So thank you everybody for coming, I will just
Say kind of a one minute introduction
For people, but I would welcome you then to introduce yourselves and think about
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: maybe offering up a highlight from the past year or something that you're really looking forward to talking about today.
And maybe a little bit about your organization, your current organization
and your experience in the field that would be great.
So maybe I’ll start, I’m Mary Elizabeth Luka I am at the University of Toronto Scarborough in the department of arts culture and media.
And, I also, I have a graduate appointment at the Faculty of information in downtown Toronto, I miss my offices
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: And can't wait till we're all ready to go back, I have
A lot of books and a lot of colleagues there that I would like to become more familiar with again.
I also have a background in the field, I’ve worked in the field for about 25 years as well as working as an academic in the last decade.
Maybe I’ll pass it to you, Michelle.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Sure hi everyone, my name is Michelle Van Beusekom and I’m currently working as the
senior advisor at Uvagut TV, which is Canada’s first indigenous language television channel.
We launched in January this year before that most of last year during covid I worked as the exec director of the documentary organization
of Canada and before that, as an exec director of English language program at the National Film Board
worked at the CBC, which is where I first met Mary Elizabeth and the women's television network.
back when it launched in 1994 so long history in the field broadcasting and production.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great Charlie do you want to go next.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: Sure hi it's really great to be here, my name is Charlie Wall-Andrews, I am the executive director at SOCAN foundation, so a lot of our work is
Yes, we are connected to SOCAN, but we do a lot of the community building, creating programs awards and granting opportunities to support emerging artists across the country.
And we also find ways to support the ecosystem, we've been pretty impacted by covid-19 on a variety of ways, so we'll talk about that more in depth, through this conversation.
and outside of SOCAN I’m also a PhD candidate at Ted Rogers school of management and I'm focusing on
looking at music ecosystems throughout Canada and how they're fostering entrepreneurship activity, particularly for diverse artists.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great, thank you, and Kelly.
KELLY WILHELM: Hi everyone, thanks for the invitation to be here and great to be on this panel, with some pretty amazing women in the field.
I’m Kelly Wilhelm, I am the chief strategy officer at the Canada media fund I’ve been in that job for about a year and a half
so six months in covid hit so it's been a really crazy ride, as I know, it has been for many.
I have about 25 years of background in the field as well, mostly in policy and mostly at the federal level the national level.
10 years at the Canada council for the arts, where I was the director of policy for a portion of that time.
But my work in the field actually started in the museum and art gallery side, so my master's is actually in museum studies from U of T.
And my thesis more than 25 years ago was around cultural diversity, equity and transformational change in Canadian public institutions of culture.
So all that to say, one of the highlights, for me, this year, certainly has been the industry's coming together, I would say for sure to work through the impacts of covid-19 and to deliver
Some things that I think we really didn't feel possible prior to this year, so we can get into that a little bit about some of the ways of working that were allowed under the urgency of covid-19
And that maybe provide some flexibility on which we can build into the future, and the second piece of that is absolutely the acceleration
of work around equity and inclusion in the screen sector in this country, which is something I’m very optimistic about at this point.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great and which is good that's one of those kind of, we're at this really interesting crossroads, thank you very much, everybody.
I am sorry that Lise Ann is not here she is from Canada council for the arts and is responsible for strategic initiatives, and in particular the digital
strategic initiative that took place over the last few years, so when she gets the chance to join us, if she gets the chance to join us it's her intention to kind of update us on some of that work.
But and Jennifer Wemigwams, who was also hoping to join us, has had some urgent matters that she has had to deal with and so she is not able to join us today.
I just want to take a moment this is one of my favorite things to do these days is to kind of cast our minds back to pre covid and far enough pre covid that it wasn't
It wasn't kind of even on the horizon right so I’m thinking about kind of fall 2019 and what some of the priorities were and what it was that some of the folks.
kind of in the cultural ecosystem were dealing with and the kind of way that we went about that, I’m thinking partly of the Banff summit.
but also for digital transformation, but also other kind of international conferences.
I think Charlie and Michelle you've both spent, and Kelly as well, both all spent a lot of time traveling around North America and the world.
In your work to try and promote cohesiveness and a certain kind of progress in thinking about how policy works in the field
and I just wonder as you cast your mind back to it is there something that stands out either as unfinished business or as
Maybe a level of
A priority that is different, was different from what we're looking at now, just to set the stage a bit.
Kelly, can I get you to start.
KELLY WILHELM: Sure, so at that time around the fall of 2019 I was just new to my role at the CMF and
I was actually helping to facilitate our board planning session in that month in November of 2019 as well as coming out to Banff and
attending other conversations around digital transformation, ethics and that, what that means to transition to a fully sort of digital platform.
For our consumption of culture, especially in the media side, so we, at that point we were talking
a lot about the length of time that the Canada media fund model had been in place.
And 10 years may not sound like a lot but in our industry we know it is and there's been tremendous change in the 10 years or so that the Canada media fund has been around.
And so we were already grappling very much with the pressure of that change the pressure
On broadcasters in the industry as streaming services from outside of Canada were coming in.
The opportunities for consumption by Canadians across multiple platforms to be able to personalize experiences and to create community around digital consumption in different ways.
And how to bring together those realities in our funding right at the Canada media fund and in the support that we provide.
So it really was at that point already feeling like we were behind.
I would say in making that transition because certainly you know, a year and a half, two years ago we were already feeling the strong presence of foreign streamers in the market.
We were already seeing many, many business model transformations for people working as producers or creators, directors, writers in our field.
Working globally, working on stories that were quite local and unique and authentic in voice and often representing equity seeking communities or indigenous communities.
But that had that appeal globally and they were looking for partnerships and ways to work outside of Canada.
Our model at the CMF doesn't support much of that right, what we've had in place for 10 years is
KELLY WILHELM: Very much dictated to us or prescribed to us as we're an instrument of the government, right in the way that we perform our duties, and that means that Canadian heritage
Has a structure in place with us in terms of how we flow the money, and in that structure 80% of our money right now is triggered by the market interest of a Canadian traditional broadcaster.
So, in order for our money to flow to a producer, it has to be for a show that's been greenlit by one of about 25 Canadian broadcasters.
We know that that's not a viable future for the industry in this country, we also know the broadcaster's have a really important role to play.
And we need to rebalance all of that, so I would say at that stage as well I will say one more thing, two more things
The revision of the broadcasting Act was already on the table, the Yale report was in process had not yet been
launched that happened right ahead of covid in February of 2020 so there was in the air, the sense of massive reform at a legislative level
then following at the regulatory level as the CRTC would pick it up and move forward and for us as an instrument of funding, we were trying to align our thinking and get a little bit ahead
Of all of that, with our own work, so we would be ready to perform our function in the ecosystem when those decisions were made.
And I think the other piece in all of this was at that time, the other big item on our planning agenda with our board was our work with the indigenous screen office.
And beginning a little bit more serious reflection around what we were then calling diversity initiatives in the sector.
So those roots were already planted to a certain extent but not nearly as far as we've now been able to go in the last year so I'll talk about that, I think a little bit later.
So all that to say, I think in many ways we were already thinking about the big transformational changes.
