Canadian Heritage Committee on April 8th, 2014

[Brett Kissel]

In hindsight, I feel very fortunate sitting where I am. I believe that there are always things that everyone could improve on, and there could have been some directions that I could have taken that might have gotten me to a certain place earlier or quicker. Possibly, if there was more funding, as Mr. Dion was expressing, we could have done this and maybe gotten to this point sooner, or we could possibly be at a bigger level than I am now, where my friend could be at a bigger level in his or her business if there were more available. If there is more, we can do more.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Thank you. Blessings as you continue your career.

I wish you success.

[Brett Kissel]

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

[Louis O'Reilly]

Could I speak to one point that you brought up, about accessing funding? In English-speaking Canada, we do not have a talk-show format. In Quebec, if I had an artist like Brett, there would be 12 talk-show programs that he could get on.

For instance, I am thinking of Pour l'amour du country and of Tout le monde en parle.

All these things....

[Brett Kissel]

I am Ukrainian.

[Louis O'Reilly]

But with Brett's career, we're trying to get him at a national level. There's no more Mike Bullard. There's no more Vicki Gabereau. So how do people in Fredericton, how do people in Saint John, how do people in Victoria hear about Brett Kissel? We need to tour him.

So we put together a 19-day across-Canada tour. I put the budget together and said, “Brett, we're going to put you out on the road for 19 days. You're going to be out on the road for over a month, but you're not going to make a penny. In fact, we might lose money, but don't worry. I'm going to put in for a FACTOR grant and it's going to cover...and it's going to maybe put a bit of money in your pocket. It's not going to make you rich.” And Brett said,“Louis, as long as we can hopefully get a FACTOR grant, I'll do it.” So Brett went across...we received the FACTOR grant, and that makes a huge difference.

That's a practical example, and it's brought Brett's career from here to there because he's gone from Vancouver to Charlottetown. We lost money on it, but FACTOR made the difference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

We'll now go to Mr. Stewart for five minutes.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Welcome to the witnesses, and thanks for coming today.

Congratulations on the Juno. I was watching your video, too, last night—that was my homework—and I really enjoyed it.

Mr. Kissel, my understanding is that you're living in Nashville now. Have you moved there?

[Brett Kissel]

Yes, I am.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

How's that going?

[Brett Kissel]

Very well. It was a great move for myself and my wife, Cecilia. We really love Nashville. My publishing company is there. My co-manager in America lives there. It was a necessary move for us to be immersed in the country music culture, which is Nashville.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thanks.

What I'm hearing from Mr. Reid and yourself, Mr. Kissel, is actually kind of two different things. They're almost competing visions, so that's what we have to decide here.

We have one pool of money, and we have to decide how to disburse it. Mr. Reid, you're essentially asking us to invest in Canadian kids to enrich local community, and it's not so much about commercial success, although it can lead to that. What you're asking us to do is to perhaps help build social capital in Canada. It's saying that these partnerships with education, being able to beat on a tambourine, that is your goal, to bring music to Canadian kids, much like we've done with sports. Is that—

[Allan Reid]

Absolutely.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Kissel, you're asking us to invest in young Canadian artists so they can build a profile and a portfolio. As Mr. Dykstra said, it's more of a business approach, so you can succeed eventually, and I'll use your CFL and NFL analogy, to succeed in Nashville, where you've moved now. To me, in the business community, you call that kind of an incubator. So Canada is an incubator for artists who move off and become much larger artists, as you mentioned in your speech. Most of those folks who you mentioned all live in the U.S. now.

I'm going to ask you a couple of things. Do you think there's no hope to move beyond the incubator approach here in Canada? Will we always be destined to kind of invest in artists who even have a goal but eventually move off to whether it's the United States, or a country in Europe or Asia, or is there any way the government could possibly change that?

[Brett Kissel]

I believe that it's no slouch on our home and native land here for somebody to move away. Those could be personal choices. Those could be a number of different choices. Here, Canada is an incubator as are other countries around the world. Sweden was an incubator for ABBA and England was an incubator for the Beatles. There's no difference in that, not to challenge too much.

