues lose money. In the U.K., I think it's 54%. Even if I'm getting the numbers slightly wrong, it's a majority of independent venues, most of which are for-profit, that are losing money. The average profit margin in the U.K. is about 2%. We don't have these numbers for Canada, but anecdotally I can confirm the same thing is true in Quebec.
I believe we have to rethink the way we determine eligibility and the way the assumptions are baked into the system about where artists play and where they earn their money.