Evidence of meeting #42 for Canadian Heritage in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was funding.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
I'm sorry, Madam Chair. On a point of order, I know that a resumption motion is a dilatory motion. However, there was no objection to it, so to my understanding, it was adopted unanimously. You didn't err in allowing the motion to be adopted, since there was no objection. Nobody requested a recorded vote.
I would think that we are now currently debating that motion.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
Go ahead, Mr. Clerk.
(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)
Mr. Genuis, you still have the floor for questions for another three minutes.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Well, that was disappointing and a circus. Since we're at the heritage committee, I should clarify that I mean a circus in the bad sense, not in the good sense. Government members have seen this motion before. It's been before this committee for 12 days. It simply condemns foreign interference by the CCP in the Canadian arts sector.
I'm surprised and I'm disappointed that the government is not allowing this to go forward. Twelve days ago, their reason for not allowing it to proceed was that they needed more time to see the motion. That's fair enough, but now they've had 12 days and they're still blocking it.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
Thank you, Mr. Genuis. I'm going to interrupt you there because we've already voted to not continue debate on that motion.
If you don't have any questions for these witnesses, I'll turn the floor over to Ms. Royer.
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC
I have a point of order.
I may be new to the committee, but I'm certainly not new to parliamentary time. The member had, as you said, about three and a half minutes. It's his time and he can use it to ask questions of the witnesses or he could ask questions of the room. I understand that members can be disappointed and they'll want to share some of their feelings with their colleagues. I don't think you can just take away a member's time simply because you disagree with what he has to say.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
I take your point. My point is that we've already adjourned debate on that topic, so I'd like to move on to the topic of the day.
Mr. Genuis, do you have—
Conservative
Dan Albas Conservative Okanagan Lake West—South Kelowna, BC
Could you rule on whether or not a member's time is a member's time?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
It is a debate and the procedure at this committee has been to try to stay on topic.
I'll turn it back to Mr. Genius.
You have another minute.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
I'd like to provide a clarification regarding your ruling.
Members can indeed use their time how they wish, as long as they stay on topic. You told Mr. Genuis that he can't talk about the topic he wants to raise. If he can tie it to today's topic, I think he can, but I don't think he did that at the beginning of his remarks. Nevertheless, if he makes the connection to the topic at hand, he is definitely allowed to use his time for that.
Liberal
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Chair, I think my disappointment is clear with how you've handled this process, as well as, frankly, with all the Liberal members for opposing concrete efforts to bring this committee together in condemning foreign interference in our arts sector. I don't really have anything to add to that. I think the public sees and will share my disappointment. I'll yield the rest of my time to Mr. Diotte.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
I think your time is effectively up.
I'll pass the floor now to Ms. Royer for five minutes.
Liberal
Zoe Royer Liberal Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you to every person who's appearing here today.
Mr. Beamish, in less than three years, Ballet Vancouver has made incredible strides in the development of B.C.'s performing arts sector and in the professional classical ballet space. You have been instrumental in repatriating top Canadian talent from other countries and from some companies, such as the American Ballet Theatre and San Francisco's ballet company, etc.
How important is the repatriation and the retention of professional artists to our cultural sovereignty?
Artistic Director, Ballet Vancouver
It's of vital importance. We don't have a national culture without the artists of our nation who create the work that creates our Canadian identity.
I think it's completely paramount. I think we're in a key moment as a country to reflect on what it is to be a Canadian artist, and what the responsibility of Canadian institutions is to be putting Canadian work forth to be danced by Canadians.
Liberal
Zoe Royer Liberal Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
How important is the critical cultural infrastructure to this piece of being able to actually retain and repatriate artists?
Artistic Director, Ballet Vancouver
Quite simply, it comes down to a few things. Top talent dancers want to dance great work, they want to perform consistently and they want to be compensated at international professional standards. For example, looking at our organization in a 668-seat theatre, paying these principal dancers could be one-quarter of our entire box office. At 668 seats, the model is not sustainable. Then we move to 2,700 seats and we have to cut our performances down to just two. Suddenly these dancers are performing six shows a year. What are we doing with them for the rest of the year, and how are we generating revenue to sustain their salaries?
We need a space where we could present a week or two weeks of shows. Right now at Vancouver Playhouse, it's incredibly challenging for any organization to have more than one week. All around the world, you'll see.... For example, I was just in Oslo. The Norwegian National Ballet is premiering a new Romeo and Juliet now, and then it's going to come back again later in the year. This is not something that we could do. We have a one-shot, one-weekend space to present something. You can't use word of mouth to build on having people come back the next week. There's not venue availability and we can't afford it.
We're specifically challenged by the limitations of the cultural infrastructure.
Liberal
Zoe Royer Liberal Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
In your opening remarks, you said that individual donors were up 1,600%, and ticket sales were up 50%. You are experiencing exponential growth, and I know that your operating budget will need to quadruple in the next year.
With that growth, how can the federal government better support that type of extenuating circumstance?
Artistic Director, Ballet Vancouver
I think there needs to be agile funding to support extenuating circumstances. There is obviously operating funding at the Canada Council for the Arts, but it comes up only every four years, I believe, and it was also suspended due to the pandemic. That program is in a particularly challenging moment and we won't be able to access it for a number of years, so how do we capitalize upon this momentum?
One of the things that I think could be most helpful for organizations is support for development: support to empower us to raise our own funds. We're really an example of this. We have had around maybe $100,000 in grant support to get to what we've done, and maybe $130,000 over the last year and a half. We are looking to end this with a $1.3-million operating budget.
If we had a development staff member specifically focused on raising funds, it wouldn't be an afterthought to everything else that a lean organization has to do to try to keep raising money, and we wouldn't have to keep coming back to the federal government for everything.
Liberal
Zoe Royer Liberal Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you very much.
In my 20 seconds remaining, I have a quick question for Ms. Juneau.
I know that the build communities strong fund doesn't necessarily have a carve-out for cultural spaces. Can you speak just a bit to that?
Chair, Fédération culturelle canadienne-française
Yes, I'd be pleased to. Thank you for your question.
Under that huge fund the government created, the arts and culture sector will obviously be competing with other sectors and their infrastructure needs. A bridge is an example that comes to mind. Yes, a bridge is important. We don't disagree, but the arts and culture sector, creative, production and performance spaces, are just as important to the health of our nation.
Earmarking a portion of the funding for arts and culture infrastructure specifically would mean that we weren't at a disadvantage, having to compete with sectors completely different from ours.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lisa Hepfner
Thank you.
Mr. Champoux, you may go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.