But for us here, I believe Mr. Reid and I aren't necessarily competing for only one pool of money. I'm a very big advocate for making sure that we can increase, as you said, a social profile and have music start earlier and then that can lead to this, can lead to that, can lead to commercial success. Once somebody reaches a certain level, say the middle of that process, this timeline, is when we can also access another pool of money, which is all in the same house, to go and achieve that next level.

Back to the question of moving away and is there any hope for Canada, well, absolutely. I believe my courage has taken me to Nashville for the time being, but I have a cattle ranch back home and I'm very happy to probably raise my children there and continue for six, seven, and eight generations. That's my personal choice. Of others, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback still has a place in Vancouver and does a great business in Vancouver, but lives in L.A. quite a bit, and k.d. lang lives in Portland, Oregon. But a great incredible band, Great Big Sea, I believe they still live in St. John's. Jim Cuddy, who has travelled the world over in Blue Rodeo, still lives in Toronto.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you for that. I think that gives us hope, but as a country I think it's important to understand what we are and what we're capable of. For example, the United States builds the biggest companies in the world and they stay there, whereas in Israel, for example, they recognize they're an incubator type of country and so they start businesses off and they're okay when they leave. But they structure their government programs to match who they are.

I think that's a bit of what I'm struggling with here. Will we always be the CFL? Is there any chance of getting a Nashville in Canada ever, and if there is, how would we do that?

[Allan Reid]

Well, there already is. Again, I spent 25 years as head of A and R, artists and repertoire, for a label, and there are all different levels of success that can happen. Some artists need to go global and need to take on the global economy; other ones don't. You have artists like Rush, which is arguably one of the biggest rock bands and has been for over three or four decades. They still reside in Toronto. Anthem Records, their label and management team still reside right in Toronto. There's a band like Metric, which has been funded heavily from FACTOR and Radio Starmaker. They still call Toronto their home.

Yes, there are examples and Nashville is a great example. A lot of people in the country music industry go there. It is the home of country music. One thing that has been created through the Ontario Music Fund, one of their goals is to create an opportunity to bring international artists and other artists within the Canadian rights to come to Ontario and record and keep it there. There's a real move afoot, and again, there's a very successful industry that also exists off of keeping those artists at home.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Is that it for me?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

It is.

We're moving to Mr. Weston, for about four minutes.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

I just said to my colleagues, I feel like getting up and cheering after you three have spoken. You've done great things to invigorate our study and give us some good practical advice.

I've already tweeted you and I'm expecting you to pass it on. We're going to get everybody in this room to do that.

My specific question is this. Somebody said if you can't measure it, it doesn't count. And I believe what you're telling us, Brett. Your story is a really compelling one, but how do we measure that? Let's say there's nobody here, but the cynics enter the room and ask how do you measure it? Had there not been FACTOR, you're a resourceful guy, you're an entrepreneur, you have family support, you have all the ingredients of success, my guess is you would have found your way to this podium sooner or later anyway. So how do we measure it?

Then I want to come back to this ParticipAction idea, which is really exciting.

[Brett Kissel]

I think, quickly, to measure that, which is a great question.... For me, I actually would have to say it's not likely; if I didn't have the funding from the Government of Canada, the answer is that I would not likely be here.

Yes, I want to be resourceful. You can tap in and contact somebody from a Fort McMurray oil company to throw in a couple of thousand dollars to help me make my CD, but you can't get it without that large pool of money and those great resources. You really almost can't do it.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

So we could do a better job of measuring it so that we reinforce the value and then can do what you want us to do, which is expand it.

[Brett Kissel]

When it comes to measuring, I'm not sure about that analogy, necessarily. I feel it's just about showing proof. It's about connecting with certain people who maybe have moved on in a very, very big way.

I don't know if these people have accessed funding, but I'm going to throw out some names: Michael Bublé; maybe the Devin Cuddy Band; maybe Great Big Sea, I'm not sure; maybe Arcade Fire; maybe Nickelback. I don't know, but potentially these large, large groups and artists can be the proof in the pudding, maybe in a commercial, or maybe in something in a big way to say, “For all the cynics out there, we benefited, and we're here today because of it.”

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

What you're talking about is catching government doing something right.