Montréal, March 13, 2024 – The Conseil Québécois du Théâtre (CQT) receives the budget presented on March 12, 2024, by Finance Minister Éric Girard with dismay.

Over the past year, our organisations have repeatedly sounded the alarm about the deterioration of working conditions and the collapse of their vitality that they would face if the support of recent years was not sustained.

Faced with oppressive economic circumstances, the government is cutting 21.5 million in funding from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) programs, reducing it from 181.6 million (2023-2024) to 160.1 million (2024-2025). The general budget of the CALQ, for its part, shows 171 million for 2024-2025 instead of 193.5 million in 2023-2024.

Through this cutback, we concretely observe the imminent expiration of special measures linked to the Plan pour consolider, faire briller et propulser le milieu culturel, which reduces the CALQ’s available portfolio. We can only interpret this as a lack of engagement and understanding of the obvious needs regarding the higher costs of operation, the staggering impoverishment of artists and the difficulty in retaining the workforce by offering safe and attractive working conditions.

Within the budget tabled in the National Assembly, we find as a current measure a sum of 28.2 million allocated over four years, including 4.8 million in the first year to support cultural organisations.

Hundreds of organisations have been waiting for support to their mandate or to balance their budget according to strategic priorities and the current economic situation. In light of this, it is unclear whether the sector will have the flexibility to innovate, sustain itself, or even survive.

In Québec, culture is a profoundly dynamic economic sector and Quebecers continue to show their enthusiastic affection for theatre. Our sector is faced with structural deficits, where even when its economy operates at full capacity, budgets remain impossible to balance. At the current rate, economic logic predicts a crushing future. This is particularly why it was paramount that the CALQ be able to rely on an global budget that allows it to meet the basic needs of the community. We are particularly worried about the impacts this budget will have on the individuals, artists, creators, cultural workers, and artisans who make up this community and who are experiencing increasing precariousness.

The CQT will continue its advocacy so that the theatre community’s economic and social contributions, as well the realities it experiences be heard and, above all, understood. Theatre is a highly structured industry and we hope to collaborate with the different levels of government to ensure that it can maintain its vitality.

Budget measures

● 28.2 million over four years in program subsidy to support cultural organisations

● 3 million in 2024-2025 to continue the development of the digital cultural passport

“This is a missed opportunity. Our government had the opportunity to adequately protect an environment that contributes significantly and generously to Quebec’s culture, to our identity and to the collective imagination. This marks a difficult future for our peers, despite our warnings of a breaking point. It is difficult not to see this insufficient allocation as a sacrifice which disrupts the ecosystem and whose impact could prove disastrous. » Michelle Parent and Véronique Pascal, co-presidents of the CQT."

Translation by: Simon Pelletier

Original press release in French by: