Quebec is injecting new sums to compensate for the losses suffered by the cultural community following the new closings of theaters that occurred just before the Holidays, in the wake of the Omicron surge.
Posted yesterday at 10:52 a.m.
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 du Québec. (CALQ). This sum 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.
In presenting this new plan, the Minister maintained that there will be no question of going back and closing the rooms, unless there is an unexpected and extraordinary situation.
The lion’s share, or 38 million, will go to SODEC to maintain support for audiovisual, film and television production. Mme Roy pointed out that there was still an unprecedented volume of filming in 2021, but that the cost of these filmings jumped due to the sanitary measures required. In addition, Quebec had to assume the risk of the financial arrangements for the productions since the insurance companies refused to do so because of the risk of interruption due to COVID-19.
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 enabled, among other things, the production, recording and broadcasting of 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.