Covid has accelerated or shone a spotlight on many of those challenges and fragilities in the sector that now, you know, a year and a half later from 2019 we are still working to address.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah I think this is one of the things that is very characteristic of because they are such big systems that that are interlocked in so many complex ways that is
very tricky to navigate and particularly, one of the things that and I think this is one of the things that Lise Ann would have been
happy to offer, but one of the interesting developments in the field over the last 10 years in particular has been that kind of the porousness between
all the parts of the ecosystem and how that can be leveraged or ramped up and I, you know I know
I'm going to ask you Michelle maybe to speak now because, you know I mean one of the things that's so interesting about the last year and a half for you is that you've made your way through
A whole series of systems, but part of what I was thinking about was the work that you were able to do at the NFB for
X number of years kind of came, was coming to a conclusion around you know we think about fall 2019 and thinking about
What were the shifts in the system, in the ecosystem there that you could see at the NFB and then, as you move to Doc Maybe you can talk about that a little bit.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Sure yeah, like the film board is such a beautiful institution and holds
a very dear place in my heart, it's a public institution that operates at the intersection
of art and public service and it's a public producer specialized in documentary which is Canada's original Cinematic form and auteur
animation and it was interesting Kelly to hear you talking about those
The transformative changes and the existing system and the cracks that we were starting to see, for example
with broadcast triggers and what kind of work was supported by that and what kind of work was not supported.
And I think documentary filmmakers were feeling a lot less supported than they were, perhaps in the early 2000s when there were a lot more one off documentary strands and a lot more triggers for them.
And so, in that time period at the film board, the conversations we were having were really about how do we
support those voices and storytellers and urgent stories that are really playing this national public service role.
are being are being told, like that was the place that you know the film board could really
gap some of the systemic changes that were starting to follow, we are putting a lot of emphasis on
really making sure that we are representing voices from all parts of the country, a lot of emphasis on equity indigenous equity I've been very involved in the creation of our
Indigenous equity plan, putting together just a phenomenal advisory from across the country and just laying down some really great
Foundations to ensure that, yeah a range of really kind of meaningful storytelling that sometimes isn't supported within the more commercial structures
has its place and was getting seen by audiences.
So that was pre covid, I don't know if you want me to go into the transition yet.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Well, maybe let's hear from Charlie and part of the reason that I was you know, Charlie one of the things I can distinctly remember is having very long conversations about the role of Ai.
You know, and how it was coming on board and the kind of, you know as Kelly was talking about in terms of thinking about
platforms and thinking about digital work and similarly at Canada Council the kind of motivation behind the digital strategy.
Part of that, we thought we were moving really quickly or organizations felt they were moving very quickly and most organizations were moving very quickly for organizations, but you kind of had an
interesting and specific set of experiences kind of coming out of SOCAN, do you want to talk about that a little bit.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: For sure this was like 2016/17 that the conversation started to emerge more frequently about
The emergence of Ai and looking at you know the risks and opportunities that could come with this.
So questions like what is the copyright lifespan of something that's created by artificial intelligence and there was information
shared that other organizations like SOCAN and different markets, actually were registering music made by Ai, so this actually creates a whole
Need for a dialogue on policy pertaining to copyright and its association with Ai and how that's regulated.
Some people would say oh it's a creator that's pushing a button and the machine is doing all the work.
Others would have different perspectives on what this would mean and, of course, if something like this continues to grow and come to market, it can be a threat to the careers of music creators.
Depending on how advanced and mature the Ai systems can develop so it's a very fascinating phenomenon that's continuing to grow, and now we're starting to see blockchain and NFTs
And a whole slew of new innovations in the industry that we have to keep an eye on but they're
you know we're still trying to talk about policies pertaining to streaming rate so the artists can get fair
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: compensation from like 2006 to
and those issues still haven't really been addressed, so the conversation
Around Ai and other innovations I don't know
If that's going to be something that will be prioritized anytime soon but it really should be.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great, Thank you all. So that's a lot of shifting that was on the table even then, before covid and as the news kind of
trickled out and then became the series of lockdowns for Canada in March of 2020, I'm kind of interested in maybe giving
folks a little bit of a history about what you saw where particular turns in your organization and the way
that you reacted and adapted to the circumstance, the circumstances that were unfolding before you.
Who would like to start.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: I don't mind kicking it off, so I mean I don't think anybody was prepared for the pandemic to hit, at least not in my community and so that
That hurt the organization in a big way. We at SOCAN have a very different financial structure
where we don't actually know our true revenues until a year later because of the way that we're collecting reconciling and distributing. So the impact of covid-19
While we have models of forecasting, we won't actually know until a little bit later, so we have to be super careful about what we're doing, we can only assume risk from
What we're observing in the market and it impacted the operations completely, the way that we're doing outreach into communities how we're engaging with
Emerging artists on the ground, it's a completely different way.
Access to even register your music. Not everybody has access to internet and computers in this country.
And so that is also proving to be another barrier for artists and publishers, to be able to register their music
and who knows, perhaps a barrier for people to submit their documents to get the licenses to use music
You know, legally, so this is
It's something that we've had to adapt to pretty quickly so it didn't disrupt the business too much, at the foundation where we're doing an extensive amount of work
engaging with community, particularly diverse communities with our diverse focused programs, one being the equity and production development program
we were taking women and diverse genders to learn how to produce music because it's a space dominated by white SIS gendered men.
And we had you know done one cohort online and all of our programs tend to be, sorry in person, and so we had to switch drastically into a whole new way of offering programs
Online and that was a completely new way of working, engaging, communicating.
And then also keeping in mind of access, because it's one thing for us to say oh, we can take an artist from Nunavut
or northern BC and fly them to Toronto and give them access to all the in person space.
But now that everything's online, that's also proving to be a challenge for some communities so still a lot of work to do, I would say that we've transitioned
Quite as best as we could given the circumstances and there's always this hope right, I remember when the first wave hit and then by the
July, August we're like okay, things are looking really great you know let's and then boom and then now here we are still
Having hope and so it's an interesting state to be in.
So you know we're continuing to adapt and modify how we operate and how we outreach it's an ongoing cycle.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: For sure, for sure, Kelly would you like to or Michelle, I'm agnostic.
KELLY WILHELM: I can jump in, thanks Michelle, so when everything changed overnight I think the first thing that really got
The first thing that happened that was very helpful and I think an instinct in the screen industry side was we gathered.
So the Canadian media producers association, in particular the CMPA was quite instrumental in creating a task force
for the industry that at different times had upwards of 70 to 80 different agencies and organizations, unions, guilds
On the calls that we were doing at one point twice a week, just to try to get a handle on what was happening across the country in different genres.
We do funding to both sort of linear and television side of the industry, and we also support interactive digital media and the reality of the pandemic in those two industries was quite different.
For productions that were in process they were immediately shut down obviously with no real sense of what resumption would look like or what the cost would be to companies.
So we, because we understood there would be various effects we actually launched within that industry table
A survey of companies and we were gathering data right away and I think that's one of the things that really helped us design with the Federal Government what some of the
The support programs were as they came available over the course of that year, at the very beginning it was just how do we keep our production companies from going under.
