First of all, you are absolutely right, Mr. Henderson. Young people need to be educated. I understand that. Ms. Gilliland said that she was already taking steps to do that and it's a fine initiative on her part. I do believe that it's extremely important to raise public awareness and perhaps to educate young people, because no doubt you have already noticed that according to the surveys, young people are primarily the ones who download music free of charge. As soon as they start earning an income and become financially independent, they realize that they must pay for music. In any event, in Quebec, this principle is widely accepted. The public must pay for music and the artists who produce it must be paid as well.
With respect to levies, perhaps there was a bit of a misunderstanding. I simply want to stress that, as Mr. Henderson pointed out, levies are an ancillary support measure. The legislation already makes provision for levies to be charged. It is matter of updating the legislation to ensure that artists are compensated for MP3 and iPod music downloads. For example, I'm sure Ms. McKennitt is already receiving royalties from the Canadian Private Copying Collective.
As I understand it, every three months, artists receive a cheque. The money comes from the levies charged on blank audio recording tapes—which are not used as much—and blank CDs. The levy charged on the former medium is 24 cents, and on the latter medium, 29 cents. It is simply a matter of updating the act. These levies do not provide the artists' sole source of revenue, quite the contrary, but this is part of what we now refer to as the private copying levy. Provision is already made for this ancillary measure in the act.
Since 1987, $180 million have been distributed in this manner by the Canadian Private Copying Collective to 97,000 artists in various fields. Using a highly sophisticated mechanism, the CPPC distributes the proceeds as equitably as possible, which suits everyone. Therefore, levies are simply an ancillary support measure.
That said, I'm surprised that you do not support this initiative because I could quickly give you the names of some fifteen organizations that do support it: ACTRA, SODRAC, SOCAN, the Canadian Private Copying Collective, the Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec, the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, the UDA—Quebec's equivalent to ACTRA—, and the ADISQ —Quebec's equivalent to the Junos. In addition, the Union des consommateurs not only agrees with , but favours the levies as well.
You can go ahead and respond.