The business community advocates a social safety net for artists

Should we expand the employment insurance program to include professional artists as seasonal workers? In any case, this is what the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal is proposing. A request made by the arts community for a long time.

The question of the absence of a social safety net for artists is addressed directly in a study made public last fall by the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal (CCMM).

This is by noting a drop in the proportion of artists within the general workforce – established at 0.9% in Quebec and 1.8% in Montreal in 2021 – as well as the median annual income very low of Montreal artists – $17,400 in 2020 – that the CCMM came to this conclusion.

Today, she recommends facilitating access to employment insurance for professional artists, so that they can be recognized, under certain conditions, as seasonal workers, in the same way as fishermen. This is the first time that the business community has come forward to defend the arts community.

In interview with The Pressthe president of the CCMM, Michel Leblanc, does not beat around the bush: professional artists, more than two-thirds of whom are self-employed, need a social safety net.

“We need to find a mechanism to offer creators of culture a social safety net. We are not saying that we must put in place a regime identical to that which exists in France, for example, with intermittent workers in the entertainment industry, but we can draw inspiration from it,” indicates Mr. Leblanc.

Michel Leblanc agrees that “the best formula” has yet to be found, but that we must look into it to “fill in the periods of economic vulnerability” of artists, who contribute significantly to the Canadian economy.

“Is it a formula that takes into account the amounts received? A regime that will entitle you to a certain amount of support for a certain period of time? Do we go further by saying that beyond the amounts received, you must have worked a certain number of weeks, you must explore all that? This is why we recommend this measure in a non-specific manner. »

Give time to create

Comedian Anthony Kavanagh, who lived in France for 17 years, tells us that he was entitled to compensation from the entertainment workers’ scheme during the first two years following his arrival in Paris. “As I worked a lot, I didn’t take advantage of it,” he explains. But as he quickly created his own production company, he was no longer entitled to it, since the regime targets self-employed workers.

Nonetheless, he believes that this regime would be beneficial for Quebec artists. “Not everyone works for a daily newspaper like STAT. A measure like this would give artists time to create when there is a slump of a few months, instead of having to work multiple jobs to eat. »

In an open letter published on January 4 in DutySimon Brault, who was director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts and president of the International Federation of Arts Councils and Cultural Agencies, proposed organizing a “national summit” which would focus on “the public funding of arts and culture”, but also on “working conditions and the social protection net of artists and workers in the cultural sector”.

Professor André Courchesne, of the Carmelle and Rémi-Marcoux Chair of Arts Management at HEC Montréal, believes that an intermittent regime would help the “middle class” of artists.

Mr. Courchesne draws a parallel with fishermen, who are seasonal workers, supported by the State for part of the year.

“We accepted the principle that we need a fishing industry in Canada, so we are ready to pay for a measure that compensates them. It would be the same reasoning for the cultural environment. This mitigation measure would make it possible to secure the cultural environment, which is particularly fragile to economic ups and downs,” notes Mr. Courchesne.

“The impact of economic crises is much greater among artists than among other workers because of the precariousness of their jobs,” tells us André Courchesne, who notes that during the 2021 census, Statistics Canada determined that 68% of professional artists were self-employed, compared to 14% of the population.

In a study on the concentration of artists in Canada after the pandemic, André Courchesne compared the number of artists after the 2008 financial crisis and that which resulted from COVID-19. While in 2006, artists constituted 0.82% of Canadian workers, their share had decreased to 0.73% in 2021, “even if this proportion increases again during periods of recovery, overall, it is decreasing” .

“The financial crisis that followed the pandemic also caused artists to change their residence in large Canadian cities: until now, artists tended to reside near their place of work, in so-called artistic neighborhoods, such as the Plateau Mont-Royal and Mile End in Montreal; the 2020 crisis led them to abandon these neighborhoods for less well-off districts or the suburbs. »

The main obstacle to implementing such a measure, according to André Courchesne, is the cost.

“If the government really believes in it, let it pay, instead of making workers pay. For it to be profitable, contributions would have to be increased drastically, which is difficult to imagine,” continues Mr. Courchesne.

According to Michel Leblanc, there is also an issue of social acceptability in the application of this measure.

“There is perhaps a certain resistance to recognizing artists as professionals and the arts as a profession,” he admits. I think people who oppose it have a limited and backwards view. We can make a link with sport, where there are amateur and professional leagues. Do we have difficulty distinguishing professional artists from amateur artists? It will undoubtedly be necessary to clarify this point. »

Since the employment insurance system is managed by the federal government, a change to the system would necessarily go through Ottawa. In the office of the Ministry of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, we say we are “sensitive” to this issue, but that “in the current context” (Parliament has been prorogued until March 24), the government does not wish to comment on the question.

With federal elections this spring, steps will therefore have to be taken again with all political parties.