Right, that was the number one goal, and so when the government started to introduce programs that businesses could access
We understood quite early on that the eligibility for those business programs would not fit within our industry.
So there was a real conversation right from the beginning that production companies because of the way that they work in general don't have full time staff right so can't really benefit from the staff.
The staff benefit programs that were in place.
They work on various schedules depending on where they are in production and pre post right or in production, their costs will go through cycles year over year.
So they don't really qualify based on previous year revenue measures, so we were able to make the argument.
And I have to say the Federal Government was quite open to it, that this industry needed something quite specific and different.
And, as a result of that by the end of the day, the CMF received and flowed about 120 million dollars to the industry in covid relief funding.
The majority of that, I would say at the very beginning, it was looked at as a way for the government to help support companies that already received support.
Through the CMF and that was an important starting point, because that was sort of what was happening
in the center of government and finance right they were constructing programs to support those who were already supported.
So we saw the gap right away, happily, luckily, and said look you know, that's not enough
for us because we know if we support only those companies that have received CMF funding, the existing clients.
Then we're not capturing those that are probably most vulnerable in the situation that we're in, so those
that are equity seeking, those that are emerging, those that haven't necessarily gotten their foot in the door, so we
were able to earmark 25% of the first round of support for a very broadly defined initiative around equity, diversity, and inclusion.
And then, it took us time through the year to engage with communities, to consult properly, and to then design what those pieces of the programming would look like.
But by the fall, we were able to put in place and support really quite targeted programs for black and people of colour we also flowed
A significant amount of money to the indigenous screen office to support First Nations, Métis, and Inuit creators, through their own programs.
So we focused on black and people of colour and we ran a program for production companies that were led and owned
51% majority, by black and people of colour that funded 168 companies, most of whom had not been supported by the CMF before.
Data is really important in this too, so we did a deep dive survey with that group because we had the opportunity which has now helped us enormously thinking about the future.
around our equity work, and we also did some sector development work that was really key I think in helping to
provide you know, a first round of support to many organizations that had not received it before, BIPOC TV and film is one.
That pre existed, but hadn't been supported by us directly and then as other sector organizations came on stream, like the black screen office, the black Academy,
The racial equity media collective whose mission is really around research and data as well for Racial Equality in the screen industries, we were able to provide some starting support for that as well.
So we, I think it's fair to say that we used the opportunity of the emergency funding to try to stabilize first of all the sort of existing industry with whom we had a relationship.
But then to also look a little deeper and see what we could do to extend that reach into areas in which the CMF
may not have had supports available in the past and that's all now in our thinking as we consider where we go from here.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: That's great, and you know, without being glib about it, I would say that there was a quite a comparable shift at Canada Council in terms of thinking about how
the structure of how you feed money out in that kind of an emergency situation, if people you already have a relationship with, but then
there were some initiatives that were like CMF, although not the same scale, that were developed in order to reach people who had never been funded.
Which was specifically also something that you'd help set up at Canada Council those years back around how do you think about newcomers to the to the funding cycle.
And how do you actually get the resources into the pockets of people who really need them and who haven't had access for a whole variety of structural reasons.
KELLY WILHELM: One of the things I would just say as a little addition to that, one of the things that was so, I think
Interesting I'm not sure what the right descriptor is but one of the things that was possible because it was an emergency
situation was the types of criteria that you would normally have to go through and build.
We didn't need to have as much I think certainty around those criteria or as many barriers to entry, we had an ability to flow money based on attestations
By applicants, that they were in need of the money that that need was covid related and then we just had to ensure that they met
the eligibility criteria around ownership by BIPOC people, so it allowed us to work differently.
I would say, and I think that's one of the most important pieces.
That we want to again sort of take forward as we think about a feature program model for the CMF.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah and in which I find remarkable because the CMF has not been the quickest in kind making shifts as you said over the last decade.
Michele.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Yeah so in my case I started a new job at the documentary organization of Canada on March 15th, like the day we how much of the country
lockdown so my entire career there was sitting in this chair, I never went to the office, I never met people
face to face and my job was to represent about 800 documentary filmmakers and producers from across the country, and they were hit hard.
Documentary creators are quite marginal to begin with they tend to operate little mom and pop
production companies, it's work that you do for love, not for money and people often
You know, are working on a project over a cycle of three years, so sometimes they weren't hitting the bar with CMF and others in terms of being able to receive that first round of funding.
So people were very shaken, destabilized, I find that in that doc community there's so many people that are precarious
you know super talented people who are just always on the verge of saying this is just too hard, and so the big fear was that this was going to knock a lot of
People out of the documentary sector and it could wipe out actually an area in which traditionally Canada has been
So strong, as I said you know the film board started in documentary it's our founding genre it goes back to 1939 it's not an accident that Canada is so strong
In terms of its documentary tradition of storytelling and that relates to policy right, there have been solid public supports in place
From 39 to the present, but everything has really been destabilized by you know the shifts and the new model and definitely the
TV trigger has made it really difficult for documentary producers as broadcasters have kind of bailed on
On documentary even the public broadcaster has just a shadow of what it had in the past, so really destabilized community and then yeah what
Kelly was saying that those task force second day on the job I was my first industry
Task force and that was just a remarkable forum, and it was really heartening the solidarity of everyone, the CMPA was so proactive.
And so inclusive and inviting everyone to that table, and it was so effective because you know Valerie would be there from the CMF and Christa from Telefilm and folks from heritage.
And they would give you an update and then I would summarize that and send that back to the board and the chapter boards and they would circulate that to the membership.
And it really helped to ensure that we had good lines of communication.
And people were getting the real information because otherwise what tends to happen people get partial
bits of information, and then they fill in the blanks and then you get some really crazy stories.
circulating or understandings of what's going on that can be really hard to rein in so that was a super wonderful thing.
And then on our end at Doc we started organizing some town halls and we invited the broadcasters and the funders and insurance people, because no one could get insurance anymore.
To come and talk about what they knew and what was happening and what was changing the first one was on
Zoom, kind of my first you know early experiences on zoom we had almost 500 people I was so freaked out and scared the whole thing was going to
crash but it worked and it was awesome and again everyone was so generous and the mantra was flexibility, you know there's so much that we don't know, but what we do know is that we're going to be
Flexible with everyone and I think that helped take people's stress levels down considerable notches.
And the silver lining in that was the democracy of it because typically when those panels happen
they happen at Hot Docs or they happen at TIFF or they happen at industry events like Banff that can be quite
expensive to attend and if you don't happen to live in one of those places, you know, like your
accreditation is expensive, but then the travel that's involved for most people to get there really
limits the access to a lot of people, and this was super democratic it was free and you had all the top decision makers on the line sharing their information so that was a big
takeaway how important that is and it's important to maintain those spaces, even after
covid so we did those town halls we surveyed our membership to find out what they were concerned about what was impacting them
Where they hitting the bars for the different funds supports that were coming online be it things through CMF and telefilm or
through CEWS and CEBA and CERB, who was eligible and who wasn't and why and then I would feed that back to our
interlocutors at heritage and then as different programs came online, we would have meetings with CMF with telefilm with the broadcaster's with CAVCO
to let them know what was and wasn't working for the documentary community and that was really, really great and it's just that
practice of flexibility continued and sharing of information that I could then feed back to our membership.
