All people in Quebec are equal, except that in cultural matters, some are much more so than others.
Three-quarters of the total expenditures of the Quebec public administration on culture benefit two—and only two—of the seventeen administrative regions, namely Montreal and the National Capital. The image of two lush oases in the middle of more or less arid deserts could be imposed.
In 2021-2022, the cultural pot totaled $2.41 billion, the equivalent of 1.77% of the state budget and $282 per capita nationally. That year, a Montrealer received the equivalent of $406 in cultural dollars, a Quebec citizen a little more ($428), but in other regions, the average per capita spending was only $84.84, according to data from the Observatoire de la culture et des communications du Québec.
The hyperurban cultural mass is even concentrated in a handful of central neighbourhoods. In Montreal, almost all culture is created, filmed and performed in the boroughs of Ville-Marie and Plateau-Mont-Royal.
The gap is even worse in the close peripheries of the two major centres. The average national proportion ($5 cultural for the metropolis and the capital, for $1 in the regions) is close to $10 for $1 in Lanaudière, the Laurentians, Chaudière-Appalaches or Montérégie. Montreal benefits from 53% of the spending and Quebec City 21% of the lot, while all the other regions each monopolize 1.5% of the spending on average.
In 2019, the National Assembly unanimously recognized public underfunding in all key sectors in the Outaouais, and not just in culture. A report published in March by Culture Montérégie established that the region accounts for 16% of Quebec’s population, but only 4.5% of overall spending on culture.
The survey speaks of “significant gaps, particularly in technical, stage and multidisciplinary equipment.” The offering in theatre, classical music and song is among the weakest in Quebec. “Comedy is the only discipline where the region has a performance comparable to other regions,” the summary also says.
The disparity is evident in the two major government corporations that distribute funds, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC). Public assistance to specialized performing arts presenters from the CALQ totaled $29 million in 2021-2022, including $22.6 million for Montreal, $4.1 million for Quebec City and $2.1 million for the rest of Quebec. Montreal received more than three-quarters of the funds (78%) from the SODEC in 2019-2020, the last pre-pandemic year. The vast majority of other regions received less than 1% each of the approximately $60 million distributed.
Reasons for a madness…
Éric Lord, general director of the Réseau des conseils régionaux de la culture du Québec (RCRCQ), says he met with a SODEC program manager about a dozen years ago to explain the discrepancies that were even more glaring at the time. The senior official replied that he would rather see his envelopes cut by a million per year than have to sprinkle his funds across the regions…
“These are realities that we have been working on for a long time,” continues Director Lord. “What the councils want is to have mechanisms to recover a fair share of public investment. Because if we let natural forces do their thing, cultural and artistic money ends up concentrated in Quebec and Montreal.”
In fact, we let things happen and concentrate, again and again. The CAQ government promised to develop a network of Blue Spaces in part to fill the cultural equity deficit. The project, deemed too costly and in truth poorly planned, was abandoned at the beginning of the year. The head of the abandoned network will be transformed into a new National Museum of History installed in Quebec City (which already has two state museums) and not elsewhere.
The budgetary gaps between the two centres and the periphery are partly explained by the operating aid for cultural organisations and especially for large institutions such as the state museums located in the two largest cities. In Quebec, these costs account for 55% of the sums to support salaries or the purchase of goods and services. A request for an interview with the Minister of Culture on Quebec-style cultural centralisation was refused.
An insult…
The pressure to change the situation is producing some results. For the first time this year, SODEC has included investment targets in the regions in its strategic planning. The intention is to invest a third of the funds outside the greater Montreal area. We must add the funds to build, expand or renovate a national network of libraries or performing arts venues everywhere. Quebec also subsidizes more than a hundred small museums throughout the territory.
Sherbrooke has one dedicated to science, but has very few venues, apart from the hall of the cultural centre of the University of Sherbrooke and the Granada theatre, which is somewhat supported by the City. The large Maurice-O’Bready hall hosts all sorts of shows, musicals, shows comedy, touring theater, performances for young people and lecture series.
Jean-François Hamel, who made a career as an actor for about twenty years after his training at the Conservatoire de Québec, qualifies the portrait. He mentions the Centre des arts de la scène Jean-Besré (CASJB), which houses a dance and theatre creation and production company. He points out that a specialized performance hall for young audiences is under construction near the CASJB.
“There is a lack of spaces for cultural dissemination in the region, that’s what we hear on the ground,” says Mr. Hamel, a development agent for the Conseil de la culture de l’Estrie for the past two years. His opinion is his own, he says. “The city could make more efforts and probably Quebec City too. But we certainly can’t talk about a cultural desert. There is a rich cultural environment in each of the regions.”
The phrase referring to regional medical deserts seems just as inappropriate to Éric Lord. “It’s a caricatured vision,” says the director of the RCRCQ, which brings together 15 regional councils (there are none in Nord-du-Québec, while the Capitale-Nationale and Chaudière-Appalaches regions are united within the same council) representing more than 4,500 artists and professionals in the sector. “We have managed to have a strong cultural life everywhere. In fact, culture is often the hidden face of the regions. We know too little that it exists and the media hardly ever talk about it. In addition, we don’t want to rob Peter to pay Paul. We simply want to ensure that funding is adapted to the realities of the different regions of Quebec.”
Dance everywhere
Choreographer Priscilla Guy achieved a small artistic and cultural miracle by creating at the turn of the decade and since developing the Furies contemporary dance festival in Marsoui, a village in Haute-Gaspésie with fewer than 300 inhabitants. The summer event “on a human scale” offers an eclectic program in atypical outdoor and indoor locations.
Furies is a creation of Mandoline Hybride (MH), a company founded in Montreal a decade ago. “At one point, I wanted to settle in the region, to have a quieter space to create a place of residence, because I had benefited a lot from artistic residencies in my life, particularly in Europe, in rural regions,” says Mme Guy, co-artistic and general director of MH. “In Quebec, in terms of visual arts, music and even cinema, it is possible to go outside Montreal and Quebec. Not in terms of dance.”
By contrast, France, which is known for its hyper-centralization, has set up no fewer than nineteen choreographic centers throughout its territory over the past thirty years.me Guy contrasts the hypercentralized abundance of Montreal’s offering (“which can end up exhausting”) with these countless places in Quebec “where there is nothing, but where, precisely, everything has to be done.”
For the installation of Furies in Marsoui, support came from the CALQ, the Canada Council for the Arts, the MRC and the City. “I would say, from my experience, that when you have an interesting project, when you have expertise and you are motivated to work hard, the funding will follow. But this funding is one-off, which is quite a challenge. You have to constantly reinvent yourself.”
Everything is more expensive in the regions, and in these regions, the inhabitants are poorer. Ticket prices, which generate independent revenue, are affected. Sponsors are rare. And the Gaspé region receives a small dollar for every ten distributed in Montreal. “I deplore the fact that subsidies are not allocated according to a region’s poverty index,” says Mme Guy. Our distinct realities should be taken into account. In addition, we at Furies receive up to 30% of the village for our shows.
More than 250 people came to see Stations, by Louise Lecavalier, in 2022. Furies’ programming is done without compromise. “We never ask ourselves if our audience is ready. They are human: they are ready, like all other Quebecers, everywhere.”
Next text: the case of Laval.