Economic impact of English-language arts, culture, and heritage in Quebec in 2021
Economic impact of English-language arts, culture, and heritage in Quebec in 2021
Impact on Quebec’s GDP is close to $8 billion
This article provides an estimate of the economic impact of Anglophone arts, culture, and heritage in Quebec in 2021. The calculation includes estimates of the direct, indirect, and induced impacts of cultural activity.
Direct impacts are defined as the value added to gross domestic product (GDP) of spending in the cultural sector.
Indirect impacts measure the new spending that is generated by the expenses of cultural organizations (e.g., by suppliers).
Induced impacts capture the spending that is generated by the earnings of cultural workers and suppliers.
The analysis is based on three Statistics Canada products: provincial culture indicators, the 2021 census, and input-output multipliers. In general, the analysis is detailed and defensible, but it is also pragmatic. It is based on the proportion of Anglophones in cultural occupations, rather than custom surveys of the cultural sector, which would be a very large undertaking. Detailed notes regarding the methods and products that are used in the calculations can be found at the end of the article.
The article is made possible with the support of ELAN: English-Language Arts Network. Hill Strategies Research retained editorial control of the content.
Nearly $8 billion in economic impact in Quebec
The economic impact of the English-language cultural community on Quebec’s GDP is estimated at $7.73 billion in 2021. The impact on the GDP of other provinces amounts to just under $1 billion, resulting in an overall impact of $8.70 billion across the country.
The estimate of the impact in Quebec includes:
A direct impact of $4.31 billion.
An indirect impact of $2.13 billion.
An induced impact of $1.30 billion.
A broader economic statistic – the total value of Anglophone cultural production in Quebec, which is essentially equal to total revenues – amounts to $8.39 billion. This estimate was used as the starting point for the calculations of indirect and induced impacts.
As context, Statistics Canada estimates that the overall direct economic impact of culture in Quebec was $15.27 billion in 2021, while total production is estimated at $29.74 billion.
Anglophones as a proportion of all cultural workers in Quebec
The Anglophone share of the economic impact of culture in Quebec comes from the proportion of Anglophones in 52 cultural occupations. Hill Strategies Research made a special request from the 2021 census to receive custom data on artists and cultural workers. Census data show that there are 63,600 English-speaking workers in arts, culture, and heritage occupations in Quebec, representing 28.2% of the 225,600 cultural workers in Quebec.
The calculation of Anglophones in these occupations is based on a linguistic definition produced by Statistics Canada for the 2021 census: "potential demand for federal communications and services in the minority official language ". This definition includes people in Quebec whose mother tongue is English and/or who speak English at home, either as the language spoken most often or secondarily. In total, there are 1.7 million people in Quebec who could potentially request federal services in English. This definition is sound but is also relatively broad in its scope. It has been used in other calculations related to the Canadian cultural community, including estimates of the size and economic impact of the Francophone cultural community outside of Quebec, prepared for the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française. The definition was also used to prepare a Statistical profile of English-speaking artists in Quebec for ELAN.
The 52 cultural occupation groups include occupations in performing arts, sound recording, film, video, broadcasting, libraries, archives, galleries, museums, other heritage institutions, architecture, design, publishing, and printing. A full list is available here.
Notes on methods
Statistics Canada defines culture as "creative artistic activity and the goods and services produced by it, and the preservation of heritage". The economic impact calculations in this report generally follow this definition, which was established in the Conceptual Framework for Culture Statistics, 2011. There is one deviation from this definition: we have chosen to include translators among the 52 occupation groups used to measure workers in the arts, culture, and heritage in Canada. Translators are the only writing occupation that was excluded from the definition in the Conceptual Framework for Culture Statistics.
Key data for this report were drawn from Statistics Canada's Culture and sport indicators by domain and sub-domain, by province and territory (industry perspective). This product offers statistics on the direct impact and overall production of culture in Quebec. Statistics Canada does not break down these indicators by language.
The broadest estimates from Statistics Canada's Culture and sport indicators relate to the value of cultural production (essentially equal to total revenues):
The value of cultural production (all languages combined) in Quebec was $29.74 billion in 2021.
Based on this, as well as the proportion of Anglophones among Quebec’s cultural workers, we estimated the value of Anglophone cultural production in Quebec in 2021 to be $8.39 billion (i.e., 28.2% of $29.74 billion).
Statistics Canada's Culture and sport indicators provide the following estimates concerning the direct impact of culture:
In 2021, the direct impact of the cultural sector on Quebec’s GDP (all languages combined) was $15.27 billion.
We have estimated the direct impact of Anglophone culture in Quebec to be $4.31 billion, which is 28.2% of $15.27 billion,
Estimates of the indirect and induced impacts were produced using Statistics Canada's provincial input-output multipliers for 2020. These multipliers are commonly used in this type of analysis, including in The Culture, Arts, Heritage and Sport Economic Impact Model, developed by Statistics Canada and Canadian Heritage.
This report uses the most recent economic statistics and multipliers. (In general, the multipliers are one or two years behind the economic estimates, i.e., the direct impact of culture in the provinces and territories.) It is not ideal that the economic statistics to relate to 2021, while the multipliers are from 2020. Nevertheless, in our opinion, the best way to proceed in this situation is to use the most recent data available.
Statistics Canada’s multipliers cover fairly broad sub-sectors. We have chosen the two most "cultural" sub-sectors: Information and cultural industries (which includes publishing, film, sound recording, and broadcasting) and Arts, entertainment, and recreation (which includes the performing arts and heritage). Unfortunately, these two sub-sectors extend beyond the cultural sector to include telecommunications, data processing and hosting, spectator sports, lotteries, and entertainment. This is an imperfect choice, but the best feasible choice, in our opinion.
To produce a single multiplier for Quebec, we calculated the average of the multipliers for these two sub-sectors. To calculate the indirect and induced impacts, the multiplier was applied to the total value of Anglophone cultural production in Quebec.
Because Statistics Canada offers estimates of the direct economic impact of culture expressed in terms of basic prices, we chose the “matching” multipliers for indirect and induced impacts, i.e., those expressed in terms of basic prices (rather than market prices).
Most – but not all – economic impact analyses include indirect and induced impacts. In our opinion, these impacts are valid, but not everyone agrees on this matter. On one side, The Culture, Arts, Heritage and Sport Economic Impact Model, developed by Statistics Canada and Canadian Heritage, includes indirect and induced impacts. However, Statistics Canada's Culture indicators only provide estimates of the direct impact.
The estimates in this report do not take into account ancillary spending by cultural attendees on items such as accommodation, food, and transportation. This is an important decision: estimates of ancillary spending are typically quite large, sometimes equal to estimates based solely on direct, indirect, and induced impacts. However, ancillary spending is difficult to measure, not universally agreed upon, and therefore often excluded from economic impact studies.