That was really quite wonderful there was an atmosphere of solidarity flexibility mutual support, which was
Really really great you know and I think all of us saw as Kelly was was seeing you know the early programs were supporting people who were there already.
And it was pretty clear early on, who was going to fall through the gaps and it's not just newcomers it's
people who've been slogging it out for 20 years you know who for structural reasons just haven't had a fair
kick at the can, haven't had equitable access.
And it's like covid, as it did in so many other areas, I've been very involved in long term care, advocacy, covid you know just blew the roof off that
And made those cracks into gaping holes and I think it's the same with the screen sector so inequities that had been there for a long time just became so gaping
And glaringly obvious and I guess the other silver lining is that it created the impetus for some real structural changes, I'm really optimistic about what's happening.
And that it's not band aid, when I started in the industry in 1990s it was also a time when there was a lot of focus on diversity
But a lot of it was window dressing, and then in the 2000s it just kind of disappeared, but I think this time around people are coming at it from a place of policy.
As opposed to just you know, this is what we're doing today and in two years we'll do something else, and I think this time it is going to be rooted in policies that
You know can't be changed that are going to force that accountability and real systems change, so I think that's a real positive.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great, Charlie I don't know if there's sort of a comparable kind of set of meetings that were part of the process in the music industry as well
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: Yeah that's really great, we did not do surveys to our members which you know pros and cons to that, of course but SOCAN works very much with.
associations in the industry so like songwriters association of Canada, the screen composers Guild of Canada, SPACQ in Quebec working with francophone communities.
etc, etc, and so, working with the Association, which tend to do more of the grassroots work in keeping engaged with music creators and publishers.
An extension of the members of SOCAN was a way to determine how can we better serve the community, so one of the things that came out of that was a relief fund through SOCAN and the Foundation.
And, of course, all of these organizations came together to plan some advocacy measures, working with the minister's Office Minister of heritage.
About recommendations on what could be done and it's not just the these associations and SOCAN of course.
Other collectives like music Canada and Canada live music association, etc, etc were also involved, so it was a pretty lengthy process but
As we can see in the recent federal budget there's been a lot of efforts put forward, especially to support the boosting and recovering the
music industry, especially the live music industry from the unfortunate consequences that came with covid so that was possible through collective
Dialogue, planning, and advocating together with one agenda in mind.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: I'm really struck by this I mean because I do think that it was uncharacteristic in the most positive of ways right, I mean there was an urgency behind it, of course, but it's
It's that kind of like oh so now we've had 8 months or 12 months perhaps of working in this way of thinking about how can we be flexible, how can we
keep those lines of communication really broad and open and also find ways to make them really
structurally more inclusive policy driven in the kind of the positive sense of the word
Instead of reactively driven and the points that each of you were making about kind of your hopes for the future and thinking about
what are the modes of operating going forward, and I think you've each kind of got some examples of okay, here we are, May 2021
what's happening now that you think is really interesting and builds on the learning and
the data that was collected the experiences that were held and the relationships that were built during that period of time.
Kelly, maybe we'll start with you because you just had a press release.
KELLY WILHELM: I do, that's true we do.
What I'd like to talk about two different things, I think that absolutely the equity and inclusion strategy at the CMF and we did just released yesterday
A bit of a report on what we've been up to in the last year, as well as our strategy for 21 to 23 so 2021 to 2023.
And to your earlier point around the equity and inclusion
The movement this time around Michelle being one that is based in policy and structural change, I would say that we are trying to take that perspective very much at the CMF so the plan that you see
is one that talks about structural change from the top to the bottom in the organization, so it is everything from how we collect data and for what purposes, both around who is receiving the funding
And who is benefiting from that in terms of consumption, which is a huge gap, we have almost, we have very little data.
Race based data around consumption of media content that we fund so that's one big area that we're working on right now.
As well as you know the CMF does a ton of funding for development, production
But we also do a lot of promotion that's part of our mandate and so we've done quite a lot to refocus our energies on our promotion budgets and projects
entirely almost to an equity lens, and so one big result of that has been a campaign that we started under the sort of banner of made or new in French.
About two years ago with about 35 partners across the industry broadcasters, telefilm you name it.
So again, another collective effort, this time around we relaunched the campaign and it's now called Seek More.
And it really is about the stories in the industry that lay there the types of racism and systemic discrimination that have existed for many, many years by featuring some of our stars.
So Shamier Anderson is featured, Simu Liu is featured so there's a really fantastic campaign I'll post a link for people who want to take a look.
And then really importantly, what we're going to do in our programs and hear the conversations between
The equity inclusion strategy and the longer term structural change in our core programs really start to come together
Because we've seen through covid and as I said the impetus was there before that the CMF program needs to be updated quite fundamentally.
And that update now will have built into it the equity and inclusion lens that we've defined in that strategy so that's where the two pieces start to really come together.
We've just completed a fairly significant national consultation all online.
CMF does consultation a lot, but most of it has to do with how are the existing programs performing
And what changes need to be made to those programs so they perform better right it's kind of been that sort of thing with industry.
This one was what is the model that we need, what are the things you need from the CMF in order to be able to succeed in this environment.
And for our industry to continue to create, produce, and distribute Canadian content that is excellent that there is a demand for domestically.
Also internationally and that can be seen by Canadian audiences on multiple platforms, not necessarily
limited to the Canadian broadcast trigger which is what's in place right now.
And we heard loud and clear, those messages around the need for continued flexibility for both emerging and newcomers, but to Michelle's excellent point to those who are in
The industry and have been for a very long time but have been excluded, largely because the gatekeepers are very defined right in our funding model.
I mentioned it earlier, in order to receive funding for production and for most of our development it's changing but for the bulk of our financing of linear content
You need a license from a Canadian broadcaster, which makes it extremely difficult when those broadcasters themselves are commissioning less programming over time, a lot of the time they're spending
remains the same, but the spend per show is up right because the cost of doing really good content is higher now than it ever has been.
And they're in competition for studio space and other things with many other players so the net result of that is less commissioning.
And some particular genres are feeling it worse than others as Michelle talked about that sort of decline in commissioning of original documentaries.
Which is a noticeable decline we've also seen trends in children's and youth programming that can be worrying to those working in those spaces.
So, all in all, what we're hearing in these consultations is the need for flexibility, the need to open up the triggers in some way.
You know the CMF is fundamentally about linear television and interactive digital media
That reaches an audience so consumption and that sort of commercial viability will always kind of be the driving
criteria for us, we're very different from the Canada Council and even a little bit from telefilm in that way.
So we still need market tests, we still need to understand what is the market for what we're funding.
But we also need to bring a different lens to that and how we define that success right so is a niche market where a piece of content is incredibly important.
How do we value that right compared to something that does well in the numerous world of data collection, which is a very specific tool that we do use now to determine much of where our money goes.
So the challenge we have right now is in this moment post covid or in covid still because we're still living this reality.
How can we create that shift with the input we've received from the industry and now roll that out and put it in place while
bill C-10 the legislation to change the broadcasting act is still inconclusive in terms of its future and
committee and in Parliament for anyone who's been following that particular situation there's a lot going on there today and tomorrow.
