7. Cultural Sector Consultations

As opposed to how the cultural sector is seen from the outside, this chapter provides insights into how the sector sees itself. Input from cultural workers, businesses, and organizations represents a vital source of labour market information for the cultural sector. This input was obtained through two online surveys and a series of regional focus groups and interview sessions.

The consultations with cultural sector participants and organizations provided valuable input about the regional and occupational labour issues affecting the cultural sector in Canada now and in the coming years. The findings from these industry consultations helped shape the final projections of the long-term forecast for labour supply and demand in Canada’s cultural sector.

7.1 Focus Group Sessions

The focus-group phase was an important step in preparing the qualitative portion of this labour market information report to better interpret the quantitative analyses. Initially, six focus groups were to be held, one each in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montréal, and Halifax. The cities of Moncton, Charlottetown, St. John’s, Regina, and Whitehorse were added for further consultations. This allowed for CHRC and the Conference Board to consult with over 160 cultural sector workers and employers from across the country and from the various cultural domains.

The discussions began with a retrospective look at the performance of the cultural sector from the perspective of the Culture Satellite Account and preliminary projections from the Conference Board’s labour supply and demand model. With this background, participants openly discussed a broad range of issues and concerns that not only affected their careers in the sector but also broadly affected their sector. Two major themes were common to all of the focus groups and endemic to the sector in an economically perverse relationship: scarcity of resources and abundance of available production. This report explores these two themes along with the sector’s vulnerability to economic forces. Feedback from the focus groups included a consistent ideological challenge to both the nomenclature used in current information tools and the accuracy with which they depict or mine information about cultural work.

7.1.1 Scarcity of Resources

Monetary Issues

Monetary issues—including lack of revenues, difficulty offering competitive wages, precarity of work, and the general difficulty of securing funding and revenue streams—appeared to be the common thread throughout the discussions with for-profit and non-profit organizations and individuals. This issue is supported by the findings in this study that while 3.6 per cent of the Canadian labour force worked in the cultural sector during 2015, the sector contributed only 2.7 per cent of the total Canadian GDP that year.

Meanwhile, while many employers reported that their employees were satisfied and engaged in the work and tasks that needed to be accomplished, ultimately, it was difficult to retain employees due to a lack of benefits offered or a reduction in paid-hours to cope with shrinking budgets. On top of that, participants said cultural organizations are often understaffed and so workers need to work extra hours to fulfill their responsibilities.[1] As a result, “people are constantly leaving the sector for better pay elsewhere.”^[2]

Multiple focus-group participants said limited budgets are preventing their organizations from hiring more experienced staff who can take on more responsibilities, leaving an experience vacuum between the head of the organization and junior staff.[3] As a result, the senior leadership often needs to take on extra work.

The following statement from a focus-group meeting offers an interesting perspective on the scarcity of resources and how it translates into everyday life for cultural work: “The state should be subsidizing the arts.... However, it is the non-profits that are subsidizing the state by doing the work in culture at a deficit! [The] non-profit cultural sector is subbing in for the for-profit cultural sector.”[4]

Shortage of Qualified Personnel

The scarcity of monetary resources limits organizations’ ability to attract and hire qualified personnel. The necessity to take on multiple simultaneous roles was frequently noted across the country as a deterrent to retention.

In addition, the imbalance in available resources between rural and urban areas and other demographic settings can exacerbate the challenge. As a participant in Winnipeg said, “There needs to be a critical mass of artistic activity in a region in order for certain types of skills to be present; e.g., tour logistical support; classical music librarian; skilled, available classical musicians.”

On many occasions, succession planning was noted as a key issue within organizations. The gap between senior roles and the next in line in terms of experience and authority is prevalent. This phenomenon is attributable to two factors. First, there is a lack of qualified personnel to move up and take on the role of senior manager or CEO. Second, qualified employees are often not interested in moving into these roles because of the heavy responsibilities, high time commitment, and high expectations without a rate of pay that reflects the work required.

A similar sectoral retention challenge is also present among mid-level and mid-career workers. Lack of upward mobility can be caused by senior manager and CEO roles being kept indefinitely by the same person for one of the reasons stated earlier: the lack of benefits extends to little or no pension plan. They simply can’t retire. Senior-level workers and managers must work until they’re older, thus creating a bottleneck for promising younger careerists.

