Canadian Heritage Committee on April 1st, 2014

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today. Your speeches go to the heart of the problem.

Allow me to describe to you how other speakers before you presented the matter. Some of them are highly influential in the field. They said that the world had changed and that they had to adapt and sell t-shirts and their image and that that was how they succeeded. They noted that many people were succeeding and that there was no observable decline in creativity in the music industry.

That is one message that we have received, and I would like to give you the opportunity to respond to that.

[Jean-Robert Bisaillon]

The problem is that we may ultimately see a decline in supply. Today's easy access to digital is beyond comparison with anything we have ever known. That must not have the reverse effect of reducing the supply of Canadian content and cultural diversity.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Are we seeing that kind of decline in supply?

[Jean-Robert Bisaillon]

I do not have any figures to give you on that subject. That is one of the reasons why we are conducting studies and need to conduct more.

When we question people in the field and those who write music every day or are trying to break through, the logic is all too often one of "winner take all". Supply is definitely declining and shrinking in favour of very mainstream products, but that is not what music is.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

You have not given us a lot of figures, particularly Mr. Bisaillon and Mr. Johnston.

I believe the committee would be more informed if you could provide us with copies of your presentations.

Mr. Johnston said that we are here to highlight this issue. We need to go beyond that now. You have an opportunity to come with very specific recommendations to the committee, which the committee will formulate for the government, about what you call the new balance that you want to see between creators and makers. How can that be done? We need to know your views about that.

[Greg Johnston]

We have a very specific request for that. We think it needs to be studied. We need money to do research and that's what we're doing now. This takes economists; this takes data. It all takes a lot of resources and we're a small organization. Any support that we can get from the government to further research these issues...because these issues need to be decided upon in an intelligent and informed way.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

In the meantime, are there any changes you would like to see in federal policy?

[Jean-Robert Bisaillon]

If I may add one point on this research aspect, we are really saying that there is a need to establish certification for certain types of online products being offered and for certain partners in the economic chain.

We eventually want to certify certain types of products sold online and certain players in the industry chain in order to stimulate competition and to ensure that the authors of the proposals most respectful of the economic chain and all rights holders and parties in the economic chain have a chance to do business successfully.

We think the option that should be favoured should be to establish certification processes, but, as you know, that that is quite a complex task. We have options, but we are not prepared to state them at this time, although we are quite advanced in the process.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

This is a global problem.

Can we learn from what is going on elsewhere? Are any countries managing this better than we are?

[Jean-Robert Bisaillon]

Not at the moment.

One thing is certain, however, and that is that this proposal to create a fair music environment is being extremely well received by all songwriter associations around the world. We are currently working with ESCA, the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, with CIAM, which is an international association, and with Latin America and the United States through an association called the Music Creators of North America. So we are clearly establishing an international front on this issue of fair music certification. We can hope that Canada will be a forerunner on this front.

[Martin Smith]

I just want to add that the destruction of the music industry is further along than we think it is. I want to give you a statistic. In 1974 there were 31 different number one songs on the billboard chart. In 2013 there were 12.

You think, “Well, what does that have to do with anything?” The songs got better. They lasted in number one longer.

If you actually watch the statistics from the seventies on down, every year, there are fewer and fewer songs charting. Fewer and fewer songs in the public space. The cream is doing really well, but the middle and lower are really taking a beating, where there's no way for them to get to that point of being Arcade Fire.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Please send these stats to the committee because it's key for us.

[Martin Smith]

Yes, that's not a problem.

It's a real and tangible difference in the industry over time. Shania Twain sold 10 million copies of three albums in a row. The last person to do that, over the last I don't know how many years, is Adele. One person in the whole industry reached that mark.

Yes, there are artists doing very well, but the bottom is doing very poorly. Whether that's a songwriter or an artist, they are not able to get into the industry as easily as they could and those rising up is just a small portion of the number of artists that are out there.

[Benoit Henry]

If we want Canadians to continue listening to our own music, to listen to each other and to acknowledge each other through it, we must maintain a series of tools that will help us deal with a largely internationalized music market. I say "internationalized", not "Americanized".

