Question Period Note: Support for Workers in the Live Performance Sector

“To support workers in Canada’s live performance industry, the government proposes $60 million in 2022-23 to establish the new Canada Performing Arts Workers Resilience Fund. This temporary program will aim to fund new or enhanced sector-led and -delivered initiatives that improve the economic, career, and personal circumstances of individual Canadian workers in the live performance sector. The government will provide Canadian Heritage with $2.3 million to administer the fund.”

• The Government of Canada is proposing to establish Canada's new $60 million Performing Arts Workers Resilience Fund in 2022–23. This temporary program will fund new or improved sector-led and implemented initiatives that will improve the economic, l situation of Canadian live performance workers.

• We are currently working with artists' associations, guilds, unions and all industry organizations to create this program as quickly as possible.

• We know that this is extremely important and that the industry needs it quickly, but we also hear that we have to do it right. More details will be communicated in due course.

• Economic recovery in the live performance sector is lagging behind other areas of the cultural sector and the broader economy.
o Gross domestic product (GDP) for culture recorded its fourth consecutive increase in the second quarter of 2021 and is at 94% of pre-pandemic level. However, live performance GDP lags significantly and sits at 36% of its Q4 2019 levels. While jobs in the overall culture domain in Q2 2021 were at 89% of their Q4 2019 levels, live performance jobs remain at 36,500, which is 50% of pre-pandemic levels.
o Pre-pandemic, the labour force of independent artists and performers was approximately 70,000. That number has been in decline, particularly in recent months. It is estimated that up to 30,000 independent and self-employed cultural workers are seeking to remain in the sector or re-enter it.

• At the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, the Government of Canada launched the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to support eligible workers, including the self-employed.
o The CERB was in effect between March 15, 2020, and October 3, 2020, and was delivered under the authority of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit Act by the Canada Revenue Agency and under the authority of the Employment Insurance Act by Service Canada.
o In response to sector advocacy, the benefit was rapidly adjusted to better serve the arts by ensuring artists could still receive royalties and earn some income without losing access to the CERB.
o In the fall of 2020, the Government transitioned workers to a simplified Employment Insurance (EI) program and introduced a suite of three temporary recovery benefits, including the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB).

• In October 2020, the Quebec government launched the “Fonds d’urgence pour les artistes et les travailleurs culturels”, an income support program, funded with $5 million over two years (2020 and 2021), from Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec (MCCQ).
o The program was delivered by Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec (GMMQ), l’Union des artistes (UDA) et la Fondation des artistes (FDA). Its purpose was to help artists and cultural workers in the performing arts community who needed financial support. It was offered at the same time that the Canada Recovery Benefit was also available to cultural workers.
o The program was initially offered as a one-time, $2 million emergency fund with a single intake in October 2020. After sector advocacy outlining unmet need, MCCQ announced in April 2021 it would renew the Fonds for a second intake and increase it by 50% to $3 million.
o Artists and cultural workers were eligible for a $2000 gift (not a grant) per intake, with no requirement to undertake any activity or report on how the funds were used. In both intakes, the available funds were expended quickly; the funds announced in April 2021 were fully disbursed by July 2021.

• Current context:
o The Liberal Party of Canada made an electoral platform commitment to “implement a COVID-19 transitional support program to provide emergency relief to out of work artists, craftspeople, creators and authors who are primarily self-employed or independent contractors”.
o While the Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) sustained workers in the cultural sector to a significant degree, that measure ended in October 2021.
o The Department of Canadian Heritage is developing a transition program, with a launch scheduled for early February 2022, as an interim measure for independent and self-employed cultural workers, until recovery in the live performance sector is more robust.
o The Department of Canadian Heritage has held a number of discussions with key representatives in the live performance sector with regards to the need for transitional support for affected workers.
o On December 13, 2021, Minister Rodriguez appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance in relation to Bill C-2, where he discussed issues facing cultural workers and assured the committee that the development of the program was well underway.

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