Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Thank you so much for inviting me and giving me the opportunity to talk to you about the French-speaking cultural sector.
Who are we at the Union des artistes? First, the Union des artistes was founded in 1937. We are very proud that our union is a very old one. It is recognized by our governments and it represents dancers, singers, animators and actors. In any given year, we have 13,000 members, including affiliated and active members, of course.
Who has been most affected by the pandemic since March 2020? You probably know that the audiovisual sector got back on track relatively quickly in August 2020. So our members had six extremely difficult months. However, the sector most affected, as all unions and associations can tell you, was the performing arts. By that we mean dancers, stage actors, musicians, singer-songwriters, and so on. In a word, these are people who do not do audiovisual work. They are not in film, television or commercials. In normal times, these are the less well paid members, those in the Union des artistes who probably do not make much of a living. Then the pandemic came along and made that situation worse.
To give you an idea of our reality, before the pandemic, the audiovisual sector represented 53% of our members' income. Now it represents 67% of our income. Conversely, the performing arts represented 18% of our members' income in 2019, while the figure now is 7.5%. This is to say that those who used to make their living in the performing arts are now having difficulty doing so. Still today, the sector is not completely operational. When we compare 2021 to 2019, the performing arts sector is operating at 53% of its normal level.
So the audiovisual sector is operating very well, even better than normal, because there is some catch‑up to do. Some shows did not go on the air in 2019 because of the pandemic. Those productions are back on track. However, that is not the case for the stage. Even though theatres have opened their doors again, it is simply not true that they are operating as well as they did before the pandemic. Generally, casts are smaller and fewer people are in the audiences, still today. So those who were the most vulnerable before the pandemic have become even more vulnerable after the pandemic.
I would like to tell you about our members' psychological stress. I may say “our members” but it's broader than that. In January, February and March 2020, we conducted a survey with nine cultural associations of authors, musicians, television directors, dancers, singers, performers, and so on. I don't want to inundate you with numbers, that would not help at all. But I just want to share with you four statistics that affect, not just the members of the Union des artistes, but artists in general.
From the 26,000 artists and cultural workers surveyed, 63% of the respondents are experiencing high levels of psychological stress, 43.3% of them are showing symptoms of major depression, and 41% of them have considered or are still considering giving up their careers. In addition, income levels are so low that the number of artists who have to hold more than one job doubled during the pandemic.
Of course, the Canada recovery benefit, the CRB, was effective in meeting an urgent need. It was urgent because, basically, we do not contribute to employment insurance, so we cannot use its benefits. Now, the CRB is no more.
An emergency benefit must absolutely be introduced on a permanent, long-term basis. At the moment, there must be an emergency benefit that will compensate for the end of the CRB, which was abolished a few weeks ago.
Thank you.