I wanted to get into the issue of the reality of how artists make a living in Canada and the sense we have that your government doesn't understand the way artists make a living in this country.
One of the reasons we feel this way is that when your government slashed the budget for StatsCan, it was forced to abolish its culture division and its programs to understand arts and culture in Canada.
The music industry is one that I know well. It's close to my heart. Based on a recent Canadian Independent Music Association report, they pegged the average annual income for musicians in Canada at $7,228. That's the reality for many people in the music sector.
But in the independent music sector, for every dollar the government spends on support, they get back about a 22% return on investment. For every dollar that federal and provincial governments put into the independent music sector, they get $1.22. An amount of $76 million was invested from combined provincial and federal sources, and an amount of $93 million was received in revenue in 2011.
I just want to give a couple of other quick little facts. The reason I'm doing this is that we need to track these things.
In 2011 the total direct impact on GDP from all the culture and arts sector.... Well, we know that the number for 2007 for the sector in totality, with the spinoffs, was $84 billion. In 2011 the direct impact on GDP was about $46 billion.
Some of these numbers are from the Canadian Independent Music Association and some are from the Conference Board of Canada.
The question is this. You've mapped out a lot of ways in which the government works in the arts and culture space, but isn't it time to invest in departmental measures to help government understand how artists make a living in this country?