Venue managers shouldn’t expect a detailed guide that will answer all of their questions and tell them if and when to feature an artist who has been the subject of reports of sexual misconduct.
That’s basically what a panel of experts told them during a very popular roundtable Monday as part of the RIDEAU event, which brings together 900 performing arts practitioners in Quebec.
“There are no ready-made solutions,” said Me Sophie Hébert, labor director at ADISQ.
Throughout the discussion, careful not to personalize the debate by naming canceled artists, panelists hammered out the message: It’s up to each venue to define its values and make decisions accordingly. .
Protect or not?
The most important reflex, noted Université Laval researcher and victimologist Catherine Rossi, “is not to try to be a judge.”
” Right or wrong? Serious or not? Evidence or no evidence? Impossible questions. The only right way to think, I think as an organization, is to ask yourself, with the little information I have, I can answer the following question: If I keep the event going, am I in a situation where I’m covering up or protecting abuse of power?”
For his part, UQAM professor Michel Séguin recalled that performance halls are not there to decide what is good and what is bad in society. “They don’t have that legitimacy. Your role is to see,” he argued.
While they don’t have to replace police investigations and the courts, they still have a duty to act when faced with a decision to open their doors to an artist who is the subject of allegations, their ex-judge Johanne St Gelais said .
Willful blindness is prohibited
“Today, when situations are uncovered, inaction is toxic and ill-received. This does not mean that you will find the solution in the first place, but an attempt must be made to clarify the situation. »