ARCHIVED - Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page

This page has been archived.

Section I - Overview

Chairperson's Message

I am pleased to present to Parliament and Canadians the Departmental Performance Report of the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2008.

The Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal administers a collective bargaining regime for professional self-employed artists and producers in federal jurisdiction. Under Part II of the Status of the Artist Act, the Tribunal defines sectors of artistic and cultural activity for collective bargaining, certifies artists' associations to represent artists working in those sectors, and deals with complaints of unfair labour practices and other matters brought forward by parties under the Act.

Parliament passed the Status of the Artist Act in 1992 as part of a commitment to recognize and stimulate the contribution of the arts to the cultural, social, economic and political enrichment of the country. The Act reflects the recognition that constructive professional relations in the arts and culture sector are an important element of a vibrant Canadian culture and heritage.

Since its inception, the Tribunal has defined 26 sectors of artistic activity and certified 24 artists' associations to represent them. Certified artists' associations have concluded over 150 scale agreements with producers, including government producers and specialty television services, since their certification. Over 20 percent of these are the first agreements that the parties have ever concluded.

While the Tribunal continues to make progress towards its strategic outcome of constructive professional relations between self-employed artists and producers in its jurisdiction, recent developments have challenged the Tribunal to shift the focus of its work to include a greater emphasis on outreach to its clients and on research to support Tribunal decisions.

Broadcasting, one of the principal areas of the Tribunal's jurisdiction, is undergoing dramatic transformations - mergers, changes of ownership, new technologies, and the disruption of traditional business models - and these will have a significant impact on the work of the Tribunal. The complexity of the new digital media environment presents artists, artists' association and broadcasters with unprecedented challenges related to certification and negotiation. The Tribunal needs to understand and monitor closely these developments to ensure that labour law principles and the Tribunal's own precedents are applied appropriately.

Much of the work of the Tribunal until recently focused on certification. Most sectors are now defined, and artists' associations are certified to represent them. The work of the Tribunal is now more related to dealing with complaints and determinations, changes in the definition of sectors and in representation, and assisting parties in the bargaining process.

The Tribunal has a single strategic outcome: constructive professional relations between self-employed artists and producers under its jurisdiction. To realize this strategic outcome fully, the Tribunal needs to ensure that the Act is widely known and well understood, and that its services are understood and known by the client community to be readily available. Accordingly, for this year and the immediate future the Tribunal has focused its efforts on fully informing and assisting artists, artists' associations, and producers of their rights and responsibilities under the Act and of the services that the Tribunal can make available to them.

I was appointed as Chairperson of the Tribunal on June 25, 2008, for a five-year term. I look forward to leading the Tribunal, and am committed to making it better known and understood among artists, artists' associations and producers, as well as making sure that the Tribunal has all the tools it needs to achieve the purpose for which it was created. The Tribunal's outreach role, and the careful disposition of matters brought before it, will help to promote productive professional relations in the cultural sector, and contribute to a thriving Canadian culture.

Management Representation Statement

I submit for tabling in Parliament, the 2007-2008 Performance Report for the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal.

This document has been prepared based on the reporting principles contained in the Guide for the Preparation of Part III of the 2007-2008 Estimates: Reports on Plans and Priorities and Departmental Performance Reports:

• It adheres to the specific reporting requirements outlined in the Treasury Board Secretariat guidance;
• It is based on the Tribunal's approved Strategic Outcome and Program Activity Architecture that were approved by the Treasury Board;
• It presents consistent, comprehensive, balanced and reliable information;
• It provides a basis of accountability for the results achieved with the resources and authorities entrusted to it; and
• It reports finances based on approved numbers from the Estimates and the Public Accounts of Canada.

_______________________________________
Sébastien Dhavernas
Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer
August 29, 2008

Summary Information

Reason for existence
Parliament created the Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal to administer Part II of the Status of the Artist Act, which governs professional relations between self-employed artists and producers in federal jurisdiction. The Tribunal defines sectors appropriate for collective bargaining, certifies artists' associations to represent self-employed artists working in those sectors, and deals with complaints of unfair labour practices from artists, artists' associations and producers. The Tribunal's fulfilment of its mandate contributes to the development of constructive labour relations between artists and producers.