Another difficulty that was discussed numerous times is that even at an entry level, expectations are high in regard to worker performance and required skills. Training prior to entering the workforce was also often noted as inadequate. On-the-job learning is seen as an indispensable asset that benefits the worker somewhat more than the organization.

Some provinces noted a lack of access to arts and culture management training.[5]

Goodwill Dependency

Many arts and cultural organization representatives at the focus-group meetings mentioned their reliance on unpaid labour: “We have adopted an expectation of volunteerism.”[6]

“Volunteers provide a lot of unpaid cultural work. Sometimes these are people who provide low-level clerical assistance, and other times they are people with specialized knowledge who are willing to work without pay or beyond what they are being paid to do.”[7] In many focus groups, it was noted that workers, often at the managerial level, would simply put in the hours regardless of the pay.

7.1.2 Vulnerability to Economic Forces

Expressed in many other terms across the country, the cultural sector is vulnerable to all of Porter’s five forces.[8] The following paragraphs summarize some of the discussions related to this framework of five competitive forces that shape every industry.

The threat of substitution applies both within the cultural sector and with other sectors. In other words, cultural industries are not only competing against each other (e.g., ballet production vs. orchestra production) but also “competing against sports events”[9] (e.g., an art gallery opening vs. a hockey game). The inter-sectoral competition is a distinct characteristic of the cultural scoter, as other sectors in the economy do not usually have inter-sectoral competition in terms of attracting customers.

The permeability of the sector allows workers from other sectors to enter and exit the cultural sector’s activities so long as they can deliver even at a modest capacity, or the threat of new entry. (For example, a full-time carpenter might also play the guitar in a bar on the weekend, or an elementary school teacher might also sell art on the side.) This factor is exacerbated by new technology platforms with which artistic content and cultural products can be easily uploaded, sold, distributed, or shared in business to consumer (B2C), business to business (B2B) and even peer to peer (P2P) arrangements.

This furthers the buyer power of the five forces. While there are a multitude of buyers for cultural products, the sheer volume of available workers, precarity of work, and inherently low wages discussed earlier contribute to keeping cultural purchases undervalued. “Pay what you can”[10] models are now more and more prevalent just so that artists can keep producing.

Although it is not the most influential of the five forces for the cultural sector, supplier power must also be considered. A painter or sculptor is vulnerable to fluctuating prices (whether through inflation or other factors). Not many painters are able to achieve economies of scale by making sufficient bulk material purchases. This also highlights the intra- and inter-sectoral difficulties: for larger projects in particular, “revenues vs. production costs are prohibitive.”[11] Artistic productions—an opera for example—require a heavy outlay in terms of costs simply to get the work started without any guarantee of financial return.

Last but not least, competitive rivalry is high, given the number of offerings and the apparent market saturation. Constant available supply in a demand-driven economic environment means that cultural sector organizations must differentiate their offerings in a way that translates into added-value to the purchaser or consumer rather than creating higher margins for the cultural and artistic workers who ultimately want to attain living wages.

7.1.3 Abundance of Available Production

As seen earlier, creative output and supply are almost infinite. There will most likely never be a shortage of front-line creators and performers. This reality is well captured in the “gig economy” tendency, where many Canadian workers—cultural and non-cultural—are no longer committed to a single job or position.

Many findings in the data about the cultural workforce’s employment status are reinforced by anecdotal evidence. As one focus-group participant noted: “the creative labour force has more gig-based, short-term, part-time, or erratic employment that is not characterized by the traditional employer–employee relationships. This labour force is more highly educated though less likely to have stable income, benefits, or long-term financial security. Workers in the creative labour force are also most likely working to some degree in other industries (whether by desire or out of the need to complement their income). Therefore, this highly educated creative workforce becomes an asset across other industries as well, benefiting the full breadth of the economy, particularly where innovation is required.”[12]

Participants argued necessity is the mother of invention. By nature, creative people will find ways to ultimately create wherever need be: “we are shapeshifters.”[13] Referring to live performance occupations such as dancers, actors, and musicians, a participant in the Vancouver focus group said, “Every day of the week, I can be in any one of those roles.” The passion to create and/or perform and the basic economic need to find income mean that “as a performer, you’re always in transition.”[14]

“—preneurs”

The cultural sector is a “very wide network of micro-employers.”[15] With many self-employed workers typically having to create their own market space and needing to constantly adapt, the notion of “multi-preneurs and solo-preneurs”[16] has developed. Already having to deal with their work in the cultural sector as a secondary employment or revenue source, workers must rely more and more on developing skill sets that aren’t limited to artistic practice. This can take away from the craft that cultural workers wish to undertake. As a participant in St. John’s noted, “many jump between jobs.”

