Artists hired to give workshops in Quebec elementary schools complain about having to fight to get paid.
Authors, painters, illustrators, they participate in the Culture at School program, in which they are invited to present their creative approach to students.
According to the Ministry of Education website, “fees are paid to artists and writers within a period not exceeding 30 days.” However, a dozen artists confirmed to the Duty that it generally took several months to get paid following a given workshop, in addition to having to deal with time-consuming bureaucratic red tape.
“It’s hard to get out of it”
Illustrator and children’s author Cara Carmina has been working in schools for seven years. In an interview, she confirmed the systematic delays in payment. “I have a lot of difficulty getting paid. We have to constantly chase after our money,” explains the illustrator, who has about twenty books to her credit.
“I already have a difficult standard of living as an artist. If, on top of that, I have to chase my salary because of bureaucracy problems, it’s hard to get by.”
It’s my main source of income, so I have no choice but to continue, but it’s quite discouraging.
In 2023, Cara Carmina gave 160 workshops in elementary schools across Quebec. According to her, only 30% of the schools she visited paid her on time. Half paid her within 6 to 8 weeks after a reminder email. As for the remaining 20%, they paid her within two to three months, after sending several reminder emails.
“Visiting schools and working with children is a wonderful thing for me, and I give it 110%. I find it terribly sad that my work and that of the artists in the Repertoire [de La Culture à l’école] are not valued as they should be,” she laments.
It was this perceived lack of consideration that prompted her to post a heartfelt cry on her Instagram page last June. Her post received many comments from colleagues who said they also noticed systematic delays.
A problem of bureaucracy
Faced with payment delays and administrative burdens, children’s author Chloé Varin, who is used to meeting nearly 4,000 students per year, wondered for the first time whether it was not time to move on.
“It’s my main source of income, so I have no choice but to continue, but it’s quite discouraging,” she explains to Duty.
“What I deplore is the mental burden of always having to be on our feet, doing rigorous follow-ups in the hope of being paid. We have to constantly follow up with school management, make phone calls, contact teachers, etc.”
“Being paid within a reasonable time frame is all we ask. We artists are not rolling in it,” she emphasizes.
The Duty collected other testimonies from artists. All report the same reality and the exhaustion of artists participating in the Culture at School program.
Author Marie Demers, for example, claims to have had to dip into her line of credit to stay afloat while waiting for checks from the schools she works in. She denounces a “great level of contempt” from the education sector toward small contractors.
According to what Chloé Varin has observed over time, these payment delays are primarily due to a problem of bureaucracy, with each school having its own procedures and ways of doing things.
She also suggests that each participant in the program be able to have a member number to make things easier and reduce delays. “This would reduce the administrative burden in addition to protecting our personal data,” she suggests.
Responsibility of each school
Joined by The Dutythe Fédération des centres de services scolaires (CSS) du Québec did not want to comment on the situation, its members being “autonomous in their administrative management”. The Ministry of Education claims for its part to be “aware of this situation”, but also points out that the responsibility for managing these contracts “belongs to the school organizations”.
“I will not hide from you that it is possible that it has already happened that certain payments have been delayed, in particular due to a change of school management during the mandate, or because, during a first contract, the artist had to provide different information that caused additional delays. In any case, this type of situation should be exceptional and should not represent the norm,” writes the CSS of Laval. It assures that it insists to schools on the importance of proceeding with the payment of artists “with diligence”, that is, within 30 days.
The CSS of Montreal states for its part that “the vast majority of invoices” of the artists with whom it does business have been paid within the allotted time, in recent years. “Certain circumstances may have led to delays,” it nevertheless concedes.
The precariousness of artists
For the general director of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ), Geneviève Lauzon, the situation has been known for a long time, even if it can vary from one CSS to another.
In an interview at Dutyshe deplores the great precariousness in which its participating members are plunged.
“The Culture at School program represents income stability for writers, most of whose income comes from related activities, not from book sales,” she explains.
“For a self-employed person, these delays are really problematic. We’re talking about problems with declaring taxes, with income tax returns. Artists are always waiting for accounts to be received.”
A sign of the precariousness affecting artists working in schools: before the rate for participants in the Culture in Schools program was increased two years ago, it had not been revised since the program was created in 1999. Today, it is $536 per day.
With Zacharie Goudreault