We have seen great responsiveness to the concerns of the arts and culture sector at the federal level, and sent a letter of thanks to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, included below.
Hon. Steven Guilbeault, PC, MP
Minister of Canadian Heritage
Via Email
Dear Minister Guilbeault:
Thank you for recognizing the vital role of Canada’s arts sector with the announcement of the COVID-19 Emergency Support Fund for Cultural, Heritage and Sport Organizations. We are writing on behalf of the Canadian Arts Coalition, the broad coalition of national arts service organizations and members of the Canadian Arts Summit, which represents arts organizations working in every arts discipline and every region of the country. The CAC has, for the past 15 years, successfully advocated for the arts sector to the federal government. We are thankful that you have listened to the concerns of our sector, and have responded with this $500 million fund.
We also want to thank the government for the work you have already done to ensure that self-employed artists are eligible for CERB. We applaud you for introducing amendments to the program that address the specific nature of artists’ royalty income and contract work.
We are grateful that you have heard the challenges many arts organizations faced with the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy program, despite the amendments the government made to the initial program to acknowledge the difference between commercial businesses and charitable and not-for-profit organizations. We hope that, for those that cannot qualify for the Emergency Wage Subsidy program, the Emergency Support Fund for Cultural, Heritage and Sport Organizations will help to stabilize and sustain them.
As you begin to administer the funds we look forward to working with you to ensure they best meet the arts sector’s immediate needs. We have been convening conversations with our members (in both official languages), hundreds of whom have shared their challenges, while trying to accurately document the impact of the COVID 19 crisis on their work.
We feel it is imperative to raise the following issues to help shape the way that the new funding will be distributed:
- Ensure equitable support across the regions and for Indigenous, racialized and other marginalized artists. Regional and local artists and arts organizations are concerned about how they will be supported through this time of crisis; it is critical that federal arts funders work with their provincial and municipal counterparts to ensure equitable support of artists and arts organizations across Canada. In particular, the impact on Indigenous, racialized, the deaf and disabled and other equity groups in the arts must be clearly supported as many of these artists and arts organizations may not have the capacity to survive this current crisis.
- Work with the sector to develop sector/discipline specific responses to this crisis. First, to ensure no discipline is adversely affected and forced to shut down; secondly to prepare for the relaxing of social distancing. There are important distinctions between art galleries and performance venues where social distancing guidelines would likely differ and this, in turn, will have differential impact.
We raise these issues now as it is important to begin to consider the necessary recovery measures and steps that need to be taken to: restore public confidence in going to galleries and performances once social distancing guidelines are relaxed; build sector specific responses that are attentive to the differences in arts presentation; and ensure the arts ecology continues to benefit from the growth of arts practices by Indigenous and racialized peoples, the deaf and disabled, our various regions, Official Language minorities.
Canada’s artists and arts organizations have been frontline workers in the challenge to restore public confidence after previous crises. The Canadian Arts Coalition knows that our members will, again, play a crucial role in helping Canadians to get past the affects of COVID 19 on our social fabric. To that end we have begun to develop Cross-Sectoral Recovery Roundtables. But artists and arts organizations will only be able to participate fully in the recovery effort if they receive the help they need to sustain themselves through this crisis. We thank your government for recognizing that fact by providing this $500 million in emergency relief.
The Canadian Arts Coalition looks forward to continuing to work with your government to navigate past this difficult time and work toward recovery.
Yours truly,
Sarah Iley
On behalf of the Steering Committee
https://www.canadianartscoalition.com/
http://www.businessandarts.org/cas/
CC: Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau, PC, Prime Minister of Canada
Hon. Chrystia Freeland, PC, MP, Deputy Prime Minister
Hon. Bill Morneau, PC, MP, Minister of Finance