Methodology
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A. ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Before it launched the study, the Office of the Commissioner set up an advisory committee to provide guidance and advice on the overall approach to be taken. The committee was composed of three senior executives representing national and provincial organizations involved in promoting the interests of Anglophone and Francophone minority artists. These three organizations were the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française (FCCF), the Regroupement des éditeurs canadiens-français and the English-Language Arts Network. The committee provided advice regarding the documentation to be reviewed and the people and organizations to be interviewed. Then it validated findings and provided feedback on the recommendations.3 A list of advisory committee members can be found in the Appendix.
B. PROCEDURE
The study was conducted with the assistance of Meta4 Creative Communications and Micheline Lesage & Associés/Associates, which gathered the data, conducted the interviews and drafted a report on the results and their conclusions.
Two methods were used to gather the information: a literature review and an analysis of the relevant documentation on policies and programs, and interviews with the targeted federal institutions and organizations involved in the arts and culture.
Literature review and analysis of the documentation
There are a large number of documents on the arts and culture in Francophone minority communities. The Office of the Commissioner’s goal was not to perform an exhaustive review of these documents in order to describe the general situation of Francophone minority artists, because this would have gone well beyond the scope of the study. The main purpose of the literature review was to highlight and put into context the issues that were identified during the interviews. However, it is important to point out that there are very few analyses and studies addressing the experience of Anglophone minorities in Quebec in the arts and culture. As a result, the interviews served as the primary source for determining the issues faced by Anglophone artists in Quebec.
Nor was the purpose of this study to provide an exhaustive description of the different federal programs devoted to the arts and culture. All of the support programs that were analyzed are described in detail on the Web sites of the different government bodies, and readers can refer to them for additional information.
In terms of the quantitative and financial data, the reference document used for Francophones outside Quebec was the Étude sur le positionnement de la francophonie canadienne au sein des grandes institutions culturelles fédérales 2004–2005.4 This document provides data collected over a five-year period by the FCCF with financial assistance from the Interdepartmental Coordination Directorate at Canadian Heritage.
This study outlines the contribution made by these institutions to the artists and the arts and culture organizations of Canada’s Francophone communities outside Quebec, while highlighting the gaps, lags and gains in the support they provide. The data compiled by the FCCF includes not only the allocated amounts but also the number of grant applications and contributions awarded to Francophones outside Quebec compared with the total number of approved funding requests for all Francophone communities across Canada.
There are specific challenges related to funding for English minorities. An overall analysis of all investments in Quebec’s English-speaking community has not been carried out. Funding for Anglophones under the Interdepartmental Partnership with the Official-Language Communities is recorded, but many other programs do not take the recipients’ minority status into account. For example, an organization such as FACTOR, which is dedicated to promoting English-language music in Canada, does not keep track of the preferred official language of the applicants (some applicants are Francophones), thereby making it impossible to measure the impact of this funding on the English minority in Quebec.
There are also programs for which an analysis of the applicants’ minority status would not be relevant. Examples include Canadian Heritage’s Arts Presentation Canada, which provides funding for many international events such as the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and the Just for Laughs Festival. Yet these events are intended for a diverse audience and bring together performers from around the world, including Quebec’s Anglophones. As a result, it is impossible to determine the exact proportion of grants under these programs that is used specifically for Quebec’s English-speaking audiences and artists.
The financial data on Quebec’s Anglophones is therefore incomplete and is not directly comparable to the available data on Francophone minorities. That being said, the purpose of the study was not to compare the amounts granted to the two language groups; rather, it was to verify whether, in each language community taken separately, organizations and artists receive the support they need to contribute to the vitality of their community, based on their particular situation.
Interviews
The Office of the Commissioner conducted eight interviews with official language minority community arts and culture organizations and 13 interviews with representatives from seven federal departments and agencies. The institutions that were interviewed fall under two categories: those that provide funding and are responsible for policy (like Canadian Heritage), and those whose role is to deliver, present and disseminate the arts and culture (like the National Arts Centre and the Canada Council for the Arts).
The Office of the Commissioner conducted interviews with arts organizations to determine the key issues for these groups and to learn about their views on the effectiveness of the federal programs in addressing these issues (see Table 1). A large number of Francophone organizations are involved in the arts and culture, both in the production and in the promotion of cultural activities. Many of them are in the field and in the regions, and it would have been useful to have been able to consult more of them during the study. However, the interests of these groups are well represented by national organizations such as the FCCF and its member organizations, which work on identifying the key issues and achieving a consensus. Recognizing that these umbrella organizations can speak effectively on behalf of their members, the Office of the Commissioner decided that interviewing the main national organizations would be sufficient.
Each interview was approximately one and a half hours long and was conducted in the fall of 2006, in person in the case of individuals located in the National Capital Region or in Montréal, and by telephone in all other cases. Two interview guides were prepared in both official languages: one for federal departments and agencies and one for arts organization representatives.
An open discussion at the end of every interview was used to explore other aspects of the issue, validate certain comments by the interviewees and, in some cases, obtain certain documents that were difficult to access. A list of interviewees can be found in the Appendix.
| Table 1 – List of organizations that participated in the interviews | |
|---|---|
| Federal departments and agencies and their partners | Number of Interviews |
| Canadian Heritage | 5 |
| Canada Council for the Arts | 3 |
| National Arts Centre | 1 |
| National Film Board | 1 |
| Telefilm Canada | 1 |
| FACTOR | 1 |
| MUSICACTION | 1 |
| Non-governmental organizations dedicated to the arts | |
| Alliance nationale de l’industrie musicale | 1 |
| Association des groupes en arts visuels francophones | 1 |
| English-Language Arts Network | 1 |
| Fédération culturelle canadienne-française | 1 |
| Quebec Drama Federation | 1 |
| Quebec Writers’ Federation | 1 |
| Regroupement des éditeurs canadiens-français | 1 |
| Réseau atlantique de diffusion des arts de la scène | 1 |
Notes
3 Thanks to the invaluable contribution of the Advisory Committee, the Office of the Commissioner was able to validate the conclusions of the study. Nevertheless, responsibility for the final recommendations rests entirely with the Office of the Commissioner.
4 Fédération culturelle canadienne-française, Étude sur le positionnement de la francophonie canadienne au sein des grandes institutions culturelles fédérales : mise à jour des tableaux pour les années 2003–2004 et 2004–2005, March 2007.