7.1.4 Nomenclature and the Accuracy of Current Information Gathering

The widespread opinion among focus-group participants was that the nomenclature used by official sources is outdated. Job titles as defined by the North American Industry Classification System and National Occupational Classification were deemed “static”[17] and incomprehensive. As a participant of the focus group in Toronto said, “The paradigm of continuous employment model doesn’t apply in the cultural sector.” These classifications systems for industries and occupations were unpopular in every focus group across Canada. A participant in Regina argued it would be advantageous to “discuss skills, not job descriptions.” Participants in different cities would also spontaneously break out and discuss the difficulties in hiring with government support programs due to the strictness of the requirements and their lack of correspondence with actual hiring needs.

Again, due to the multiple roles that many cultural workers must take on simultaneously, participants argued that the boundaries between industry and occupation should be eliminated. The easiest illustration of this is musicians. Not many musicians perform only on stage or work only in recording studios. Many have also dabbled in composing and arranging as well as being managers of some sort. The current statistic framework excludes the fact that they may also be working outside the sector. For instance, dancers have shorter stage-performance careers, and most must also teach during their performance years to earn enough income to survive.[18] A participant argued that “if the boundaries between disciplines are lessening, it is possible that the cultural sector’s boundaries and professional practices or the manner in which we attempt to define them also need transforming.”[19]

Participants argued that current data gathering methods create many blind spots by assigning workers to a specific job title in a single industry. A concern with the information gathering and accuracy was also raised by a participant in St. John’s: “as a self-managed artist/one-person show, someone pays themselves as an actor but not as a producer or director as well, (thus) the numbers could be deflated.” There was a consensus that if the information gathering tools better reflected the realities of the sector, there would be a lesser need to conduct as many surveys.

A Personal Perspective on the Cultural Workforce

The story of a world-class dance professional illustrates many of the themes that came out in the focus groups: scarcity of resources, the need for cultural workers to take on different jobs and develop business skills, the abundance of available production and creativity, and the challenges associated with gathering accurate data on the cultural workforce.

After receiving ballet training through her formative and high-school years, T.C. became a professional Latin dancer and now competes internationally. This international standing leads to invitations to perform at other events and helps her attract dance students and boost her teaching rates.

But the costs related to maintaining this standing essentially negate most of the income generated by it. Her world-class professional sanction is obtained by entering international competitions that cost roughly as much to attend as the income generated by being invited to perform in other productions. And she is not compensated for the hours spent preparing for competitions and performances. On top of that, demand for dance classes is generally outside “9 to 5” hours, something that affects her work-life balance.

With a mix of previous management experience, formal training, creative design skills, and seamstress skills, T.C. identified a market opportunity and started her own business of Latin dance costume design and production. She sees this entrepreneurial endeavour as a retirement plan, given the lack of benefits associated with her main career. The time T.C. dedicates to this line of business and the revenues she receives from it often exceed the time she spends and revenues she receives from dancing or teaching. Therefore, under Statistics Canada’s current data-capturing methods, T.C. would be categorized as being in the visual and applied arts domain as a “theatre, fashion, exhibit, and other creative designer” — instead of in the live performance domain as a “dancer,” which is the root skill of her career.

7.2 Online Survey

To provide insights into the cultural sector labour market information study, two online surveys were conducted across Canada between November 2018 and March 2019—one for cultural workers and one for cultural businesses. The purpose of the surveys was to identify trends and issues related to labour demand and supply; skills gaps and training; compensation and benefits; and equity-seeking groups among cultural sector participants and businesses, by region and by domain.

