Canadian comedians renew push for formal recognition in Canada’s arts funding system
An official Comedy Is Art campaign graphic. Canadian comedians are calling for formal recognition of comedy within arts policy and dedicated funding for the creation, development and touring of comedy.
Photo credit: Unifor
In 2018, comedian Sandra Battaglini initiated a House of Commons petition asking the federal government to designate stand-up comedy an art form and make public arts funding available to comedians.
The petition said stand-up comedians had no access to public arts funding to tour, develop their craft, create material, produce albums and reach audiences. It collected 3,843 validated signatures and was presented in the House of Commons on Sept. 24, 2018.
Eight years later, Battaglini is again making the case through a new policy paper that examines where comedians fit within Canadian cultural policy and where they still encounter gaps.
The Problem with Being Funny in Canada: A Canadian Comedy Story — Policy Brief on Comedy in Canada, written by Battaglini and prepared for the Canadian Freelance Union, Unifor and the Canadian Association of Stand-Up, Sketch and Improv Comedians, was released Sept. 22. The paper is part of a broader Comedy Is Art advocacy campaign seeking formal recognition for stand-up, sketch and improvisational comedy within Canadian arts policy.
“Comedy is art, comedy is work,” Battaglini said in a statement announcing the paper. “This paper shows what exclusion from access to health, safety and other labour standards has cost comedians and lays out a path toward recognition, fairer access to public support and a more sustainable industry for all to enjoy.”
The Canada Council for the Arts already says its granting programs support comedy. Its current guidance lists broad general art forms including theatre, music and sound art, literary arts, circus arts and media arts, while specifically naming comedy among other supported forms that do not appear as separate categories.
The Council also says it does not fund commercial projects in cultural industries such as comedy, music, film, television and video games, where other public programs may be designed for commercial activity.
That creates a narrower policy dispute than the one Battaglini brought to Parliament in 2018. Comedy can now be supported through the Canada Council, but it does not appear as a separately listed general art form. Battaglini’s paper argues that stand-up, sketch and improv should receive formal discipline-level recognition along with funding structures designed around the way comedy is created, developed and toured.
Its recommendations include formally recognizing stand-up, sketch and improvisational performance within Canada Council funding structures and provincial and territorial arts systems; developing targeted funding for the creation, development and touring of comedy; addressing barriers faced by Canadian performers seeking work in the United States; improving digital monetization and discoverability; and expanding international cultural exchange and trade initiatives involving comedy.
The distinction between technical eligibility and a clearly defined place within the system has been part of the comedians’ argument for years.
When CASC treasurer Adam Growe appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in June 2019, he described comedians being directed toward theatre profiles under the Canada Council system then in place.
“We generally have different training and different peers, and typically perform in different venues,” Growe told the committee.
The federal government had already acknowledged the distinction in its formal response to Battaglini’s petition the previous year. Canadian Heritage said several of its programs recognized “Humour” as an eligible performance discipline and pointed to federal support for training, festivals and cultural spaces. Stand-up comedy, however, was not then a designated Canada Council field of practice, and comedians could seek eligibility through a theatre-artist profile if they met the applicable criteria.
The Canada Council’s current system has since changed. Individual applicants now use broader profiles such as Artist or arts worker, and a July 2026 update to the Council’s application portal means a profile no longer has to be validated before an application can be submitted, although validation is still required before funding can be awarded.
Current eligibility requirements for an Artist or arts worker profile consider factors including artistic learning or training, compensation for arts work, commitment to an arts career and recognition by other artists or arts workers. The Council’s published guidance expressly includes comedy among the art forms it supports.
That current language complicates one of the white paper’s central claims. The paper says comedians continue to face problems establishing eligible professional credits and describes applicants being encouraged to apply through areas such as theatre or storytelling before being rejected because their comedy careers do not fit the criteria used to assess them.
The available Canada Council guidance does not establish that comedians are currently barred from direct creation or touring funding because they work in comedy. The paper presents continuing exclusion as the experience of CASC and participating comedians, while the Council’s public rules now say comedy is eligible for support.
Other federal programs also already include parts of the comedy sector. The Canada Arts Training Fund explicitly includes comedians among the professional artists whose development it can support, although the program funds eligible arts-training organizations rather than individual performers creating a new set or mounting a tour.
Growe made a similar distinction when he testified in 2019. Federal support for presenters, training facilities and performance spaces, he argued, did not answer CASC’s demand for funding structures directed toward comedians themselves.
Provincial systems vary.
Quebec already treats humour as an artistic discipline within the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Artists working in humour can apply through programs covering areas including creation, professional development and public presentation, and applications in humour are assessed by peers working in the field.
British Columbia also explicitly includes comedy in its Individual Arts Grants for Performing Artists. Comedy sits within multidisciplinary and other performing-arts practices rather than having its own discipline, and eligible projects can cover development, creation, production and live presentation, with grants of up to $25,000.
Those programs make a blanket claim that Canadian arts councils simply do not recognize or fund comedy inaccurate in 2026. They also illustrate the patchwork the new white paper is trying to address: recognition and eligibility can vary depending on the funder, province and way the work is categorized.
Battaglini’s advocacy predates the current campaign, although the movement’s own records do not give a single consistent starting date. The new white paper traces the campaign to a 2016 open letter Battaglini wrote to then-prime minister Justin Trudeau. CASC’s current organizational timeline places “The Idea Is Born” in December 2017, while Growe told Parliament in 2019 that the organizing effort began in July 2017.
By June 2019, Growe told the heritage committee that CASC had more than 880 members across every province and territory.
Cross-border access has been part of the organization’s concerns alongside public arts funding. In a 2018 submission to the House of Commons international trade committee, CASC said Canadian comedians seeking U.S. work could face an O-1 visa process costing roughly $5,000 to $10,000. Those were CASC’s figures at the time, rather than a current estimate of 2026 visa costs.
The new white paper again asks Canadian and U.S. cultural and immigration authorities to reduce barriers to the American live-performance market and pursue reciprocal treatment for performers.
CASC’s relationship with organized labour has also expanded since its first appearances before Parliament. The association entered a strategic partnership with the Canadian Freelance Union-Unifor in April 2025 through Unifor’s Community Chapters initiative. Participating comedians gained access to services including contract advice, grievance support and health and dental benefits.
Unifor later adopted a resolution calling for governments to designate comedy as an art form and include stand-up comedians in federal and provincial arts-funding systems.
Battaglini’s new paper also places public funding within the broader economics of working in comedy. A February 2026 roundtable involving comedians, writers, agents and club owners raised concerns about limited professional opportunities, access to mentorship and business knowledge, self-funded creative development and the difficulty of converting digital audiences into sustainable income. Those findings reflect the experiences gathered for the paper rather than a statistical picture of every comedian working in Canada.
Earlier sector research offers a narrower snapshot. A 2020 Nordicity study prepared for the Foundation for Canadian Comedy and supported through Ontario Creates surveyed 540 individual Ontario comedy-content creators and 24 companies, along with stakeholder interviews. It examined barriers facing creators working across stand-up, sketch, improv, podcasts, albums and screen production. The study was designed as business intelligence for the Ontario sector rather than a national census.
The policy landscape has therefore moved since Battaglini’s 2018 petition. At that time, the federal government itself said stand-up comedy was not a designated Canada Council field of practice. In 2026, the Council explicitly says comedy is supported, Quebec funds humour as an artistic discipline and British Columbia includes comedy within performing-arts grants.
The Comedy Is Art campaign is asking governments to go further by giving stand-up, sketch and improv formal recognition as artistic disciplines and developing funding structures specifically for creating, developing and touring comedy.