So the entire again legislative and regulatory framework is in transition.
And again we're just we're one piece of that ecosystem but we want to be ready to go starting with some changes next year in 2022.
So when we know where the money's coming from what role the streamers might be playing
and the effect of those changes on how the broadcaster's have to behave right, because we expect that there's going to be changes across all of the regulation
of this broadcasting system, all of that will trickle down to us in some way right, either in terms of what we receive for funding and where it comes from, or how the broadcaster's engage with us.
There are many different possibilities but we want to create a path where we know, fundamentally, these are the kinds of changes that need to happen for this industry to thrive.
KELLY WILHELM: In this country and that's why these industry consultations now have been so important to our thinking and we're going to continue
KELLY WILHELM: this process through this year, no matter what it brings, and hopefully as I said be ready to start making changes
Based on you know approvals and a relationship with government because that's you know always necessary for us, we have to work hand in hand, so we're looking to April of 2022 to start making some shifts.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah it's interesting right, I mean one of the things that is so
That sort of remains true
question the word true, but that kind of holds water from one change to another is that legislation, no matter how kind of
High Level or how carefully envisioned it is always out of date by the time that it gets enacted and then the regulatory process
kind of has an opportunity to kind of blow it back open again or to create barriers and limits
That will stand in the way of what happens next, but planning for how to actually maximize what the capacities of the legislation seem to point towards
is I think probably an excellent strategy right, how can we really push what this
brings, what the opportunity is that this brings to the table, Michelle I know you have things to say about this area as well.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Yeah I mean I think all of that makes it a very exciting time in many ways because it is a time of change and transformation
in terms of legislation and regulation and all of these large legacy organizations that are looking very closely and critically
at their policies and structures and ways of operating and things are shifting and those are moments right that don't happen very
often so it's very interesting and it gives us a chance to
get it right like policy or get some of it right, you never get all of it right, but policy obviously has a huge
impact, it kind of lays down the bedrock and when you have good policies in place and
I'll go back to my film board example, but that launched documentary and animation in Canada, legacy
impacts today, you get a piece like that right, you can become great at something as a nation and you get it wrong and it just kind of middles around, and it has no
No impact at the same time, there are a lot of people who are suffering so I don't want to gloss over that as well, covid has been incredibly hard for
the artists on who's backing creativity and labor, the screen sector rests and
there are a lot of people who are really struggling through this pandemic and living precariously so there's kind of both
extremes there on that policy side like in my new role so, as I said, and I work for Uvagut TV, which is
An Inuit language broadcaster that launched in January and that's kind of laser focused my mind on policy as it affects the indigenous
language broadcast sector, and maybe I'll just use this as an example of the difference that you know that policy makes.
If you have read through build C-10 there are clauses in there that you know refer to the importance of indigenous
content broadcasters but also indigenous language production indigenous language broadcasting, we have an indigenous languages APP that came out in 2019 which endorses
UNDRIP for example, the United Nations Declaration on the rights of indigenous people, clause 16 there speaks about the rights of indigenous people to
Have broadcasters that are bringing out media in their own languages, the CRTC is
In the midst of a consultation process to update it's what used to be called the native broadcasting policy so it's now
the indigenous broadcasting policy there'll be a big focus on language in there as well, if you look at the ministers
mandate letter, a commitment to the indigenous languages act and seeing that enacted is the number four priority, so if you look at the level of words you'd be like oh my god what an opportune time.
But then I look at it through the lens of the organization where I work and people, you I work with Zacharias Kunuk the director of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner you know someone who for
30 years has been fighting for the right to make content in his own language when he did his first documentary in the 80s
he had to battle Canada council because he was told you know that he didn't qualify as an artist what he did was seen as craft because he was Inuit
Right that's the 1980s so that was the battle then, when Atanarjuat was made and came out in 2001, this is the 20th year anniversary.
But they were making it 98, 99 and initially were told by telefilm this film is in a foreign language, it can't
be supported you know by our system and our policies so it's just been barrier after barrier after
barrier and Inuit in particular have fought very long and hard to have a channel that's in their own language
and this has finally launched, and it really is against all of the odds in the
In the system, like everything in Canada's system is set up to support English and French language production, 65% English 35% French
And there are really nice words about indigenous languages, but none of the broadcaster's want it so they're not asking for it.
Which means all of the funds, including the CMF's indigenous fund has kind of taken out the wording around language and the points that are given
for language and all of it gets watered down, so people who could be making stuff in their language and want to do that, and of course language is the seat of culture it's
so important to use media as a tool to revitalize language anyway, all I want to say is that the intention is there it's there in the
in the words but the policies don't support it so just trying to use that as an example of how important it is to make sure
that we really understand what our goals are and that the policy mechanisms support those goals, otherwise
it just remains words and I'm sure we can all think of examples in other aspects of our lives where we see that happening.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great thank you, Charlie I wonder if there's something that you'd like to add on this front as well.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: No, but I'm just curious, if I can I ask a question.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Totally.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: And what I would ask to Michelle is like that's really
that's important and I'm wondering what strategies are in place to mobilize
policymakers to prioritize this or look at this more in depth to have this much needed
policy in place.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: A lot of conversations like we've had meetings with the CMF we've had meetings with heritage, with the CRTC so.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: talking to people, and I mean like the intentions are there right, and I think people recognize the importance of it.
But I think, where the system gets caught a bit is most of the agencies have both commercial imperatives and cultural imperatives and sometimes it's really hard to align them and
Kelly, I think when you were talking about how you define success right that's a key thing.
There were times in the early 2000s were telefilm CMF you know even CBC had this really kind of market driven private sector kind of
model of what success is supposed to look like. Canada is a huge country there are so many communities that are badly served or not served at all in this country.
And if you're looking at the market to define what success is then your conclusion is well these you know
40,000 people who speak Inuktitut just don't deserve to be served because they're not a big enough slice of the market.
Or you know and then multiply that by you know however many other communities, so we do need measures that are looking at who is the intended audience and how do we get you know
This content to those audiences and impact can be small as well, but if we all agree it's important to serve people and not just serve kind of mainstream audiences in Toronto
Montreal and Vancouver, then we have to come up with the policies to support that.
But it's a struggle and I think a big part of it is that schizophrenia around commercial and cultural, I can see, you know, the number of people that it just ties into.
To not because they often work at counter purposes and I'm hopeful that that's one of the areas that people are really bearing on
down on now while we do have this opportunity to make some big changes in our policy and our legislative frameworks and how things
support all of our goals, our commercial goals in terms of culture, but also our cultural goals that are not first and foremost commercially focused.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah so there was, one of the things that I think about quite a lot in this kind of a context is, and I would just
take a moment to say that we would welcome any questions from the audience or comments from the audience, please
Get engaged in the conversation, we'd love for you to get engaged in the conversation with us, but I am thinking about the kind of
question around sovereignty in the sense of how do each of these segments of our population
From, not just from kind of an equity and inclusion point of view, but just from the point of view of the kind of seeing yourself in the world.
