The government and artists are engaged in a war of numbers over funding for the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ). The Minister of Culture assures that this budget has only increased since the arrival of the Coalition Avenir Québec. Certainly. The cultural community estimates that at least $100 million more is needed to prevent the dismantling of professional arts. Facts ? In 2023-2024, if the CALQ awarded 72% of the amounts requested in grants to organizations, only 23% of the amounts requested in individual scholarships were awarded. Analysis.
Last year, artists submitted 6,239 grant applications to the CALQ, which totaled more than $121 million. A sum that can be interpreted as the amount of their needs. Ultimately, nearly 28 million were granted. The average grant awarded is $14,846 for them to live and create, sometimes with collaborators and other artists.
The CALQ’s budget has only increased since the Coalition Avenir Québec came to power. It exploded during the pandemic, when the sector benefited from special measures – nearly $97.5 million in 2020-2021 – to keep the sector alive despite the waltz of periodic openings and closures.
Observing the budgets reveals the little miracles that the CALQ produces. Every year since 2016, it has managed to grant more financial aid than the budget announced to it.
By what accounting art, what juggling? “The budget announced by the government at the start of the year does not take into account transfers from previous years and any other sums that would be announced during the year,” responded the Council.
During this period, the number of requests, both from individuals and organizations, has also increased steadily. In 2019-2020, the CALQ received 4,817 individual scholarship applications, compared to 6,239 in 2023-2024, an increase of 29.5%. Despite everything, the CALQ managed to maintain an acceptance rate around 30%.
For their part, 1,949 cultural organizations applied for a grant in 2019-2020, and there were 3,122 to do so in 2023-2024, which represents an increase of 60%. The acceptance rate for applications increased from 79% to 83%.
35% increase?
The Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, has been repeating for several months that his party, since coming to power, has increased financial aid to the CALQ by 35%. He specified, during the study of budgetary appropriations in April, having even increased this envelope “well beyond inflation, which increased by 22% during the same period”, the “proof of a sincere commitment » with regard to the cultural environment, according to him.
If we rely on the Bank of Canada’s inflation calculation tools, we see that the real increase in the budget is in fact 15%. In 2019-2020, the Legault government’s first year in power, the CALQ received $118 million. The envelope was 160.5 million in 2024-2025. Given inflation, the CALQ budget for the last fiscal year was actually worth 136 million in constant 2019 dollars. The increase in the budget would therefore be half as large as that announced by Minister Lacombe.
15 new million dollars?
Since the tabling of the last provincial budget in March, actors, authors, dancers and musicians have taken to the streets several times to denounce what they consider to be a lack of funding. Their call was finally heard: in mid-May, Mathieu Lacombe announced an increase of $15 million intended for organizations supported by the CALQ. A sum far from the 100 million claimed by the community, which continues to shout its discontent. Saturday, a new demonstration is planned in Trois-Rivières.
Beyond the figure, it is the source of the money that raises concerns in the community. Many fear that Pierre was undressed to clothe Paul, suspecting that the 15 million is a transfer from other programs, including that of ticketing assistance which ends at the end of June, and dormant sums to the Business Development Corporation cultural (SODEC). Questioned by The duty, SODEC referred us to Minister Lacombe’s office. This referred us to the CALQ, which replied: “These are forecasts for the year 2024-2025, we cannot detail the amounts at the moment. These amounts will be made public in the annual management report. »
The value of disciplines
It’s a taboo, difficult question that is common in arts circles: are certain disciplines favored? By politicians? By the juries? It’s difficult to see clearly, because each artistic project is so particular, each organization so different from its neighbor that the comparison is risky without extensive analysis.
One thing is certain, certain arts received much more money in 2023-2024 than others. It is true that the project of a writer, alone with her computer, costs less to produce than that of a choreographer who must rent a studio and hire four dancers to embody her ideas. However, the average scholarship in literature is $11,285, and that in dance, $14,579, a small difference for productions with such different requirements.
For the CALQ, “the amounts [octroyés] are in line with demand. The data clearly illustrates this: the more scholarship applications submitted in a discipline, the more money it receives.
The visual arts dominate: with 1,333 individual grant applications submitted and 385 accepted, they represent 21% of the total number of grants accepted. They receive 5 million dollars, or 18% of the total envelope, coming first out of 13 disciplines. They are followed by the cinema and video sector: with 1072 applications submitted and 267 accepted, it accounts for 14% of the number of grants, and 23% of the money.
The logic also reads the opposite: the least funded sectors are those where the fewest requests are made, i.e. artistic crafts (147), circus arts (96), architectural research (17) and humor (22).
Humor – a discipline considered as artistic creation by the CALQ since 2020 – is more demanding in its financial demands, for generally light creations involving fewer collaborators. The average scholarship requested is $29,943, while dance and theater aims for around $17,500, and music, $16,230.
The CALQ seems to temper this appetite: it is in humor that there is the greatest gap between the budgets requested and those obtained, for an average grant of $19,740. Only the cinema and video sector obtains more, at $23,911.
Why do the visual arts require so much more funding? Habits of an environment? Skilled with the system? Why do cinema and video have a larger share of the envelope than the share of their requests? Why does comedy demand more money? These questions remain open. The CALQ has repeatedly refused interview requests from the Duty.
How much do organizations receive?
The cultural organizations supported by the CALQ are non-profit and are dedicated to the creation, production and dissemination of the arts.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the grants awarded by the CALQ to cultural organizations for the year 2023-2024 amounted to between $50,000 and $249,999. Among them, the largest proportion (31%) received an envelope between $50,000 and $99,999.
These grants include mission support, activity support programs, territorial partnership and the Re-Know program as well as other one-time grants.
Furthermore, nearly one organization in five (19%) received less than $50,000. On the other hand, few have benefited from financial aid of more than half a million. Only 11 organizations (or 2.5%) were able to obtain funding of more than $1 million.
The Montreal Symphony Orchestra finds itself at the top of the charts, far, far ahead of the others, with nearly 11 million. Ten other cultural organizations received financial assistance ranging from $1 million to $3 million. Classical music holds a special place in this ranking: we also find the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the Montreal Opera and the Metropolitan Orchestra. In addition, the vast majority (9) of these 11 organizations are from Montreal.
With Clémence Pavic