听is a听Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English at听.
It鈥檚 still not clear how Juste Pour Rire / Just for Laughs (JPR/JFL) went from one to bankruptcy.
On April 12, reported the festival lost $800,000 in an in 2023. This is just the latest detail emerging after Groupe Juste pour rire inc. the cancellation of the 2024 edition of JPR/JFL as well as the layoffs of .
The company also applied for protection from creditors under the . A week before the company announced this, because of a Qu茅bec Court of Appeal decision on a bizarre contract disagreement with an archivist/former employee who was promised a job for life.
Documents filed in Montr茅al reveal the company was owing to a long list of creditors that included television stations, production companies, marketing firms and even a 诲茅辫补苍苍别耻谤 (local convenience store).
With large-scale government funding that has previously potentially now up for grabs, there is an opportunity to reconsider and restructure our national comedy industry.
From burst to bust
JPR was by businessman Gilbert Rozon in 1983 as a two-day French-language comedy event in Montr茅al. In 1985, Rozon was joined by promoter who brought the event to anglophone audiences and co-founded the company鈥檚 bilingual iteration.
JPR/JFL is a in Canadian comedy and tourism. The flagship festival still took place in Montr茅al nationally and globally.
Conflicts around sexual assault, harassment
In recent years, JFL has contended with a series of high-profile conflicts. At the , Rozon as president after being named in .
This also brought back to light Rozon鈥檚 that he plead guilty to. In 2020, Rozon was found not guilty of rape and indecent assault. In 2022, .
The festival was also accused by journalist and comedian Megan Koester of an attempt to investigate the accusations of sexually inappropriate behaviour from comedian Louis C.K., which C.K. later .
As I have written , in the comedy industry. In 2018, after tying for first at the Montr茅al festival鈥檚 Homegrown Comics competition, comedian and writer D.J. Mausner publicly rejected their prize 鈥� the taping of a stand up special 鈥� and called for a boycott of JPR/JFL.
Mausner said Rozon鈥檚 stepping down was a 鈥溾�� and called the festival an 鈥�.鈥�
Following the earlier assault allegations, the organization implemented an and brought in .
Royalties issues, pandemic challenges
Then, in 2019, SiriusXM Canada and JPR/JFL announced to take over the Canada Laughs radio channel. The channel, which once played exclusively Canadian content, would now primarily feature classic JPR/JFL recordings, meaning a substantial reduction in royalties for Canadian comedians.
Intense from comedians led JPR/JFL to walk back their proposal and commit to playing .
In their official statement on the 2024 festival cancellation, Groupe Juste pour rire inc. cited COVID-19, inflation, a changing media landscape and difficult times for festivals as reasons for the 2024 cancellation.
It is clear that the rise of and have drastically changed the comedy landscape. The pandemic hit live festivals hard, but JPR/JFL did receive from government sources. Despite the real disruptions the company faced, there about how a well-funded comedy festival managed to dig itself so deep in debt.
Blockbuster festivals, broke comedians
Canadian comedians often think of performing at JPR/JFL as a . This makes its cancellation a brutal loss. As comedian Cassie Cao told CBC host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, JPR/JFL is a huge deal for Canadian comics who have .鈥� A 2019 from SponsorPulse found that 49 per cent of Canadians engaged with JPR/JFL over a year (meaning, they either watched on live television or online, or followed news events or social media), which suggests that platforming Canadian comedians could have a huge impact on their careers. But for years, JPR/JFL has been taken to task for their prioritization of American comedians.
Even if JPR/JFL survives restructuring, comic says this likely will mean 鈥渂ringing in more bankable American talent paid for by Canadian taxpayers and artistic institutions.鈥�
Canadian funding agencies tend to favour blockbuster events like JPR/JFL but in the world of art grants, stand-up comedians are at a . Lumped in with other groups like , comedians are, says, forced to 鈥渃ompete with completely different art forms.鈥�
JPR/JFL鈥檚 monopoly of the industry is evidently not working, so what do we need to build a real and sustainable foundation for Canadian comedy?
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Boosting international exposure
In my doctoral research and on work in the Canadian comedy industry, I found that most comedians felt that to make a real living off comedy, they鈥檇 Canada. But what if we created an environment where they not only wanted to stay but could stay.
One option is boosting Canada鈥檚 comedic digital content internationally. CBC Gem, for example, is accumulating an impressive , but they are . While there is nothing wrong with Canadian content for Canadian audiences, it ultimately puts a ceiling on comedians鈥� visibility. Expanding the circulation of our comedic content and continuing to invest in producing stand-up specials 鈥� which is relatively low cost 鈥� could be a huge boon to the careers of Canadian comedians.
Funding for local comedians and festivals
Another option is putting more funding directly into the pockets of individual Canadian comedians, producers, and (smaller) festivals, strengthening the comedy industry nationwide. While my study focused on Toronto, there are flourishing independent comedy scenes all over the country. These scenes are often where cutting-edge comedy is being created by diverse performers who might never have made it to, , a JPR/JFL stage.
In reimagining the industry, we shouldn鈥檛 be taking a top-down approach. We need to be asking comedians what they need to succeed and recognizing their work as both artists and contributors to Canadian culture.
While the potential end of JPR/JFL is a loss, it is also a wake-up call to rethink how we support and structure our comedy industry.
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