How do we set up a structure that enables the kind of the self definition of what is success right and
I'm you know the work that I focused on in the last few years has been around creative hubs and networks in Canada and internationally, and the way that that kind of comes together is
where is the place in the data collection, or in the impact evaluation where those communities
organizations can center what their own visions and objectives are, and therefore we can take a measure on the policy side
and including the funding side and other policy instruments to see how those are performing so that it's a little bit more of a dialogue than a top down
or bottom up or kind of an enforced process and I'm just sort of curious about, I mean
to me it sounds like a lot of the experiences in the pandemic have been moves in that direction right.
And but the challenges are definitely the precarity of the whole sector, and you know and thinking about how
How do we enable that kind of work going forward, how do we provide resources and supports for people to understand for themselves better as creative workers in and the kind of resources
that they're going to need, Charlie I'm thinking a little bit about kind of the equity X program but also you know sort of other
pilot initiatives, I guess, I would say is how do you not just how do you say this is what the status
quo is but also here are some tools to help you imagine what you want, what you think the future should be.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: That's a great question, I mean what is success is something that
it's a complicated question because
For us on one degree it's about helping participants that gain access to our programs and grants, be able to have a positive impact from that type of support to help them grow in their career.
But then, you know we have funders that support us like TD and RBC and so their metrics of success of a program might be different from what we're working with in terms of success so.
You know conversations have to happen to ensure that we're on the same page about what we're doing and shared values with the objectives.
But I would say, like some of the practices that we've been doing is making sure that majority of participants accepted into our programs
are in fact from diverse communities, which is radically different from what has traditionally been done in the past.
I mean, we have a variety of programs where
The funding level is small but more people get access to it and it's very like are you SOCAN member, and do you have proof of doing this activity, like an email confirmation.
We don't need a jury it's like you qualify the funding is yours and that process actually creates more access because there's no such activity we don't need to listen to your music and say
Oh, this is great in this is like okay it doesn't matter it's really until those funds are depleted and that's been really
in conversation from like people who've benefited from it was appreciated, because that format has actually positioned us to be
the first time funder for a lot of emerging artists and getting that grant boosts confidence, it creates
credibility when they apply for other funding and they can say oh, I have confirmed funding for my project, so it helps build capacity.
So I mean there's so many metrics that we take here, but I think the big thing right now is
and it's long overdue, not just for foundation, but SOCAN too is how are we challenging ourselves to do better with EDI we know, not just with covid, there's been a huge impact with
how the industry is reflecting on anti black racism and we're seeing a lot of organizations do EDI studies internally to look at how they're operating.
Understanding perceptions and concerns from the staff but also key stakeholders externally.
And one of the things that I don't want to happen because it's not a competition it's just I don't want anybody to get left behind we've done a lot of great work engaging with indigenous artists, for example
and members of the community, like our partnership with the indigenous music awards and so it's like there's so many priorities like putting gender at the forefront or
Making sure we're doing more for black specific communities and then so indigenous as well, so I find sometimes it's a bit of a challenge
even externally, to make sure that we're not leaving people behind, but whatever innovations we're doing forward, even if it's specific to a particular community
is that we're just mindful of like is this program you know, can we replicate it to serve this community, for instance, or.
yeah so lots going on in that regard, I think.
You know at SOCAN the big priority is making sure the members get paid right like that's the business at the end of the day.
I'm thankful at the foundation that we have a little bit more of a CSR role, but the money that we work with to be able to give back to the community is super dependent on
The financial, we can say success of SOCAN, which is an increase in revenues which reflects that Canadian music is being consumed globally, not just in Canada.
And so obviously that's going to be impacted as a result of the pandemic and live music being put on a halt in certain markets, including Canada at this time, but
it's still to be determined, but we are seeing a massive growth in digital so it would be interesting to see what is that transformed to and what kind of programs, can we
do with cultivating artists more with those revenues, so I mean it's we're still in that unknown phase, as I mentioned, the way
that our financials are accounted for it's a little bit of an awkward cycle and being a year behind.
But I would say, like EDI is the big thing, and of course advocacy, especially with Kelly talking about, as well as Michelle with Bill C-10.
There's obviously concerns from the music side as well around, how do we champion this and yeah I mean I can go on and on, so i'll just pause there for a quick minute.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great thank you and I just Lise Ann, I think you're here now, just in time for the Q and a, the so welcome, thank you.
LISE ANN JOHNSON: Thank you, my apologies to everyone.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: It happens right it's kinda like, it was totally anyway so glad that you could join us for the Q and A so all your Canada Council questions can now
now be addressed.
LISE ANN JOHNSON: I'm here
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: I just, great thank you, we've just been talking about you know we kind of moved through the timeline from pre covid through covid and some of the
very fast and fast changing initiatives that were tried during that period of time and we're kind of, on the other side of that conversation and thinking about.
What are the ways in which current legislative priorities or current policy priorities can be helpful here both from a kind of a strategic point of view, but also an on the ground point of view, so if
I don't know if you, do want to just take a couple minutes to talk a little bit about what is on the horizon for Canada Council in terms of the priorities that you're looking at as strategic initiatives.
LISE ANN JOHNSON: Sure, I won't take up too much time because I know that
You want to be able to keep this time for question and answer I think what I'll do is just simply point to our
Our new strategic plan, which was released in April and is available on our website and I encourage people to check it out.
It is a strategic plan that lays out Councils strategic directions for the next five years it's very much
framed in the context of the impact of covid-19 and the pandemic on the arts sector, so it is focused
on supporting the recovery of the art sector, it has
A number of directions, it has three main directions one focused
on supporting the recovery of the arts sector through things like innovation, so it will include
Encouraging new business models, digital transformation, it has a direction and a commitment related to
helping the social impact of the arts and then the third direction is tied to partnerships and networks and collaboration.
So it is very much in the spirit of trying to build back better. Digital is, which was a big commitment in our previous strat plan
is more of a theme that actually weaves its way through the three main commitments, but it is a plan that is meant to
try and support the sector in its recovery towards
an ecosystem and an infrastructure that addresses some of the inequity
LISE ANN JOHNSON: inequities that existed prior to the pandemic and have been exacerbated through the pandemic.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: That's perfect timing and just so you know Kelly's computer just completely crashed so she's coming back we're not doing musical chairs here but
So Kelly has just got to track down another device to rejoin.
But thank you, that was really helpful and I mean one of the things that I think is really interesting about the language, and I will come back to Lowell's question
In the chat in a minute, one of things I think that's really interesting is the kind of conversation that is happening around
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: trying to reframe
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: cultural objectives or social objectives at Canada Council in terms that can
relate to industry, even if they're not prioritizing industry right and then vice versa.
From the point of view, and this is one of the questions that we sort of got dug into a little bit more earlier.
is thinking about how those imperatives the kind of cultural, commercial imperatives and the tensions that exist
between them or among them, particularly when we're talking about marginalized or under represented
creative work or people and thinking about how do we actually achieve
a balanced, I call it an ecosystem, there are other terms for it, but a balanced ecosystem that has
that allows for growth and development and also operation at kind of modest levels as well as supporting
you know kind of what might be termed big success in a variety of other measures that take place.
The reason I bring that up is partly because of Lowell's question around this.