Financial Resources ($ thousands)

2007-2008
Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
$1,940	$1,996	$1,055

 

Human Resources

2007-2008
Planned	Actual	Difference
10	10	0

 

Tribunal Priorities

Name	Type	Performance Status
1. High quality processing of cases	1. Ongoing	Successfully met
2. Fully inform and assist clients	2. Ongoing	Successfully met

 

			2007-2008 ($ thousands)
Status on Performance			Planned Spending	Actual Spending
Strategic Outcome: Constructive professional relations between artists and producers in the Tribunal's jurisdiction.
Priority No. 1	High quality processing of cases	Met	$1,240	$740
Priority No. 2	Fully informed and assisted clients	Met	$700	$315

Program Activities by Strategic Outcome

Program Activity	Expected Results	Performance Status	2007-2008		Contributes to the following priority
			Planned Spending ($ millions)	Actual Spending ($ millions)
Strategic Outcome: Constructive professional relations between artists and producers in the Tribunal's jurisdiction.
Processing of cases	High quality service, with clients fully informed and assisted	Successfully met	1.2	0.7	Priorities 1 & 2
Corporate services	Case processing supported	Successfully met	0.7	0.3	Priorities 1 & 2

Summary of Tribunal Performance

Overall Performance

The Tribunal has a single strategic outcome, constructive professional relations between self-employed artists and producers under its jurisdiction. Its program activities - processing of cases and the corporate services required to support the Tribunal - both contribute to this strategic outcome. Its overall performance is equivalent to its"performance by strategic outcome," reported in Section II. As will be seen in Section II, the Tribunal continues to make progress in achieving its strategic outcome.

Mandate, Role and Responsibilities

The Canadian Artists and Producers Professional Relations Tribunal is an independent, quasi-judicial agency that administers Part II of the Status of the Artist Act, which governs professional relations between self-employed artists and federally regulated producers. The Tribunal reports to Parliament through the Minister of Labour. The Minister of Canadian Heritage also has responsibilities pursuant to Part II of the Act.

Labour relations between the vast majority of workers and employers in Canada fall under provincial jurisdiction. The federal government has jurisdiction over labour relations in a small number of sectors, including broadcasting, telecommunications, banking, interprovincial transportation, and federal government institutions. The Tribunal is one of four federal agencies that regulate labour relations. The other three are the Canada Industrial Relations Board, which deals with labour relations between private sector employers in federal jurisdiction and their employees, the Public Service Labour Relations Board, which deals with labour relations between federal government institutions and their employees, and the Public Service Staffing Tribunal, which deals with complaints from federal public service employees related to internal appointments and lay-offs.

The Tribunal's jurisdiction over producers is set out in the Status of the Artist Act, and covers broadcasting undertakings under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, federal government departments, and the majority of federal agencies and Crown corporations (such as the National Film Board and the national museums).

The Tribunal's jurisdiction over self-employed artists is also set out in the Status of the Artist Act, and includes artists covered by the Copyright Act (such as writers, photographers, and music composers), performers (such as actors, musicians, and singers), directors, and other professionals who contribute to the creation of a production, such as those doing camera work, lighting and costume design.

The Tribunal has the following statutory responsibilities:

• To define the sectors of cultural activity suitable for collective bargaining between artists' associations and producers,
• To certify artists' associations to represent self-employed artists working in these sectors, and
• To deal with complaints of unfair labour practices and other matters brought forward by artists, artists' associations, and producers, and prescribe appropriate remedies.

Artists' associations certified under the Status of the Artist Act have the exclusive right to negotiate scale agreements with producers. A scale agreement specifies the minimum terms and conditions under which producers engage the services of, or commission a work from, a self-employed artist in a specified sector, as well as other related matters.

