Hello. My name is Andrea Menard.
I am a Métis and a Saskatchewan actress and singer, and probably none of you have heard me on the radio, unfortunately, unless you listen to the CBC, but I am a success. I am a person who has followed my heart, right from my own ideas. The Canada Council grant for specialized music was the focal point and the beginning of my recording career, and in many ways my career in general.
My first CD as a Métis woman, The Velvet Devil, was the music from a one-woman show. It's jazz and traditional, so where on earth would I have gone for a play for native traditional chanting and jazz all on one album? There are not many places I could have gone. I went to the Canada Council because there was a place I could go. I have been funded by others--by the Saskatchewan Arts Board and by FACTOR--but Canada Council was my focal point, and it was the trigger for other funding.
I am a success. You may not have heard me on the radio, but I am a success because of that CD. I have three CDs to my name. I was able to take that CD and trigger my music, to trigger my play into going around the country and being made into a film, and it started because I had a CD in my hand. A mere $18,700 from the specialized music grant triggered that. It started it. It's a mere pittance, but it made my career. It allowed me to be able to hand a physical copy to whoever else needed it wherever I needed to go. Maybe now I could have e-mailed it, but back then, in 2000, I didn't. I had a physical copy that could take my work to the world.
From that very first CD, I was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award. I was nominated for a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award, or several of them, and I was nominated for an Indian Summer Music Award. These are also award ceremonies that mainstream music, CHUM music, probably has never even heard of. These are big in my community, but even within my community, if we were to look at the categories of music, and even in the aboriginal category, I sometimes don't even fit within my own category.
Again, specialized music is what I, the artist, come from, and what is in my heart that I want to get across. As an aboriginal person, I'm Métis. I'm a jazz artist; in aboriginal country, that's a weirdo. That does not fit. What's that? What's this music? Those are my own relatives going, “What is this music?” I am specialized even within the aboriginal world, and I don't quite fit in the jazz world either. I don't fit anywhere, but my heart and my music are important to the landscape of Canadian music. It is missing my voice. If there's not a place where I can go for funding, you are missing a very important voice.
Again, I am lucky. I am a success. You may not have heard me on the radio, but someday maybe you will. I have a plan to get my music out there. I have commercial intent. I'm not just doing it because I'm an artistic artsy-fartsy; I have plans. This is my job. This is my purpose.
Even within my own world, I have to come.... I can't put a native flute in just because I'm native, because somebody else on a panel says, “Well, that's not native enough” or I'm jazz. Well, you're right, and I don't play an instrument. I'm not that great--I'm no Jesse Zubot--but I sing in a way that would classify me as jazz. I have an original voice and there has to be a place I can go. I am a success now because FACTOR has recognized my work, but that's because I had a place to go to first. I became established: “Oh, she's successful; she got money from the Canada Council”. That's a stamp of approval.
I am a visible role model and I am one of the lucky ones. I sing in English. I don't sing in Cree. I have a voice that reaches across both cultures, that reaches across both languages. I have French, Cree, and Michif on my albums. I am going with what I want to create, and it's important that that always stays the same. I never ever want to create a song for the mainstream radio. Yes, maybe I'd make some money doing it, but I don't know how, and I won't. I have a voice that is unique and it needs to be allowed to be the voice it is. It needs to be left alone to create what I can. But I also need to be funded.
So where can someone in the middle of Saskatchewan, a girl from the bush as I like to call it.... I need a focal point, and with this grant gone, that's a crime. It is a shame, because I would have never gone to FACTOR first. This was the focal point. This was the grant that I knew I had a chance with, because it allowed my weirdness to be seen—because I'm weird, but beautifully weird. All of us artists who are being funded in this category are weird and wonderful and important. But because of that very first one, I have received $18,000 from this grant and it made my career. That's enough to have helped me move forward, and $1.4 million makes a lot of $18,000 grants. And for people with their first time going somewhere, who have never done a grant before, who have no idea where to go, that gives them a focal point. And $18,000 spread to many people is absolutely valuable, and it should never have been cut.
Thank you.