Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to appear before this committee today.
Before providing you with more information on the recommendations from the coalition's brief, I'd like to share with you some information from research reports that came out recently and that addressed the topic for today's pre-budget hearing.
First, Statistics Canada released the culture satellite account earlier in December, and this provided great detailed information on the GDP of the culture industries and also the employment. From this report we learned that culture industries represent 4% of our workforce and 700,000 workers.
A few weeks ago, we had the statistical profile of artists and cultural workers in Canada. From this report, also using Statistics Canada data, we learned that there are 137,000 professional artists in Canada and that most of these artists are self-employed workers.
I will be referring to these figures later on in my presentation, but I'd like to stress that between 1990 and 2010 employment among artists and cultural workers grew at a much faster rate than the overall labour force. For the labour force we had a growth rate of 31%, for cultural workers 45%, and for artists 59%.
The Canadian Arts Coalition is proposing effective ways to support and maintain an increased number of jobs related to the cultural sector. The first is to increase the parliamentary appropriation to the Canada Council for the Arts. The second is to establish a pilot program at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, and the third is to investigate revenue models to support a comprehensive Canadian cultural digital strategy. These recommendations were identified as priorities by 42 member associations of the coalition during consultations that we held in April and May 2014.
Here are some notes addressing each of our specific recommendations.
The first one is to increase the Canada Council for the Arts parliamentary appropriation by $35 million in 2015, with a long-term goal of reaching $300 million. Between 1990 and 2010, the breadth and diversity of artistic practices and experiences by Canadians increased tremendously. The number of artists, as I said, grew at twice the rate of the labour force, and the number of organizations supported by the Canada Council increased by 65%. During the same period and taking into account inflation, the parliamentary appropriation to the Canada Council increased by 17%. We're now at a per capita parliamentary appropriation that is actually lower than what it was in 1990.
In order to bridge that gap and to continue to provide Canadians with affordable access to diverse cultural experiences, the parliamentary appropriation to the Canada Council needs to be increased. The coalition's modest immediate request for a first increase of $35 million in 2015 is considerate of the current economic uncertainty, but our long-term goal remains a budget of $300 million.
Our second recommendation is to increase Canada's presence on the world stage for 2017 by establishing a $25-million pilot program over three years at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development for Canada's 150th birthday. This pilot program would be directed through three areas: cultural promotion in the embassies, trade and business development, and international circulation of Canadian artists and their works.
The vitality of the arts and culture industry, like any other industry, depends on its capacity to expand its markets beyond the boundaries of our country. Targeted investment intended at building international markets will also result in diversified revenue streams for Canadian arts organizations and also jobs here at home.
We also believe that the tourism sector will also profit significantly from this increased activity in 2017. An Ontario report told us that almost two-thirds of Ontario's overseas tourists engaged in arts or cultural activities, and that 44% of North American tourists with Ontario travel experience said that arts and culture was their main reason for travelling. These tourists spend a lot of money, actually twice as much as the average typical tourist.