Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Carole Therrien, I am from Montreal, and my job titles are many: opera, classical, baroque and jazz singer; music writer and composer; and, lastly, producer, manager and, together with the bass player Alain Bédard, co-founder of the contemporary jazz label, Effendi.
For the past 10 years, Effendi has been one of Canada's biggest jazz labels. We have carved a niche as a leader in the field, helping a growing number of artists make their records and organize their concerts and tours. Our principal objective is to promote Canadian jazz. Our sound recordings host 90% original Canadian music content. We are working with renowned artists such as, amongst others, Rémi Bolduc, François Bourrassa and Michel Donato. We also distribute sound recordings by a number of Canadian and foreign independent labels across Canada.
Since May 2000, we have received multiple nominations for our recordings in a variety of competitions. In addition to the nominations, we have won some 30 prizes. A list of the prizes we have won is provided in the appendix to our brief. For 10 years, we have been working to create Canadian content and promote our music and our culture. Effendi is raising the profile of Canadian culture, both here and abroad, both by means of domestic and international distribution and of scheduling performances at venues such as New York's Lincoln Center and Milan's Blue Note. Four of our artists are touring this fall, three in Europe and one in Canada. We have also just found out that one of our artists, François Bourrassa, has been selected to represent Canada at the next MIDEM trade show.
Abolishing programs to replace them with new, virtually unrelated ones makes no sense. We produce one or two recordings a year thanks to Canada Council for the Arts funding, and have released a number of recordings by artists and producers who have received funding from the Grants for Specialized Music Sound Recordings Program, but not from MUSICACTION or FACTOR. It is a mistake to think that there's overlap between the various programs, and to do so will simply lead to a reduction in the number of records on the market, which will, in turn, have the undesirable consequence of creating greater homogeneity.
The FACTOR and MUSICACTION juries are not exclusively juries of peers, unlike Canada Council for the Arts juries. This means that the juries may therefore not have the requisite in-depth understanding necessary to evaluate the quality of a project, and may only consider commercial factors. Selling 20,000 copies is not necessarily an indication of superior quality; it is sometimes simply an indication of a larger marketing budget.
We are fortunate enough to be well known by MUSICACTION, and thanks to that, we can submit projects to their board that would not necessarily be accepted by their jury. The funding that we receive is often not even enough to produce a recording. In some instances, we have received funding from both the Canada Council for the Arts and MUSICACTION for the same project, but that is not the norm. Furthermore, the support we receive never exceeds 70% of the total funding required. We always have to invest our own time and money. That is why grants for specialized music distribution are essential. Jazz lovers around the world have a fairly similar profile: they are usually disinclined to buy MP3 downloads, as they are always compressed and, therefore, offer poorer sound quality than CDs; they prefer to have the actual CD and its cover; and, often, carefully choose a high-quality sound system to listen to their music. For these reasons, there will always be retailers selling physical recordings, and we will always need support to promote our recordings, lest they be lost in the myriad weekly releases.
Abolishing the program would probably also have a detrimental effect on the capacity of universities and music schools to attract students and therefore to offer courses. In spite of its excellent reputation for teaching jazz, who would go to McGill if it were unable to offer access to the latest recordings? What would be the point of offering these programs if becoming a professional jazz artist were nothing more than a dream of yesteryear? Nowadays, jazz is taught in secondary schools and colleges, as well as at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral level in universities. Do not think that these students will simply turn to commercial jazz. That is not the case at all, they want to be the best they can be, and it is for them that the Grants for Specialized Music Sound Recording Program is so essential.
In the short term, our company risks having to make more risky investments. There will be a decline in the number of quality recordings, which will undermine musical diversity and harbour disastrous consequences for the entire specialized music industry and its attendant job market.
To ensure greater profitability, some companies have not hesitated to offer more popular and even foreign content, content which is often not original. We, however, like other companies, have for a number of years favoured original, Canadian content because we believe in openness, and in the strength and attractiveness of our culture both abroad and here at home.
To conclude, I would like to draw your attention to the issue of attracting new consumers. Why do radio stations insist on endlessly playing the same recordings and the same American composers? Should we not try to help ensure access to quality Canadian content—not Canadian jazz performers playing American classics, but playing their music, our music? It is a question of showing pride in our culture; but to achieve this, radio stations, broadcasters and founders have to take risks. I do not support your decision to cut Canada Council for the Arts programs, and would ask that you please reinstate them quickly.