By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiaitve
Three years after the lifting of the last COVID-19-related restrictions on public gatherings in Quebec, the word “cancelled” is once again cropping up on cultural events listings again around the province.
From the Hilarium comedy festival in Sherbrooke, which cancelled its second edition this month; to the Orchestre métropolitain de Montréal, which cancelled two concerts; Théâtre La Bordée and Robert Lepage’s Ex Machina in Quebec City, which suspended new projects; the Le Festif! Music festival in Baie-Saint-Paul, whose director has said he is worried about the event’s long-term survival; to a cascade of smaller concerts cancelled due to a lack of advance ticket sales, cultural institutions are hitting a financial wall. The Musée régional de Rimouski has been closed indefinitely since Jan. 23, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Sherbrooke (MBAS) and other provincial museums have suspended school field trips and end free admission for adults on the first Sunday of the month due to funding cuts as the government seeks to reduce an $11-billion deficit. Even smaller events like the Knowlton Literary Festival in Brome Lake, which is sheltered from rising costs by its all-volunteer management structure, is aware that expenses will probably increase and thus result in a tighter budget in future years, according to festival vice president Lesley Richardson.
Following the Ex Machina announcement, Québec solidaire cultural affairs critic Sol Zanetti asked his social media followers to let him know about cancellations and cuts to cultural events around the province.
“I got about 25 different responses, and every cancellation is a big event; it’s an alarm signal,” Zanetti said. Cancellations have “been snowballing since December, but we’ve been seeing signs for years.”
Nick Maturo, programming director of the English Language Arts Network (ELAN) says the trend is “disappointing, but not surprising.” He and other arts advocates say it has a range of causes.
“During the pandemic, there were some really important investments, both at the national
and the provincial level, to help stabilize the arts and culture sector,” he said. “I think that coincided with a situation in which a lot of artists or organizations, if they were not reliant on public funding in the past, all of a sudden, that became a really important way of supporting their work. Of course, as we exited the pandemic years, investment in arts and culture returned to levels we would have seen prior to that. Alongside that, obviously, everybody is well aware of inflation.”
“Culture has always been underfunded,” said Maude Charland-Lallier of the Musée des Beaux-arts de Sherbrooke (MBAS). “The pandemic, with the closures and the rules, accentuated everything. We did have punctual help during that time, but people had to get back into the habit of going out. Now we get even more [visitors] than before, but the assistance is not there anymore. Meanwhile, all of our costs have gone up – suppliers, fixed fees for maintaining the building – and there has not been an increase in funding to respond to that.”
The MBAS is a member of the Société des musées du Québec (SMQ), which has joined the Front commun pour les arts (FCA), an ad hoc network of dozens of arts and culture organizations formed to call for a more solid arts funding model. In a report tabled at the National Assembly as part of pre-budgetary consultations, FCA members called on the Legault government to increase funding for the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec (CALQ). “The core funding of the CALQ has been set at $106 million since 2017, despite 22 per cent inflation during that time … [while] funding for cultural organizations has risen by only seven per cent,” they write. “In addition, the basic budgets available in artist grants have stagnated for nearly 20 years at $10 million while inflation was 53 per cent over the same period. An additional $10-million envelope has been granted in recent years, but since the measure expires in 2024-2025, its renewal is not guaranteed.”
“When there is inflation and there hasn’t been [adequate] indexation, at one point, you hit a crisis,” said director general Pierre Mino of Culture Estrie. “Even when there are no funding cuts as such, the lack of indexation has the same effect as cuts.”
Echoing the FCA, he noted that attendance at live events generally has not come back to pre-pandemic levels, as people try to cut spending amid overall inflation and inexpensive online entertainment options abound. “We’re in an adaptive period…where the way of reaching people has evolved,” he observed.
According to a recent report by Hill Strategies in collaboration with ELAN, the cultural sector contributed over $15 billion to Quebec’s GDP in 2021. Mino worries about the economic knock-on effect that the cancellations could have on early-career artists trying to get a foothold in the industry, on economic activity in neighbourhoods where restaurants and bars can no longer depend on the “theatre crowd” and on longer-term efforts by municipalities to attract workers. “Would you want to take a job in a city where there’s hardly anything to do outside of work?”
“We’d like to see … the recognition that arts and culture is not just a silo, it’s not just a luxury that when times are tough, we tighten the belt and that’s the first thing to go,” said ELAN’s Maturo. “I think there needs to be a recognition that arts and culture can be an asset in many, many areas of society, whether that’s education, mental health or fostering a shared identity. In that sense, it’s money well spent; it’s not just money going to an artist that stays within the arts and doesn’t benefit all of society. If the arts are important to you, now is the time to speak up.”