One of the things we need to consider here is to help creators understand who they are and what they do and when I was talking about that earlier, it was not in
It was not, it was kind like people understand perfectly well who they are, and what their creative impetus is but how do you provide
space and resources in order for them to identify what it is that they need so, for example, Michelle when you were talking about
Inuit broadcasting right the steps that were required in order to get there to on the one hand
address the barriers and obstacles that stood in the way and then on the other hand, to be forced to take on the responsibility of educating policymakers around
Inuit language as a language of this territory was, that's a double duty
that is, needs to be supported right, you can't, to make those demands on people as creators is
Is onerous similarly in terms of when we think about inclusion and equity that part of the issue that we're
dealing with in battling anti racism or in thinking about strategies and funding and support organizations, Kelly's back, is
is thinking about having to place resources in those areas right we can't just say it, we have to do it.
And I like the notion Lowell that you said of transfer of knowledge that allows artists into the policy process, there was a
panel the other day that was kind of you know, part of what we were talking about was any kind of consultative
process in any area of our society needs to invite, needs to include artists, because that is how
that's how we can
move information and knowledge and artists are often placed in a position of translating between segments of society.
Great.
Other questions comments on thinking about where we go from here.
LISE ANN JOHNSON: Could I maybe make a comment ME about your note around bridging the professional arts and the
creative industries in particular for artists and it is something that at council we want to look at ways to do that.
Without necessarily going into duplication of mandates and resources across.
You know, various organizations, we do, I do believe that in particularly the digital sphere
and when we move into a kind of digital economy that there is an
important role for council to play in terms of helping artists and recognizing that artists also have transferable skills and that in fact artists do work
in a kind of not for profit professional arts context, but that they also are in many cases, working in creative industries as well.
And that that is something to be in many ways encouraged and not discouraged, so one of the initiatives that we've been running
Not as a funding program but as a partnership is something called the UK Canada immersive exchange and it's a program that we're running with
the Canada media fund and the Canadian film center with arts council England and StoryFutures in the UK
and it is an exchange of producers and artists and creative leads with the goal of the creation of
Of international co-productions in the area of immersive storytelling.
And so, enabling professional artists who may not have an immersive background or even a digital background
but who have narrative storytelling skills to be able to enter these worlds and build these relationships and
have access to create in other ways and to disseminate in other ways I think is important.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great.
Thank you it's a lovely example of
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: I mean kind of thinking about making those boundaries more porous.
I think about it in terms of even just kind of the funding structures, the division between Tri-Council funding in the academic sphere and
Canada Council funding on the creative side, and then the you know kind of the further division and construction of
various forms of funding for the media industry in the media sector and we're in this really interesting moment where
Where there is, there are kind of these, there's moves to make overlaps actually structurally happen, and I think less so.
Between kind of the music side, although in some ways they've always existed, I don't want to say that but there've been
there've been more examples of that crossover, it's been more obvious that artists on the
music part and music sector tend to, it's more visible when they're, when artists are working
kind of on the creative, focusing on creative development versus focusing on business development right.
Yeah, other comments, go ahead
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: I'll just underline that I'm so glad to hear that
Lisa and I worked at the
national film board for many years and of course documentary filmmakers are people who inhabit that space right, that is between kind of
an auteur artistic practice but you know sometimes is also going to have that potential to be on television and I can't tell you
the number of artists I've spoken to you know who kind of started the project on a Canada Council route but then were able to get some
mainstream funding and then they just get tied up into knots and then have to drop the Canada Council piece
And it comes up all the time, is there a way like if the goal of all of us is to support the
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Artists can we come up with the framework to allow the money to support those goals
and I guess it gets back to this bigger conversation about yeah how do we make sure that policies are supporting goals and not
Not working against them and that is what's exciting about this time, the opportunity to
think through some of that stuff and people really are leaning in engaged to Lowell's question.
I think we all have been in consultations that feel fake and you know when they're fake and I've been at
quite a few of the recent ones and they do feel really real like people are listening and you don't have that sense oh they know what they're going to do already and just
want me in the room, so that they can say that they listen to people and that's, it's a great thing to see it's really heartening so these are interesting times for sure, in that way.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great, thank you.
KELLY WILHELM: We don't know what we're going to do.
The consultation behind it.
Anyone who has really brilliant thoughts about how to transition from the current system of broadcast trigger
and market interest to something that is more holistically able to achieve the cultural and
commercial objectives of our organization, we are all
ears because you know in those conversations we have I think, great alignment around the direction we need to go
right, about what those priorities what those principles are that kind of need to underlie where the CMF goes next but
we need other models and one of the reasons why the immersive project with the UK, one of the reasons, when we first approached the Canada Council to partner with us on that
That model came partly because the UK partners were working in that way already right, so it
was the StoryFutures and the arts Council England had already kind of started that, let's see if we can bridge
these two pieces together and then that kind of spurred us in Canada to say okay well let's talk to the Canada Council and the film Center and see if we can do a similar thing.
And I think
when we think about the next iterations of all of our programming across these different parts of these industries
we need to be talking to each other a whole lot more than we are now because every one of these instincts we're talking about, flexibility
providing more creative space for ownership of storytelling or narrative early in the process, that's a big theme we're hearing from creators right now, from writers directors from
Even production companies that want to develop an idea or option material that exists already, they want that creative space at the front end to figure out what this is going to be.
KELLY WILHELM: Put the right amount of time and energy into developing it before they're tied to that distribution
agreement right because so much is possible in that first stage
where once you've got a really brilliant piece of work, then you can start to have the conversations and that could look much different than the way we support it now.
So that whole what is that first phase right, in each one of our parts of the cultural industries or the arts sector that's a common question I think we're all asking ourselves and then at what point do
Those commercial and other types of partners need to come into the equation, and I just I think there's so much to be gained from continuing these cross industry
conversations, not surprising I would say that having worked at the Canada Council, the Canada media fund and Foreign Minister of heritage where
all things collided at different points in my time there but I think this is something we all could get better at.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great.
Thank you, any question from our.
I'm looking at Laura and Brian because I just was at your panel on music and I just wondered because I'm
You know you brought up some interesting things in your panel on music and I just wonder if there's a connection to be made here about how this kind of flexibility and thinking about
Sustainability and community, what community means in the music sector, how those connect to the work that both of you Laura and Brian are doing on the music side.
BRIAN FAUTEUX: Yeah I guess, I mean I'm just enjoying, I've been listening and
enjoy hearing these perspectives and you know the questions around
grants and funding is something that just for some context to the panelists a part of a project that looked at
BRIAN FAUTEUX: A number of
BRIAN FAUTEUX: issues facing Canadian independent music artists over the last few years and we spoke to about 18 or
so in Edmonton and Winnipeg and there was grants and various
various sources of support definitely came up and
In our conversations there seem to be some positive results of certain transformations that have been made things like
grants that maybe support time and living expenses in order to create as opposed to instrumental metrics and it's interesting to hear
How that balance between the sort of commercial and cultural gets worked out because that's something that a number of artists, you know have
questions and concerns about in a contemporary context of course, especially as we move away from
material recorded objects as being sort of the center of how one might make a living or
might you know, show the productivity of a grant, it's not always how that plays out so you know one thing I'm really interested
in is how much creativity or you know how radical can one to imagine
A reframing or changes to the sort of metrics that might play out with respect to how funding is allocated.
