The impact of the teacher’s dispute is also being felt by a successful annual arts festival that attracts thousands of eager students every year.
Its fate is currently in doubt as a direct result of the dispute, organizers say.
The Ottawa International Children’s Festival is a five-day event that offers children the best of performing arts from across Canada and abroad.
Held at the LeBreton Flats and the neighbouring Canadian War Museum in early June, the festival has grown since its inception in 1985 to become a fun, one-of-a-kind field trip for children.
The live performances already booked for this year include a dance team from the United States, a theatre troupe from Denmark, and a Quebec choreographer.
More than 20,000 people attended last year’s festival and those numbers were expected to rise.
That is, until the teacher’s labour dispute got serious.
“We have only been able to garner a small fraction of early bookings through schools that we would have had by this time in previous years,” says Patrick Mc Cormack, the festival’s media marketing co-ordinator.
Children from more than 140 schools attend the festival most years, a far cry from the schools expected to bring their students this year.
The many no-show notices that have and are still coming in from schools across the city could come amount to a huge financial loss for the festival, says Mc Cormack.
“There could definitely be some serious consequences if we push forward and are not able to garner the type of attendance that we’ve had in the past,”McCormack adds.
The lion’s share of the festival’s revenue (around 90 per cent) comes from the students themselves, who pay $8 for a day to attend the performances.
But it’s not just annual festivals that are being affected by the ongoing dispute..
According to Rosemary Thompson, a spokeswoman for the National Arts Cenjtre, the NAC has had to significantly reduce the number of children’s shows as a result of the teachers’ job action.