Evidence of meeting #17 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artists.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:35 a.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
Mr. O'Reilly, would it be more of the same or new approaches?
11:35 a.m.
Manager, O'Reilly International Inc., As an Individual
I would say more of the same for FACTOR. Keep it. FACTOR doesn't only touch artists. It touches managers. It touches the Western Canadian Music Awards, and it touches the Canadian Country Music Association, a lot of organizations where my artists get a start and grow. FACTOR touches them directly.
The second thing, which hasn't been mentioned, is that royalties on digital streaming are decimating labels. I have an independent label and I used to make x amount of money per CD sale and now less per digital sale. Now I'll get a statement where there are 10,000 streams of Brett Kissel's song, and I'll receive $1.00 or $1.50 for it, and I'm thinking, “How am I going to make a living at this? How am I going to support my staff?”
The final thing is that, just as the NHL has to prop up hockey in Florida, Tennessee, and Arizona just because the market size isn't there, the same thing goes for Canada with its cultural industries, especially its music industry. Again, it might sound very disparaging, but we're up against the big American entertainment giants, and it's very hard to compete. It's very hard to draw some air from the room because they suck it all up. We need the support of the federal government. We really do.
11:40 a.m.
As an Individual
What happens is that this beginning program could help build new artists and get that talent to flourish so they could then become the types of artists who could really access the government funding to take their career to the next level. We can start at the very ground level and build some artists.
11:40 a.m.
Manager, O'Reilly International Inc., As an Individual
I have just one more point on Allan's point. I was not an athlete. I was not a musician, but music touched my life and I ended up becoming a music manager. I have five kids. I have five staff. I have an office in Saskatoon. I'm a legitimate music business in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. So music touches not just artists, but it touches entrepreneurs like me too.
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
Yes. If there is a federal policy about music, it's because we are well aware of the competition you face from the giants coming from the United States and elsewhere, and we should not let you down. We should support you. But the point is with the new technologies and the new context, are there new tools that the federal government should develop, without dropping the ones that are working well? That's the key point, I guess.
11:40 a.m.
Manager, O'Reilly International Inc., As an Individual
I think FACTOR is in tune with that.
Would you say so, Allan?
11:40 a.m.
Director, MusiCounts, Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
I would too, and when you say “new tools”, what do you mean by that?
11:40 a.m.
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
I don't know. If we don't need new tools, keep FACTOR as it is and that's it. That will be our recommendation.
11:40 a.m.
Director, MusiCounts, Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Yes, I think obviously FACTOR plays a very important role. New technology, as we've said, has changed this business incredibly, in some ways for better, but unfortunately in other ways not for better. When it comes to sales, as Louis was saying, and you see your statements come in with 0.0001% of a penny for a stream, it's hard to make money from that.
I think FACTOR and other organizations need to look at how they can help with new technology, and I think they're always looking to change. It's sometimes a little slower than we'd all like but helping the entrepreneurs compete in the digital economy is key. That's where music lives now.
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
I would like to address my first comments and questions to Mr. Reid, but I want to thank the entire panel for coming and just blessing us here this morning with your witness.
I've been on the board of an organization called FLN, which oversaw Avante Records and Marshall Zacharias, and so we produced some Juno nominees and award winners like Fresh IE and Amanda Falk.
11:40 a.m.
Director, MusiCounts, Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Your daughter?
11:40 a.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
Not a daughter, no, not close enough that it's a whole lot of benefit; a distant relative.
So I'm a little bit familiar with your industry but I'm wondering. You already have a little bit of this partnership happening with TD. Are there other ways you can leverage government funding with private partnerships?
11:40 a.m.
Director, MusiCounts, Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Yes, I would believe so. TD is a brand-new client to us. They came in as a partner of MusiCounts. Actually, it was interesting. What TD did is they put out a call to the industry and to advertising agencies saying they wanted to be the bank of music. It's one of their main platforms right now. As Royal Bank has the Olympics and Scotiabank has hockey, TD has focused on music.
They came to us, and surprisingly actually, it was a sports advertising agency called XMC which took MusiCount's PSA and played it at their board meeting, and it quite moved them, and all they said was, if you want to support music, doesn't it begin here, with music education? So XMC won the right to be their advertising agency and came to us and worked out a deal with us, and it became a larger piece with the Junos and CARAS.
The banks and financial institutions have become for us now a very important funder as we've watched the record industry income for us decline, as well as the broadcast industry. Bell Media and Astral Media have been two of our biggest supporters. Now that they've merged into one, they are still one of our key supporters, but overall their dollars have shrunk. So out of that we found a definite need to try to find other funding.
When it comes to partnerships of government with private, there has been no funding directly to MusiCounts from any government level at all yet, but this is something we need to explore. We're also in a very critical stage of our charity and fundraising. We found that again some of those key revenue streams from the music industry are starting to dry up, so we have to go out and look for other partners. If there's opportunity to do that and if music ParticipAction could be a program, we'd be thrilled.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
We do a little bit of that with our provinces and municipalities when we do infrastructure work. We say there's money available if those guys pony up. Do you see that as an opportunity in your industry to go to private partners and tell them you can get government money if they contribute?
11:45 a.m.
Director, MusiCounts, Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Absolutely. Again, TD gives us over $200,000 a year for this program and they are ecstatic with what's coming to them from a media opportunity, a marketing opportunity, and they're not crass about it. They have been amazing partners for us, but if I were to go to them and tell them that our community music grants program is going to have an injection matching dollars to your program, and we're now going to fund 30 programs this year instead of 15, and our reach is going to double across the country, yes, they'd be very happy. Not only that, with the impact we would have through that program, again, you're doubling up all across the country.
11:45 a.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
11:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I appreciate that. I bet you we'd have a lot of fun if we were working together.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
I bet we would.
You said it starts in boardrooms. I take a little bit of exception to that. I think it starts in homes and schools, and places like that. I think that's where yours started.
As a government, we've come alongside. I watched your video twice now, the second time while I was sitting here, and I'll have some questions for Mr. O'Reilly about that, because nothing came out of my pocket. Are we, as a music fund, funded by the government...? Like in your video, there's this bonfire that you started at home and you developed. Are we adding the gas at the right time?
11:45 a.m.
As an Individual
I do believe so. I believe that you are adding the gas at the right time, and it's up to the artist and his or her team to know when to access and when to tap into the opportunities and the funding available. For us, as an example, I felt that we needed to go to the next step, which is why we saved our pitch and our application to FACTOR for this time. But there are some other artists who may need the help earlier, and in that case I fully support them, and I hope that the government can continue to support them. So I believe that you are the gasoline for that fire, and can really help ignite something in a very big way.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB
In hindsight, is there anything we could have done better to promote your career?
