December is the biggest month of the year for school cultural outings. A moment, at the end of the session, which also rewards the students for their work. With the strike, it is rather a Christmas of show cancellations which begins for youth artistic companies. At Tortue Berlue, since November 21, there have been 34 canceled performances, for $13,310 in financial losses. Three quarters happened this week. Frustration ? The money that could honor these contracts and ensure the health of cultural workers is sitting in the Ministry of Education, at the bottom of measure 15186, in an envelope of 32 million.
Outremont Theater, Monday, 10 a.m. The Tout à trac Theater presents Alice in Wonderland, created in 2008. A cultural outing for local schools. Reservations promised a room full of 400 young people.
The duty was there. There were 64 spectators, scattered around the floor, giving few oh! echoing the actors who, on stage, do not save their energy any more.
“The strike led to the cancellation of two schools, or 350 students and chaperones,” confirms David Laferrière, of the Outremont theater. The only one present “was a private school in the neighborhood. We took the initiative of inviting parents and students from the affected schools, and some were there.”
“Until then, we were doing relatively well,” explains Jean-Philippe Joubert, general manager of Gros Becs in Quebec. “We played in front of small rooms, very small, but it was okay. This week, it’s paralyzing. We canceled four performances. »
Until then, we were doing relatively well. We played in front of small rooms, very small, but it was okay. This week, it’s paralyzing. We canceled four performances.
Same thing at the Maison Théâtre, which managed to hold on with outings from private schools only. ” For Draw in the margins [qui se donnait du 4 au 9 décembre], we were to have 350 students. We played in front of two groups of 50,” illustrates Isabelle Boisclair, the general director.
For its holiday show, Cuckoo, by puppeteer Graham Soul, 1000 tickets were cancelled. “For us, it’s around $10,000 in lost revenue. We opened these performances to family audiences, that compensates, but not significantly. »
A planned force majeure event
“The strike is hitting hard not only our members,” summarizes Alain Beauchesne, of Théâtres unis infantile jeunesse, “but also specialized and multidisciplinary presenters throughout the province. Decrease in reservations, cancellations, financial losses: the entire chain of broadcasting of shows for school outings in cultural settings is affected. »
One of the problems? In several contracts, a strike is considered a case of force majeure, and thus allows the termination of agreements without compensation. Except that artistic companies have incurred costs, and since the pandemic, it is very frowned upon, and it is very good, to cancel artists’ contracts without compensating them. At a loss, therefore, for producers.
In other contracts, which facilitate relations with schools, the cancellation possibilities are very flexible. “With us,” says Amélie Bélanger, of Tortue Berlue, “if you cancel with 72 hours’ notice, you pay 20%. At 48 hours, it’s 50%. » It’s a good idea to maintain good relationships with customers in the long term… except that it becomes a hard blow when almost all the schools cancel at the same time.
“There, lots of management cancels us with 72 hours’ notice and quibbles over payment. Instead, they ask us to transfer the balance to a future invoice. I cannot add an infinite number of performances between the time the strike is over and next June. This weakens the relationship with our school clients, which is already super delicate. »
“And how do I pay my actresses? continues the assistant director. They all have valuable knowledge, I don’t want them to leave. It’s almost $150 per show that I owe them, I want to give them at least a symbolic stamp…”
“It’s exhausting,” adds M.me Bélanger. In the arts, we are always at the bottom of the chain. Let’s be clear: we are 100% behind the teachers, behind them. They are our allies, we will always “back” them… But sometimes, someone needs to “back” us, the rest of us too, it seems to me…”
Millions unused
Some schools do this: they honor cultural activity contracts. Without loss: they use measure 15186 of the Ministry of Education for cultural school outings, in force since 2018.
A total of $32 million is there. Enough to ensure two outings per year per student — or their costs. However, in 2021-2022, this envelope was only half used since only 14 million had been spent. “The numerous health instructions to be respected” would then explain, according to the report from the Ministry of Education, the low use of the measure, the money from which returns to the Treasury Board, and not to Culture, at the end of each financial year.
The duty failed to know the results of this measure for 2022, the figures not yet being counted.
Protect the salaries of drivers, not artists
“We are asking for a ministerial directive for Education to encourage school principals to honor the agreements,” advocates Alain Beauchesne. Especially since the ministry did so on November 30 to ask school service centers and school boards to continue to pay school transporters as if they were still providing their service regularly.
Why is the Ministry of Education intervening for bus drivers and not for those involved in cultural outings? “We are faced with double standards, and we see that there is one lobby stronger than another,” laments Mr. Beauchesne. The Coalition Avenir Québec has repeatedly reiterated the importance for it of putting young people in contact with culture. We still need to keep the environment that creates it healthy to achieve this.
At the time of submission of this text, the cabinet of the Ministry of Education had responded to the Duty that “if a postponement of cultural outings is possible, that is what we want. However, it is not our intention to issue a directive to the network to this effect.”