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Media Release
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By David Hope - January 2008
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As Canadians, we are proudest of the things we do to take care of each other. Who won the contest for the title of "Greatest Canadian"? Tommy Douglas, of course, the father of universal medicare. What are the top two things Canadians are proud of according to a recent University of Chicago survey? Fair and equal treatment of all groups in society and our social security system.
The Actors' Fund of Canada, an unsung hero of Canadian culture, celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2008. At fifty years old it is time for the Fund to take stock of what it has accomplished and take its place as one of Canada's leading entertainment industry organizations.
The Actors' Fund provides emergency financial aid to performers, technicians, creators and production team members in theatre, film & television, music and dance. The Fund is not just for actors. It's for everyone who makes his or her living in Canada's performing arts and entertainment industries. It produces no plays, underwrites no films and stages no concerts. But by providing practical support and encouragement to artists, often at a turning point in their careers, the Fund has made the difference between survival and destitution for thousands of artists who have suffered the financial consequences of an illness, injury or other misfortune.
Many artistic voices would be silenced if not for the Actors' Fund. With the Fund, entertainment industry and performing arts workers can get a rent cheque, grocery money, a utility bill payment or other vital assistance that helps them maintain their health, housing and ability to work. Without it, many talented artists would be forced to abandon an artistic career altogether.
Canada has been described as an "improbable country", a country whose coexistence with the United States has been likened to "sleeping with an elephant". Once can easily think this of Canada's cultural industries vis-à-vis the American cultural juggernaut.
In this improbable country artists must take extraordinary risks — both creative and financial — in pursuit of their vision. The outcomes of the choices artists must make cannot always be foreseen and the stakes are high. Not every artist will achieve his or her potential — in fact, many do not. Not every venture will succeed — many do not. As the Fund's Executive Director for the last eleven years, I have often seen the results of hard experience etched in the faces of our clients and I have heard them in their stories.
According to a 2004 study by Kelly Hill, artists' earnings are very low, with average earnings of $23,500, less than 75% of average earnings in the overall labour force. The Actors' Fund's annual outflow of emergency aid to artists and allied professionals in financial distress has doubled since 2000-01 and is expected to reach a record high by the time the current fiscal year ends in March 2008.
Winnipeg arts patron Gail Asper gets it right when she says, "Even the most mediocre lawyer makes a better living than the finest actor." I think there is a disrespect for artists. People's assumption is, "Oh well, they knew what they were getting into, so that's their problem. Why should we be worrying about them and paying them a living wage? Let them earn twelve grand a year and scrape by on their grants."
Faced with these facts and no shortage of bad news about future prospects one could understand it if our artists and entertainment workers felt poor and disrespected — if they shared a mentality with the quintessentially Canadian authors that Margaret Atwood once supposed were obsessed with the twin themes of "survival" and "victimhood".
A series of advertisements appeared on Toronto's transit system last year marking a milestone in the history of Covenant House youth shelter with the words, "Sadly, it's our 25th anniversary". Clearly, extraordinary hardship and difficult circumstances propel youth to seek refuge at Covenant House. No lesser amount of heartbreak and disappointment is apportioned to clients of the Actors' Fund. Family break-up, serious illness, traumatic injury and the extreme stress brought on by prolonged unemployment and crushing debt leave our clients gasping — and grasping — for a lifeline that only we can provide.
But on our 50th anniversary, instead of sadness we feel only pride.
How can we possibly feel pride amidst such misery? We feel pride because the Actors' Fund is not a symbol of individual failure. Rather, this remarkable institution built by and for Canadian artists is a symbol of collective strength. The Actors' Fund represents fifty years of artists believing in each other; fifty years of knowing that their work has value; fifty years of maintaining a standard of decency and a threshold of dignity below which artists must not fall.
Canadian city-dwellers are justifiably proud of the landmark buildings erected to provide a venue for experiencing the work of our finest artists. Here in Toronto, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts is just the latest example, mirrored by new theatre spaces, dance facilities and music performance venues springing up in cities across Canada.
We laud the visionaries who conceive of these exquisite platforms on which our major artistic works are staged and the philanthropists and corporate giants whose contributions transform drawings on a page into impressive structures emblazoned with their names. And rightly so, for they are needed.
But without artists to animate them, these grand buildings are lifeless and soulless.
I once suggested jokingly that our clients could wear t-shirts bearing the corporate logos and names of the many individual donors whose contributions make it possible for the Fund to deliver more than $400,000 in financial aid each year. But even if it is never printed on a t-shirt, the evidence of the Fund's work is all around us. Go to a theatre tonight. See a movie shot in Canada. Attend a dance performance or listen to Canadian music and you'll see the impact of the Fund's work through the lives and careers of the over 10,000 arts workers who have been helped since 1958. Artists and their professional colleagues at all levels and at all stages of their careers have received assistance from the Fund. Many have gone on to make important contributions to arts and entertainment in their city, their province, their country and even the world. Members of the Order of Canada are among the Fund's clients, along with many who have won Gemini Awards, Genie Awards, the Governor General's Award and every major regional performing arts award in the country.
Artists are leaders in our society. This year, and every year, let's celebrate and nurture them and the wonderful institutions they have built.
David Hope is Executive Director of the Actors' Fund of Canada. Performers, creators, technical staff and other production team members can apply for help from the Fund, which delivers over $400,000 in rent payments, grocery money, utility payments and other basic living expenses to clients annually and has provided over $3 million in emergency financial aid in the last 10 years. The Actors' Fund receives no government funding and is wholly sustained by support from individuals and entertainment industry organizations. For more information or to donate, contact the Fund at 1-877-399-8392 (toll-free) or visit www.actorsfund.ca.
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CONTACT:
David Hope, The Actors' Fund of Canada
Phone: 1-877-399-8392
E-mail: contact@actorsfund.ca
Web site: www.actorsfund.ca
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©2010 The Actors' Fund of Canada - 1000 Yonge Street, Suite 301 Toronto, ON M4W 2K2
contact@actorsfund.ca / Tel: 416.975.0304 / Toll-Free: 1.877.399.8392 / Fax: 416.975.0306
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