The Status of the Artist Act and the Tribunal's statutory responsibilities, professional category regulations, decisions, and reports to Parliament and central agencies can be found on the Tribunal's Web site at www.capprt-tcrpap.gc.ca.

Figure 1 illustrates the Tribunal's responsibilities and the key processes under the Status of the Artist Act, Part II.

Figure 1. Tribunal Responsibilities and Key Processes

STATUS OF THE ARTIST ACT

Operating Environment and Context

The economics of artistic endeavour

Culture and the arts contribute significantly to Canada's economy. According to a 2008 analysis¹ by the Conference Board of Canada, the cultural sector generated about $46 billion in real value-added gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007. This constituted 3.8 per cent of Canada's real GDP. The cultural sector also created 616,000 jobs.

Moreover, the arts and cultural industries enhance economic performance more generally and act, in the words of the Conference Board, as "a catalyst of prosperity," attracting talent and spurring creativity across all sectors of the economy. The Conference Board analysis found that when the effects on other sectors of the economy were considered, the economic footprint of the arts and cultural industries amounted to about $84.6 billion in 2007, or 7.4 per cent of total real GDP, and contributed 1.1 million jobs to the economy.

The earnings of Canadian artists, however, do not reflect their contributions to the country. According to Statistics Canada, artists' average income rose 26 percent from 1991 to 2001. Yet that increase only brought their average income to $23,500, still well below the average for all workers in Canada ($31,800), despite the higher than average level of education of artists.

Besides having lower earnings, many artists are self-employed, and thus do not have the advantages enjoyed by employees, such as employment insurance, training benefits and pension funds. For example, according to the 2001 census, almost 70 percent of visual artists and close to 50 percent of writers and craftspersons work as independent entrepreneurs. An estimated 100,000 self-employed artists fall under the Tribunal's jurisdiction.²

The federal government has various institutions, programs and policies to recognize and support artists and producers. The Status of the Artist Act and the Tribunal are part of the federal support system for Canadian arts and culture.

Limitations of the Status of the Artist Act

The impact of the Act is limited, however, by its application to a small jurisdiction. Most work in the cultural sector, including the bulk of film and television production, sound recording, art exhibitions, theatrical production and book publishing, falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces. To date, Quebec is the only province with legislation granting collective bargaining rights to self-employed artists. The need for provincial legislation was recognized by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in its ninth report in 1999, and by the Department of Canadian Heritage in its 2002 evaluation³ of the provisions and operations of the Status of the Artist Act. The Tribunal supports the adoption of collective bargaining legislation for self-employed artists, and will continue to provide information to policy makers and others interested in the benefits of such legislation.

The Act's effectiveness is also limited because few federal government institutions - one of the class of producers covered by the Act - have entered into scale agreements with artists' associations. Artists' associations are typically hard-pressed for time and resources, and they would rather negotiate with producers' associations than with individual producers. Similarly, many government producers would prefer to designate one department as their lead negotiator. One of the recommendations from the Department of Canadian Heritage's 2002 evaluation report was that the government consider establishing a single bargaining authority for all departments. The Tribunal supports this recommendation, as it would facilitate the bargaining process and make it more cost-effective.

The challenge of operating a small federal agency

Its specific legislation and unique stakeholder base aside, the Tribunal is like any other federal government department: it must exercise care and restraint in the spending of public funds, and provide Parliament and Canadians with transparent and accountable reporting. At its creation in 1993, the Tribunal adopted efficient business practices, with clear statements of objectives, high standards for service delivery, a comprehensive performance measurement framework, and transparent reporting on its activities and results. Its management team embraced this framework at its inception and has been guided by it as it evolves.

As a very small agency, the Tribunal faces a particular operating challenge, with its small staff responsible for a myriad of tasks. This is compounded by the fact that the workload is unpredictable and changing, since parties themselves decide whether to bring cases to the Tribunal. To meet these particular challenges, the Tribunal follows flexible practices such as contracting-out and sharing of accommodation, as described in Section II under Financial Management and Leadership.

• Previous Page
• Table of Contents
• Next Page