Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for being here.
This is a study that everyone is undertaking with a lot of good will. It is wonderful to hear testimony from so many people in such an important industry. To my mind and that of many of us here, this industry has a heritage dimension. I think that today's group of witnesses reflect that very well. Their experiences are at both extremes.
There are people who lived through the good years Mr. Boughen talked about when there were vinyl record stores everywhere. The display cases were incredible and showcased Bee Gees albums, for instance. At that time people purchased music because that was the only leisure source they controlled.
Then the VCR appeared, and people began to control what they wanted to listen to in a way, because they no longer needed to have a turntable to play their vinyl records.
I am referring to the two bookends of the issue: the cultural aspect and the business aspect.
Mr. Hetherman, in your testimony you mentioned the fact that it has become extremely difficult for artists to try to live from their art.
Mr. Jordan, you are among those who took part in the creation of the “Canadian sound”. All of the artists who received awards from your organization were very relevant creators. They really broke through artistic frontiers and that was excellent.
We also have here representatives from the industry that decided to focus on finding talent, fostering it, growing it and showing it off internationally. Those people often refer to Marie-Mai, and quite rightly so. She is certainly the best example of the success of Star Académie. Last Sunday, we saw her once again and that was fantastic. We were able to see the conjunction of English-language music from Montreal, with Adam Cohen, and that of Marie-Mai.
I congratulate all of you on what you do. You do good work and it is absolutely crucial. And that is why we wanted to hear your comments.
This morning I am concerned by what Mr. Sasseville said concerning taxes that are not collected by services like iTunes. We are going to have to find some way of building a legal framework around that type of service.
In fact, as Mr. Jordan and Mr. Hetherman said, services like Deezer are used more and more. The day before yesterday, I was cruising through my Deezer account and received a half-price subscription offer, for $5 a month. At that price, there is not a soul who will purchase a disk. You can listen to your music as often and as long as you like and it is even available for mobile devices.
My question is for Mr. Sasseville.
You referred to the issues surrounding the MEC program. I would like you to outline for us again the choice a young artist faces when he or she has the possibility of signing a contract with a big record company.