Social Affairs, Science and Technology

Honourable senators, I rise today to address the motion moved by Senator Lankin, who is proposing that the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology study the future of workers in Canada especially in the context of the gig economy or the on-demand economy.

Three months ago I wrote a speech on this subject when COVID-19 was not part of our lives. At the time, we could not have imagined the upheaval that this virus would cause in our personal lives, work, institutions and what we consider to be a “normal life”.

In light of what has happened over the past few months, I believe it is more important than ever that real action be taken to respond to the growing concerns of labour and precarious workers.

I will address these concerns from the point of view of an economic sector for which there are few platforms left in the Senate, namely, the arts, culture and cultural industries sector.

This sector includes artists of colour, new immigrants and self-employed workers, categories of citizens that the senator would like to pay particular attention to in this study.

Over the course of my career as an artist and cultural manager, I’ve always been interested in topics connected to status of the artists and the precarious working conditions that artists and many cultural managers live with. Within New Brunswick’s Association acadienne des artistes professionnel.le.s, where I had the pleasure of working for over a decade, I focused on developing public policy models that enable artists and cultural workers to be fully recognized.

Furthermore, in my decades as a professional musician, I was very familiar with the reality of living contract to contract or, as we say in the business, living from gig to gig.

You may already know this, but the expression “gig economy” originates from the music industry. According to Oxford Music Online:

“Gig” refers to: “A term commonly applied to a musical engagement of one night’s duration only . . . .”

When I read that definition, I obviously recognized myself in it, but I also recognized in it most of my former artist and cultural worker colleagues from here and elsewhere who make a living from their art and their passion, even though it may not be a stable job.

I would like to remind honourable senators that, in Canada, there are over 158,000 artists and 726,000 cultural workers. This category includes those who hold occupations in the heritage and cultural fields and professional artists themselves. Although I do not have any specific data for workers in the gig economy, according to the 2016 census, 52% of artists were self-employed.

Here is what I want to tell you about their job security. In 2016, the median income of artists was $24,300, while the median income of the workforce in general was $43,500. That means that the median income of artists is 44% lower than that of the general workforce in Canada.

There are a number of reasons for this reality, including the lack of recognition of the invisible work of workers in the arts and culture sector. In this sector, that notion applies to all of the research, preparation, exploration, artistic development, ideation and design that is done early on in an artistic project. Unfortunately, that work is overlooked and unpaid. This situation no doubt also occurs in other types of jobs, but it clearly illustrates the problems with adapting our public policies to the evolving realities of the labour market in the cultural sector.

Workers in this sector have unusual jobs, of course, but their jobs should be protected just like jobs in other sectors in Canada.

Here’s an overview of the challenges that arts and culture workers identified during a 2013 forum on the professional status of artists. The same challenges were reported in the Cultural Human Resources Council’s report entitled Labour Market Information Study of the Cultural Labour Force 2019.

The challenges are as follows: no benefits, unstable earnings, lack of training, the expectation that artists should volunteer, the need to multi-task, and low job security. Technological progress has also been very hard on the cultural sector. According to the recent Yale report, the labour shortage and globalization have had a definite impact on this category of workers.

Businesses in the arts and culture sector also pointed to many of these challenges as having a significant impact on their ability to attract workers. Esteemed colleagues, this excerpt from the Cultural Human Resources Council report about consultations with key arts and culture partners really resonated with me. I would like to quote it, if I may.

Nearly every interviewee mentioned that a “poverty mentality” is pervasive in Canada’s cultural sector; the poverty mentality manifests itself in low wages (offered by organizations, and expected by funders), lack of benefits for most employees (e.g., no pension plans, no additional healthcare coverage), and limited interest among Canadians in paying artists for the full extent of their work (e.g., people might complain about paying for the preparation an artist has to undertake before a performance). These issues affect all dimensions of an artist’s life, including but not limited to income and food insecurity, their ability to access affordable housing, and their physical and mental well-being.

Today, as we begin the reopening process, we are discovering little by little the harmful effects of the pandemic on society as a whole, including the arts and culture sector and especially the performing arts, theatre, music and dance. The COVID-19 crisis has made real many of these concerns. It has become impossible to ignore the importance of the need to reflect and to take concrete action to ensure that workers in the gig economy are protected.

Since the pandemic started, the notion of precarious employment has taken on new meaning. It is no longer just a risk or an abstract concept. On the contrary, this pandemic has been devastating for all of the workers in the cultural sector. They are all dealing with the consequences of having no benefits, no job security and an inadequate income. No worker has been left unscathed.

We acknowledge that, from the beginning of this crisis, the federal government has been making efforts to listen to cultural sector workers. The CERB extension announced a few days ago is one example, and the Prime Minister’s announcements this morning are another. But we all know that these are short-term emergency measures and that we will have to keep supporting this sector by fully understanding and appreciating the issues faced by Canada’s arts and culture sector.

These past few months, we have often heard federal and provincial elected officials, among others, say that artists need to reinvent themselves in response to the pandemic. I have to say that such statements are extremely troubling, because they make certain elected officials seem like they have no concept of the very nature of art.

Honourable senators, artists are, by nature, reinventing themselves every day, in the way they take in and portray the world. Although artists and cultural workers are creative, resilient and able to reinvent themselves, they cannot bear alone the brunt of the pandemic’s impact on the sector. They need concrete support from us.

The study proposed by Senator Lankin will be an opportunity for us to reflect on the future of our workers and identify measures that will provide decent working conditions for all Canadians. This study gives us an opportunity to propose legislation to change the social safety net for all workers with precarious jobs.

Of course, this study will likely not provide answers to all of our questions, but we will be able to help strengthen workers’ rights, create a better future and put an end to this “poverty mentality” that permeates our perceptions of the cultural sector.

In closing, I want to take this opportunity to commend our colleagues for their leadership on this matter. Since my arrival in the Senate, I’ve been delighted to hear the debates on Senator Bellemare’s inquiry about full employment in the 21st century in a globalized economy and Senator Poirier’s inquiry into seasonal work and to hear Senator Lankin’s recent speech, just to name a few of the many interventions that have drawn our attention to these crucial issues. On behalf of workers across the country, I want to thank you. Thank you for your attention, esteemed colleagues.