A total of 1,867 individuals and 311 businesses completed the 2018–19 online surveys. Table 7.2.1 and 7.2.2 present the distribution of respondents across various cultural domains. Respondents to the surveys had the choice to select the primary domain that most accurately reflected their involvement in the cultural sector.

Table A: Survey Responses—Cultural Workers, 2018–19

Domains	Respondents	Per cent
Heritage and libraries	381	20.4%
Live performance	374	20.0%
Visual and applied arts	369	19.8%
Written and published works	147	7.9%
Audio-visual and interactive media	277	14.8%
Sound recording	34	1.8%
Education and training	118	6.3%
Governance, funding, and professional support	144	7.7%
All of the above	23	1.2%
Total	1,867	100.0%

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Table B: Survey Responses—Cultural Businesses, 2018–19

Domains	Respondents	Per cent
Heritage and libraries	53	17.0%
Live performance	77	24.8%
Visual and applied arts	62	19.9%
Written and published works	36	11.6%
Audio-visual and interactive media	25	8.0%
Sound recording	4	1.3%
Education and training	20	6.4%
Governance, funding, and professional support	29	9.3%
All of the above	5	1.6%
Total	311	100.0%

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

The results were not weighted to account for the regional or industry differences and should therefore be interpreted qualitatively. The following is a summary of the key findings from the survey results.

7.2.1 Survey Results—Cultural Worker Perspective

Most Significant Trends and Issues Affecting Cultural Workers

Individuals were probed about the most significant challenges affecting their working life in the cultural sector. Considering that the cultural sector consists of a variety of heterogeneous working arrangements and activities, the most significant work-related challenges varied, to a certain degree, by domain. However, challenges stemming from being self-employed and working part-time were mentioned most frequently throughout most of the domains.

The survey results suggest that insufficient earnings and benefits are two of the most significant challenges facing cultural workers, cited by 53 per cent and 45 per cent of all respondents, respectively. These challenges appear to be more pressing in domains characterized by high rates of self-employment and part-time working arrangement, including live performance, visual and applied arts, written and published works, and sound recording. In fact, close to 80 per cent of workers in sound recording cited insufficient earnings and benefits as obstacles in their working life.

In contrast, just one-third of workers in heritage and libraries reported challenges related to insufficient earnings and benefits, which perhaps isn’t surprising given that the share of self-employment in this domain is the lowest in the cultural sector.

In addition, the need to multi-task appears to be another significant challenge facing cultural workers, cited by close to one-half (49 per cent) of respondents. The prevalent need to multi-task can be attributed to the complexity of tasks that cultural occupations usually entail. Moreover, this challenge can also be attributed to the high percentage of self-employed workers in the cultural sector, as many self-employed individuals are responsible not only for artistic and creative production but also for business-related tasks such as marketing and sales.

Chart 7.2.1A: Job Challenges: Cultural Sector

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1B: Job Challenges: Heritage and Libraries

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1C: Job Challenges: Live Performance

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1D: Job Challenges: Visual and Applied Arts

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1E: Job Challenges: Written and Published Works

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1F: Job Challenges: Audio-Visual and Interactive Media

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1G: Job Challenges: Sound Recording

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Skill Gaps and Training

Another focal point of the cultural labour market information individual survey was to probe which skills are crucial for cultural workers to maintain competitiveness in their workplace. The survey results show that the skills related to the use of technology, such as new software and new media, are the most needed skills, cited by close to 48 per cent of respondents. Workers in heritage and libraries, sound recording, and visual and applied arts indicated a higher degree of deficiency in terms of technological skills, underscoring the drastic ongoing digital transformation in these domains. Indeed, digitization is crucial for the products of these domains to reach a broader audience, as well as to help improve internal efficiency and productivity. While younger workers in these domains are usually exposed to new technology early on in school, more seasoned workers face bigger challenges adapting to the new technologies.

Meanwhile, the need to develop business skills is widely recognized sector-wide, particularly in domains that feature higher self-employment such as visual and applied arts and written and published works, as self-employed individuals need to balance both the creative artistic production and tasks related to running their own business, including marketing, sales, and accounting.

