Skeptics were confounded: the reform of the laws on the status of the artist tabled at the end of April by Minister Nathalie Roy was adopted on Friday by the National Assembly following a study process accelerated.
Posted at 11:13 a.m.
The Coalition avenir Québec had made the modification of the laws on the status of the artist an electoral promise and it has been kept since its reform (Bill 35) was adopted on Friday. It was not won: the bill was tabled only at the end of April and made its way by benefiting from an accelerated study process supported by the opposition parties. Several amendments emerged, some of which the Minister of Culture and Communications, Nathalie Roy, describes as “major”.
One of them closes a major loophole that will pull the rug out from under the feet of producers or entrepreneurs who create businesses and close them without having paid the artists involved. In the middle, we call it “empty shells”. Bill 35 was thus improved by adding a provision that existed in the Business Corporations Act aimed at providing recourse to aggrieved workers.
“It will allow artists to claim amounts owed to them, fees owed to them, directly from the directors of a company, explains Minister Roy. Before they couldn’t, they could only sue the company and if it closed, they lost their recourse and their money. »
The Minister is delighted with the support of the opposition parties and the cooperation of the other departments, which made possible the rapid adoption of this new law. “We no longer have two categories of artists, but only one category of professional artists in Quebec, who all enjoy the same protective measures, the same powers, the same resources when it comes to negotiating collective work”, she says with an enthusiasm that is all the greater since she had promised in the community to have this law adopted.
“I’m happy in that regard, but I’m particularly happy for them, for them, for the groups that came to meet us,” she adds. They had been waiting for decades for significant changes to these two statutes on the status of the artist. »
Bill 35, officially titled An Act to harmonize and modernize the rules relating to the professional status of artists, merges the two laws that until now defined the status of artists and framed their working conditions, which will now allow all artists to negotiate collective agreements. In particular, it broadens the jurisdiction of the Administrative Labor Tribunal — thus avoiding people who feel wronged having to go through a long and costly legal process — and incorporates provisions on psychological harassment.
The reforms imposed by the law will bring important changes in the cultural environment. It could in particular cause sparks in certain circles, such as that of literature: if the Union of Quebec Writers and Writers welcomed the reform with enthusiasm, the National Association of Book Publishers rather said it was “worried” about the new provisions. The government undertakes to analyze these impacts by tabling, in five years, a report on the application of this law.
More details to come…