Quebec is injecting new sums to compensate for the losses suffered by the cultural community following the closing of theaters just before the holidays, in the wake of the Omicron wave.
The Minister of Culture, Nathalie Roy, announced on Thursday an addition of $58.5 million to the funds already granted since the start of the pandemic to the Société de développement des entreprises culturelle (SODEC) and the Conseil des arts et des lettres. of Quebec (CALQ).
This amount brings to 830 million the sums devoted to supporting the cultural community, one of the most affected by the health emergency for almost two years.
Ms Roy argued that the announcement that theaters would close on December 20 had dealt a severe blow to an already weakened industry. “We had to act and find additional solutions because it was really a significant low, not having cultural life during the holiday season. »
Cinemas and theaters have been open since February 7, but at 50% capacity. On February 21, the 500-person limit will be lifted for theaters, and then, the following week, they can sell all their seats.
In presenting this new plan, the Minister maintained that there will be no question of going back and closing them, unless there is an unexpected and unusual situation. According to her, the arrival of vaccines and the ability of theater managers to adapt have changed the situation. “There is no question of closing cultural places, she said. That’s really not our focus or our goal. I am in the same place as the cultural community in this regard because we now have solutions, tools that we can apply and I know that the cultural community has been exemplary, disciplined and safe. »
Support for all actors
The lion’s share, or $38 million, will go to SODEC to maintain support for audiovisual, film and television production. Ms. Roy pointed out that there was still an unprecedented volume of filming in 2021, but that the cost of these filmings has jumped due to the sanitary measures required.
In addition, “in July 2020, we set up a measure, a form of guarantee, to ensure that our producers could shoot because no insurance company wanted to insure the financial arrangements for producers. They would have had nothing, no filming, if we had not created a measure with SODEC to guarantee filming,” she explained.
The Conseil des arts et des lettres will receive $12 million to extend the special measure for the broadcasting of Quebec shows. It is this program which made it possible in particular to compensate for losses at the ticket office up to 75%, sums which were then to be redistributed in particular to artists and stage technicians deprived of work. This measure is thus extended until the end of March, when the rooms can be completely filled from March 14.
The rest of the money will go to the Emergency Fund for Artists and Cultural Workers in the Performing Arts, which pays money directly to artists in difficulty and to SODEC’s cultural recovery assistance program. The latter comes to the aid of cinemas, film distributors, festivals, show producers and performance halls. It is this program that has made it possible, among other things, to produce, capture and broadcast shows on the Internet.
Minister Roy specified that a cultural recovery and development plan is in preparation, but that we will have to wait for Minister Éric Girard’s budget, which will set the financial parameters.
As for the eventual Act respecting the status of the artist, promised for a long time, Nathalie Roy affirms that the project is advanced, but that she is seeking a consensus and that she needs to align the work of the ministries of Culture, Labor and Justice to overcome it. She seems to hope to achieve this before the end of the parliamentary session in June, failing which this bill will die on the order paper and everything will have to start again after the next election.