Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and honourable members. My name is Howard Knopf. I've been a lawyer since 1980, working mainly on copyright law, and often on issues related to the music business.
Before that I was a professional musician for several years and a frequent performer and recording artist for the CBC. As a matter of fact, I played the clarinet. I may have been Mr. Hornsby's teacher, but I wasn't very memorable because he doesn't remember that. At least I wasn't a bad teacher.
We're talking today about an ageist and anti-elitist agenda, plainly described in the CBC's own controversial arts and culture study, which I've asked to have translated and distributed to you.
Now classical music is going to be banished to between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., which is great for those of us in nursing homes, but we aren't all there yet. But it's not so great for the next generation of Canadians who are now at school at that time and who won't get to hear Ben Heppner, Bramwell Tovey, James Ehnes, the Orford Quartet, or Gavin Bryars, who has just written a wonderful letter to you that will be distributed once it is translated.
What this is about is a gratuitous windfall worth millions of dollars a year to the commercial music industry establishment in Canada. That establishment already has such measures as Canadian content regulations for commercial radio, the levy on blank tape media that has generated about $0.25 billion—that's with a capital B, as in Bob—and the rich FACTOR program, which is paid for by commercial broadcasters and injects more than $14 million a year into the commercial radio industry “to support the Canadian music industry”.
Now Celine, Shania, Avril, Sarah, and Feist all did perfectly well without having to rely upon CBC Radio 2. There's already tremendous incentive and a tremendous infrastructure in place in the industry to find the next star. They don't need Radio 2.
On the other hand, without Radio 2, serious musicians in this country will have virtually nothing, unless they happen to teach at a university or get a small commission now and then.
The Globe and Mail ran an ad last March 29 that would have cost the CBC—it was a CBC ad—probably about $75,000. I've asked that this ad be translated and distributed to you. It's mainly a list of those who support and clearly will benefit from this cultural revolution, most notably the big four international record companies, Feist, and lots of other companies, associations, and people from the commercial music industry. Mr. Kulawik, who we'll hear from soon, from True North Records, is also on that list.
The ad makes the absurd statement that there are 30,000 new songs recorded each year in Canada and that only 250 get regular air play on commercial radio. Well, so what? Not all songs are created equal. Who knows where these numbers came from, and what constitutes regular air play? It is not hard to guess why the commercial radio stations might ignore the other 29,750 songs, and it's certainly not CBC's job to give every self-proclaimed songwriter three minutes of fame each year.
I published an analysis in The Hill Times on April 21, 2008, about how these changes will cost CBC millions of dollars a year in increased copyright fees alone, payable to SOCAN and NRCC, which are the two big performing rights organizations. Nobody has even attempted to refute this conclusion. I've asked to have this translated and distributed to you as well.
Now the switch from serious to pop music will clearly benefit the commercial music industry in terms of copyright royalties and other ways, such as AF of M payments and record sales.
Since you've done so much marvellous work with these hearings to date, I suggest you do even a bit more and invite some key people from the commercial music industry who can better explain to you how their industry will benefit from the new CBC regime and whether their industry actually needs and deserves the resulting subsidy.
You might want to invite such people as Graham Henderson, the head of CRIA and on the board of directors of the NRCC; André Lebel from SOCAN; Eddie Schwartz from the Songwriters Association of Canada; and Peter Steinmetz, a preeminent entertainment lawyer and a leader for several decades in several capacities in the Canadian commercial music industry. He is currently the chairman of the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
You might also wish to invite the CBC back, including its chairperson, Timothy Casgrain. If this isn't important enough to merit his attendance, I don't know what would be. You might wish to hear again from Messrs. Lacroix and Stursberg, to give them a chance to reply to these four days of testimony, and also to invite their mid-level managers who are tasked with implementing, enforcing, and defending the new regime, and who have spoken very publicly about it and why they think it's all good and necessary. They are Chris Boyce and Mark Steinmetz.
This is an historic moment, not as dramatic as the crisis involving This Hour Has Seven Days, but ultimately perhaps just as important, if not more. I urge you to do what is within your power by making a strong statement to the minister and the Prime Minister. I hope they and their cabinet colleagues and that mysterious force known as the Governor in Council will immediately do what needs to be done to rescue and restore the CBC to its former glory. Your guidance and wisdom will be essential in this process.
If I have another minute or two....