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1I: Skill Gaps: Heritage and Libraries

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1J: Skill Gaps: Live Performance

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1K: Skill Gaps: Visual and Applied Arts

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1L: Skill Gaps: Written and Published Works

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1M: Skill Gaps: Audio-Visual and Digital Media

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.1N: Skill Gaps: Sound Recording

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Individual), 2018–19.

7.2.2 Survey Results—Cultural Businesses Perspective

Most Significant Trends and Issues Affecting Cultural Businesses

Respondents to the business survey were asked about the most significant challenges facing their business with respect to attracting and retaining qualified workers. The results suggest that, similar to the findings from the individual survey, the most pressing challenges centred on earnings and benefits. Close to 60 per cent of cultural businesses indicated that insufficient earnings in the cultural sector affect their ability to attract and retain skilled workers. Meanwhile, insufficient benefits tied with few opportunities for career advancement as the second most significant challenge: 44 per cent of respondents cited the two as limiting factors for their worker attraction and retention. (See Chart 7.2.2A.)

Chart 7.2.2A: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Cultural Sector

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.2B: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Heritage and Libraries

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.2C: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Live Performance

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.2D: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Visual and Applied Arts

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.2E: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Written & Published Works

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.2F: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Audio-Visual & Interactive Media

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

Chart 7.2.2G: Challenges in Attracting and Retaining Qualified Workers: Sound Recording

Source: The Conference Board of Canada, Cultural Sector Labour Market Information Survey (Employer), 2018–19.

7.3 Interviews With Key Stakeholders

Canada’s cultural sector is thriving, but it is also facing significant challenges. In the interviews we conducted for this study, many interviewees highlighted challenges that apply to the cultural sector as a whole (e.g., its poverty mentality) as well as challenges that apply uniquely to equity-seeking groups (e.g., racism and ableism). The following overview of the interviews breaks the issues and solutions down according to their applicability: sector-wide or equity-seeking.

1. Issues, trends, realities, and equity-seeking in the sector

Sector-wide:

• 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.
• The lack of training for cultural sector management across the country contributes to some of the sector’s challenges around budgeting, fundraising, project and event planning, and succession planning.
• The high cost of office space and performance venues remains a significant challenge for many organizations and performers in the cultural sector.
• The effects of emerging technologies—e.g., replacing or reshaping jobs, changing how the cultural sector shares its products and services, and allowing for new forms of experimentation that cannot yet secure funding—came up in several interviews.
• There are challenges around rural and remote vs. urban participation in the cultural sector, including the lack of access to appropriate infrastructure, lack of support (financial and otherwise), lack of access to talent (e.g., it’s more difficult and expensive to get a full orchestra together in rural Manitoba than in Toronto).
• Volunteers are often attracted to larger organizations, leaving smaller organizations that are already under-resourced with a paucity of support volunteers.
• In not-for-profit organizations, interactions between an organization’s staff and its board can create tension, especially if roles are not well-defined; the Media Arts Network of Ontario (MANO) commissioned research on this very topic.[20]

Equity-seeking:

• There is a real lack of training that is sensitive to specific equity-seeking groups’ needs; for example, there is no formal cultural sector management training for deaf people in Canada. Systemic racism also reduces the accessibility of certain training programs for black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC) cultural sector workers.
• Lack of affordable housing hits cultural sector seniors, people with disabilities, and BIPOC artists hardest, creating additional physical and mental well-being challenges.
• Ageism remains a serious challenge in Canada’s cultural sector; there are significantly fewer roles available for senior artists, who must also grapple with the significant physical challenges that can emerge with age.
• Ableism takes many forms in the sector; funders don’t recognize the need to provide additional supports for people with disabilities (e.g., hearing or vision loss, use of a wheelchair, mental disabilities) and rarely recognize the value of the unique cultures that have flourished in disabled communities (e.g., funders do not understand Deaf culture). The burden to provide support for artists with diverse abilities is often put on the shoulders of the disabled artists themselves.
• Racism, sexism, and tokenism remain real challenges for many workers; these issues become visible in the lack of diversity seen on stages, on bookshelves, in teaching curriculums, at events, on boards, and in organizations. Many equity-seeking workers are at the forefront of the fight against white nationalism, patriarchy, and settler-colonialism within Canada—especially because the cultural sector is so public-facing (i.e., harassment can be easier if you have a public profile).
• Indigenous workers are not hired proportionately; there is also a high degree of “poaching” of Indigenous staff by settler organizations with equity-seeking requirements, even though this sometimes comes at a significant cost to Indigenous organizations that have invested in training their peers.
• There is a lack of transparency around “equity-seeking” programs, who they are benefiting, and what organizations are doing in the long term to ensure equity in the sector; for example, there was a lot of short-term funding allocated for Canada 150 and in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC’s) initial report, but there is limited evidence to suggest that the funding and post-TRC efforts toward decolonization have continued.