You know, how can you measure how meaningful something might you know, a piece of music might be or a particular performance to an audience for instance, or
You know contributions that may not take place within a certain timeframe, but maybe down the road something emerges, you know a lot of artists talking about how
You know having the time either through a grant or even something like a songwriter in residence program how
things don't always materialized right away but then maybe in three or four years it becomes an album or it becomes a song, so I don't really know if I have
A question per se just that I've enjoyed hearing the conversation play out and one thing that I'm thinking through in research now is, you know how to
You know, think about ways of also bridging that commercial and cultural and
You know grants, one thing that all artists did mention is how important grants are for
their sort of livelihoods if you will, that's something sort of unique to Canada versus artists in the US, for instance.
BRIAN FAUTEUX: So yeah, that's not really a question so much I just thought I would
BRIAN FAUTEUX: chime in based on your prompt there ME.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah, well one of the things I think i'm hearing
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: From what you're saying you know I keep thinking about some, a lot of the work that happened, particularly at times of technological transition so in the
You know kind of the late 90s, and through the early 2000s, the way in which transitions were accomplished was by supporting
the people who were doing the work and not paying really strict attention to what the rules were about how
You know what a particular large institution might do and again, and I think you know the notion of a musician in residence or an artist in residence that doesn't have
A measurable outcome and may not ever be attached to an outcome down the road is really about that development phase right.
That Kelly, you were just talking about is what are those structures and supports that can exist and, in some ways and Laura maybe can I put you on the spot a little bit in terms of thinking about
That community base right where sometimes it's not even to achieve some cultural objectives or some
or some commercial imperatives, but to also
make a healthy community or in ways that cannot be measured for 10, 15, 20, 100 years right.
LAURA RISK: Thanks ME.
I'm really enjoying this panel and it's got my mind spinning I think I'm a little like Brian just trying to think through these ideas.
Just a brief introduction I guess to myself, I teach in the department of arts culture and media
at the University of Toronto Scarborough. I'm a colleague of ME's and I'm in the music and culture program and
I'm just finishing up co-editing a triple special issue of the journal critical studies and improvisation on
improvisation musical communities and the pandemic and I could put that link in the chat if you interested but
But much of that journal, it has a number of academic articles but the focus is actually on what
we're calling community voices, so we have pieces from musicians, agents, festival directors
the head of public policy at Facebook.
We kind of, just trying to get all the voices at the table and
I'm going to get to your question about communities, but maybe I'll just say that I think one of the things about the pandemic that
has really struck me and one of the things I'm hearing in this panel is we are having these conversations
and artists are having these conversations, the fact that we could reach out to 50, 60
members of the
musical industry and say can you write something or contribute a video or contribute
an audio for a journal it's partly because they're all out of work and at home.
But there's something special happening right now, there is a conversation and it's really exciting for me to hear this panel and all of the panelists who are
working with
who are channeling the funding and saying that
we, do you want to be in this conversation with artists.
Maybe I'm just not aware of this happening in the past but this feels, to me this feels like something special that we to hold on to.
and I, just to follow up on the communities idea I feel like
hasn't this been a central theme of the pandemic that
music is what's holding us together and this comes up over and over I see it in the paper so often of
people coming together on some kind of online musical event or some sort of outdoors music making.
And not just music that's just my field but art in general that art is bringing people together, art is supporting our mental health, art is
supporting our communities, art is what will bring us back together, none of that is quantifiable financially
but that seems to be what we've arrived at in terms of what will hold us together as a society, so somehow we have to figure out how to support that.
I don't have the answer to that but I feel like I, what I'm hearing in this panel which is exciting is that you're asking that same question, so
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yeah.
LAURA RISK: Thanks
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Yes, thank you Laura, thank you for having the panel land on that note for our kind of final few minutes, thank you both.
And I'm welcome anybody else in the room also if you have comments or questions, but maybe let's take the last
two, three minutes for our panelists if you want to make any final comments.
CHARLIE WALL-ANDREWS: Yeah
LISE ANN JOHNSON: I'll start
Ok I'm sorry, you go Lise.
You go Lise Ann.
LISE ANN JOHNSON: I'll be brief, I'll start by just apologizing again for missing the majority of this panel and so please accept my deepest
apologies, I will just maybe put a couple thoughts out there, one is, I do think it's possible to have
outcomes, program outcomes that are not just about big
impact, financial impact, I think you know council moved to outcomes based programs
in 2017 and we do support things like residencies and risk taking and creative development and
and you know our programs are built to measure things that are maybe hard to measure which is artistic advancement and creativity and
impact on an artist's career, and so there are ways to measure the things that are less about big financial
impact or quantifiable things and I think there's been a lot of really interesting research around the intrinsic
capturing the intrinsic value of the arts and things like how do people feel when they attend a symphony or they hear a song or they
come out of a play and I think those, and what's the impact of that on people's well being
and health, and I think those are important things to be able to capture and measure so.
I'll just say, that'll be my final comment.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great thanks and I put the strategic plan in the link in the chat, Laura's put the volume in the chat
Kelly's put some information about CMF, particularly the strategy that was released yesterday.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Charlie?
Just wanted to say that this is really great to have space to hold this important conversation reflecting on
Banff to where we are now and I hope that we continue to have this conversation as
You know things still, we're still in the thick of this pandemic and we're still working really hard to
address EDI in our industry and I just want to say thanks so much for the chance to be here.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: Great Thank you, Kelly?
KELLY WILHELM: Just likewise.
KELLY WILHELM: Thanks everyone for the conversation it's been one of the best ones I've been part of in a panel like this in a while.
We missed you Lise Ann at the beginning but I'm glad you're able to join us, and I would say too in terms of the community participation and the consultation and how
all of that will unfold for the CMF in the next, while I put my email in the chat
so anyone who wants to know a little bit more about that or participate in some way, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
This past year we're doing our consultations much differently than we have in the past, so I think there is a shift right, in terms of when you're imagining a future you really need to talk to
the people who are going to help to create it right, which is not the usual clients of
CMF necessarily, it is often them as well, because we do have a really strong and robust industry with many, many different identities expressed in the stories.
However, we're really trying to open it up this time around, so there will be more and stay tuned for all those changes and thanks again ME for bringing us together.
MARY ELIZABETH LUKA: My pleasure and Michelle last word.
MICHELLE VAN BEUSEKOM: Yeah what a great conversation, Laura Brian, I just wanted to thank you for your
intervention and it just kind of crystallized in my mind something that's often there, we need to think more about people and we need to think more about process and more about
community and less about product and outcome, I think that actually doesn't give us the best outcomes and Charlie I love the example that you gave of that
grant system where you know it's not jury there's just kind of, you know there's a criteria you hit that you access it supporting the person, the person has hit a certain bar.
Therefore, they're trusted to do this and no one has to judge if it's a good idea or bad idea, and I think there's something really
beautiful in that and I'd love to see the industry move more in that direction and yeah look forward to continuing this conversation, thanks so much ME.
My pleasure, and thank you everybody, we've run slightly over time but I really appreciate
everybody hanging in and glad you all have the chance to meet each other and talk with each other.