May 27, 2024
SHARE
CANADALAND
#992 Culture Collapse
Hot Docs, Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Just for Laughs, just the latest cultural institutions to join a long list of Canadian arts groups facing existential threats. Why is this all happening now?
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Bruce Thorson
Senior Producer
Tristan Capacchione
Audio Editor & Technical Producer
Caleb Thompson
Audio Editor
Karyn Pugliese
Editor-in-Chief

Based on recent headlines, you might think that we are in the midst of a total cultural collapse in this country. Film festivals, comedy festivals, symphonies, cinemas, theater companies, arts magazines all closing down or telling us that they’re about to. Corporate sponsors are pulling out. Leadership teams are crumbling. People are quitting en masse or getting laid off. There’s been a lot of dirty laundry aired in public from within these organizations, open letters and accusations about mismanagement and workplace inequity within these arts organizations. It all sounds miserably dire. So just what is going on and why is it all happening now?

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: Caleb Thompson (Audio Editor), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), Karyn Pugliese (Editor-in-Chief)

Featured guests:

Jesse Wente, Amy Blackmore & Dan Seligman

For more information:

Sponsors: CAMH, Squarespace, Betterhelp, Douglas

For a limited time, get 6 months of exclusive supporter benefits for just $2/month. Go to canadaland.com/join to become a supporter today.

You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music—included with Prime.

More from this series
We don't seem to question, at least not in the public discourse, what it means that the same investment firm is enmeshed with so many of our media companies. -Gemma Boothroyd
November 10, 2025
You’re an expert in something, so tell us what the media always gets wrong about your favourite thing.
November 6, 2025
“Just stop having this vibes based pump and dump hype economy and start paying attention to foundations and to human thriving.” -Cory Doctorow
November 3, 2025
“ The problem with saying who's gonna rule the fucking world is that there's someone else already claiming that title and they don't like the competition.” -Ian Thornton
October 27, 2025
Are we going to die Americans?
October 20, 2025
“At that period, everybody thought revolution was going to happen.” -Michèle Stephenson
October 13, 2025
 ”You've got a father who never respected you, you've got a family who doesn't respect you, and you have all of this power available to you that your family assumes you will never use.” -Michael Healey, author of Rogers vs. Rogers
October 6, 2025
We asked you to tell us where we messed up — a few of you caught us off guard.
October 2, 2025
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND