“It is better to be disappointed than to hope in the vague,” wrote Boris Vian in The red grass. That doesn’t make the shattered expectations any less cruel. It’s been seven years since cultural organizations last saw the financial basis of their mission thoroughly reexamined by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ)! Seven years burdened by a pandemic at the end of which Quebec audiences have emerged more fickle and sparse than ever.
Conversely, a myriad of creative impulses artificially placed under glass will have caused a crowd of those called up to jostle, who today are a little, a lot, passionately, not at all disillusioned. Of the 521 organizations that submitted a funding request, 446 saw their wishes granted in whole or in part and 75 left empty-handed. In 2000, there were only 292 organizations supported, which is to say how much the elastic has stretched since then.
Elected officials will share $104 million for 2024-2025. That’s more than the $82 million granted in 2023-2024, but is it enough? For many, the answer is… complicated. Inflation has hit so hard that some of the increases granted simply don’t add up, we can see by analyzing the data published in July by the organization whose mission is to support creation, experimentation, production and dissemination across Quebec.
It must be said that the cultural sector has been flirting with disaster for a long time. A growing number of creators are trapped in a spiral of exhaustion and unsustainable impoverishment. For them, the continuation of their deleterious conditions only postpones an announced breakdown. To the point that we hear this killer question coming from all sides: can Quebec still decently support its arts?
For the Common Front for the Arts and Letters, the answer is to increase the CALQ’s annual budget to $260 million. For comparison, the counter stopped at $175.5 million this year after an intervention by the Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe. Let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar, since the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) came to power, the CALQ’s budget has only increased. New miracles on this front are therefore unlikely.
They are even more tenuous in Ottawa, where the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA), deprived of new resources last spring, has just confirmed a drop in the success rate of applications to its Explore and Create program. The bottom line: a meager 16.2% of positive responses.
So what do we do? We start by reformulating the question: how can Quebec decently support its arts? And we refuse to stop at the obvious.
Yes, public funding will always be essential in the equation, but it has its limits and it will not be enough on its own to plump up our culture. To restore its glory, we will have to resolve other unknowns affecting audience renewal, the broadcasting crisis and the desertion of Quebec Inc. as well as the royalty scandal or the resilience of the most fragile in an ecosystem known for its instability.
There are also outstretched hands to take and give. The cultural sector has a handful of large flagships, but many more growing companies, others that are sailing at full sail and many, many very fragile young skiffs. However, there is not really a culture of mutualization that connects this beautiful world. Even less of a desire to merge. However, there are architectures to rethink to prevent everyone from running out of steam in their corner. We can think about pooling work and creation spaces, sharing accounting resources or collective market studies, for example.
As the repository of a unique vision and expertise, the CALQ is technically best placed to conduct such a large-scale review in concert with creators and the industry. Except that Quebec has just reshuffled the cards. Its board of directors welcomed a new president in the middle of the summer in the person of Sophie Prégent. Well-versed in cultural mechanics after a revealing stint at the Union des artistes, the actress and singer will have to work with new blood as president and CEO.
After nearly 10 years of wise leadership at the head of the CALQ, its current CEO, Anne-Marie Jean, will join the General Delegation of Quebec in Paris next September. The person who succeeds her will have to deal with a hot potato that has become burning.
Because this famous killer question, even reformulated, cannot remain pending. “Everything that degrades culture shortens the paths that lead to servitude,” observed Albert Camus. Our culture plays a vital role in protecting us from national erasure. It remains our best bulwark against a galloping globalization of single-track thinking. But to fully play this role, it must be able to envisage the future without a pang in the heart or a cloud over its head.