It's a great pleasure to be here today. It does take me back to how we used to think of making money back in the 1990s. As a young band, you were lucky to get a CD. It was very expensive. We had some FACTOR grants, which were very helpful.
It does seem that the model is very much changed, because last year my brother played South by Southwest and now is touring in Europe. His way of making money is so much different from how we conceived it. My brother tells me—pointing to what you're doing—that it's mostly the live music venue. They've kind of given up on trying to capture money off recordings. Now the industry is looking for more help, and I'm glad you're here today to talk about this.
I'd like to know more about festivals and tours and this whole idea of perhaps changing how we see ourselves. I was struck by what was said by a witness we had here last week or earlier this week, who was talking about moving everything down to Nashville, because Nashville is seen to be the place to go. Perhaps you can elaborate a bit more on how we can make Canada more of a music mecca in terms of live music, and how that translates into emerging artists perhaps being able to support themselves.
I would ask you to be specific. We have to write stuff on paper here and pass it in Parliament, you know, so if you have some specific ideas on how we might do that, it would be very helpful.