If we want to maintain our position in our own country and internationally, we need a Canada Council that is strong, that supports creation and promotion. We need programs, like Musicaction, that support marketing. We need programs like the Canada Arts Presentation Fund, which supports presentation. We need a series of measures. What is currently lacking is international support.

The entire world may be interested in Canadian production. In our case, a lot of work remains to be done, as we recently saw at a number of fairs. In short, a whole series of existing measures must be consolidated and others implemented.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

We'll now move to Mr. Falk for seven minutes.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you all for coming here this morning and providing testimony to our committee.

Mr. Smith, true to the nature of your industry, you've provided a little ray of hope, or light, to the whole music industry. You made a comment that the industry is thriving. I'd like you to extrapolate a little bit more on that.

But you also made a comment that many of your artists, songwriters, find it difficult to access support from FACTOR. I'd like to have a better understanding of why they can't access that support.

[Martin Smith]

Our particular industry is I guess probably thriving in the sense that we have, as an organization, brought people together and taught them how to go from A to B. That wasn't really in existence for a lot of these artists before. They are finding out that they can get radio airplay, and there's an income stream there. They can play a song on TV, and there's an income stream there. These are things that a lot of them didn't even know about. There's where we're seeing some real growth.

I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question?

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

You also indicated that many of your artists, songwriters and musicians, are not able to access funding through FACTOR.

[Martin Smith]

Right. A lot of that came from the fact that when they would approach FACTOR, there were certain rules in place, notably distribution, or where your album was being distributed. If you're not in HMV, you're not in Walmart, you're not with a record label, it doesn't get recognized.

There are some exceptions. Steve Bell out of Winnipeg is an artist who managed to get FACTOR funding, but a lot of that was not happening for artists and still isn't. We're having a tough time as an organization getting funding for our event, where we're bringing people from across the country to learn and be taught fundamentals, and to sit at the feet of people who've gone before them. It's very tough to get recognized and get funding for it, and I think that would help our particular organization and help our artists grow.

Our organization is facing a lot of the same problems these folks are facing. It's just that perhaps we've seen some growth because we've taken steps to inform and educate people. But yes, a FACTOR grant would be great.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Our government is investing $25 million annually in the music industry. From your perspective, and I'll open it up to the other presenters as well, where do you think our government could best spend that money? What would provide you the best traction?

[Martin Smith]

I think new and developing and middle-level artists need the most help to pursue their careers. I would echo the need for songwriters as well. They sometimes get missed in that equation. Some of them are just songwriters. They're not in front of people performing.

So I think those two areas could probably use the greatest assistance.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

To the others, where would you like to see our government investing funds?

[Greg Johnston]

We lost the creators' assistance program, which was part of that funding. That was hard for a lot of the songwriter organizations. We're still recovering from that. We provided a lot of programming and a lot of events for up-and-coming songwriters, to teach them skills. We're doing a lot less of that now.

To be honest, at this point, we just think the creator side needs to be more present and more represented within the funding. I think the funding has made some real success stories. Even for some higher-level artists who have been able to participate in those fundings, it's really brought them to an international market. It's done an excellent job.

I have an article here from the Post that for every dollar a Canadian band gets from federal and provincial governments, they contribute $1.22 to the economy. I think that says that we're doing well, but I will echo it again. We need to do some research and we need to do it quick. We have to figure out how to stop the hemorrhaging of this business and try to take some proactive steps.

We're doing a lot of research now. We have accessed different sources of funding for that, but the more we can access, the better we can have a solution for everyone in the sector. We're not looking for a solution just for songwriters. We're looking for a solution for the sector too. We want the labels to do well. We want the publishers to do well. They're all part of the puzzle. If the artist doesn't do well, then they're not going to sell their record and I'm not going to get my 0.3¢. I want the artists to do really well too, and the record labels. It creates a whole healthy environment.

[Jean-Robert Bisaillon]

There used to be a program called

the Support to Sector Associations Program, SSAP.

That program used to give out money to associations to carry out studies. But we also have to be careful when we speak about studies. Sometimes we see something like a big document that stays on the shelf, but nowadays you can do studies that are much more proactive than that. You can do studies with other bodies of the industry and try to test pilot projects, for example. This, for us, is a way of researching solutions, through pilot projects.

I think there's definitely a way to support and try to innovate by supporting more research.