2. Possible solutions and improvements

Sector-wide:

• Several interviewees mentioned that there needs to be a mindset shift across Canada; Canadians need to learn to value the arts, celebrate the country’s artists, and support groundbreaking work. To foster that shift, governmental and cultural sector organizations could emphasize the importance of the cultural sector, invest in training programs, and even consider having a formalized policy commitment to support the cultural sector (e.g., like New Brunswick’s cultural renewal policy).
• Affordable housing needs to be a priority in cities and town across Canada; partnerships between developers and cultural sector organizations might be one way to ensure cultural sector workers get to access that affordable housing (e.g., see PAL Canada’s housing projects).
• The federal government could consider an income tax adjustment for people working in the cultural sector; for example, the federal government could allow for an artist’s income to be tax-free up to $60,000.
• The sector should consider new economic models; members of the cultural sector should look to the private sector and ask, “what can we learn from their practices?”
• Ally training and frank dialogue about sexism, ableism, racism, and tokenism should be more commonplace; this training and dialogue would help the sector support its diverse workers more fully.
• The sector could consider moving away from using the “equity-seeking” label, which is a bit antiquated and encourages a flattening of diversity with BIPOC, disabled, linguistic minority, and senior communities.
• The sector could adopt an ethos of care, where it values its employees, their livelihoods, their mental and physical well-being, and their future career development.

Equity-seeking:

• Interviewees said mentorship programs for equity-seeking workers should be funded or otherwise supported; these programs would be helpful for building artistic capacity and opening up new collaboration opportunities. These programs could be between equity-seeking and non-equity-seeking workers, or just among equity-seeking workers.
• Ally training for funders should be mandatory so that they more clearly understand the equity-seeking groups they wish to serve; they should learn about Deaf culture, the importance of going beyond cookie-cutter land acknowledgment statements,[21] and the interests of communities not currently being served, among many other topics.
• Funders and organizations should pay for interpreters, invest in wheelchair accessible infrastructure, and support the unique needs of other ageing and disabled cultural sector workers.
• Funders could demonstrate their equity commitments more clearly (e.g., by releasing open data about where their funds are going); if they have made an equity commitment, do their funding and/or hiring practices reflect a true commitment to equity?
• Organizations need to hire more BIPOC, disabled, and senior cultural sector workers; they need to work to understand that not all BIPOC, disabled, linguistic minority, and senior workers are the same. There is diversity within equity-seeking communities.
• Organizations should reduce the barriers for receiving funding, such as requiring previous successes at securing funding, needing to exist for a certain period of time, not supporting certain types of projects, etc.
• Organizations should embrace reciprocity; they should work to establish reciprocal agreements with their staff, contractors, and peer organizations and build care and collaboration into their ethos.

[1] Halifax focus group.

[2] Winnipeg focus group.

[3] Winnipeg and St. John’s focus group.

[4] Halifax focus group.

[5] Halifax, Winnipeg, Calgary, Moncton focus groups.

[6] Whitehorse focus group.

[7] Winnipeg focus group.

[8] Porter, “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy.”

[9] Winnipeg focus group.

[10] Calgary, Vancouver focus groups.

[11] Toronto focus group.

[12] Manitoba focus group.

[13] Vancouver focus group.

[14] Vancouver focus group.

[15] Halifax focus group.

[16] Regina focus group.

[17] Whitehorse focus group.

[18] Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto, Moncton, Charlottetown, St John’s focus groups

[19] Montreal focus groups

[20] Media Arts Network of Ontario, “Studies.”

[21] Maga, “How Can Theatre Companies Get Indigenous Land Acknowledgements Right?”