Thank you for the invitation to appear before the committee.
As just noted, the marketplace for recorded music in Canada has greatly eroded in the last 10 to 15 years. We commend the government for introducing framework legislation in the Copyright Modernization Act to help rectify the many problems we face in rebuilding a commercial market for recorded music, but this alone will not stem the tide. There is still a missing piece. What is missing is a public policy that addresses foreign direct investment.
The world has changed dramatically in the past 15 years and the marketplace is more and more global. Businesses have ever-increasing options about where to invest. Years ago Canadian policy-makers at all levels sat down to craft a policy that would stimulate domestic film and television production in Canada. A crucial piece of that strategy was the introduction of tax credits at the provincial and federal levels to encourage foreign direct investment in our country. Even municipalities jumped on the bandwagon. For some reason this critical piece of the film industry's success story was left out of the framework that was crafted to support Canada's music industry. You can begin to rectify this by extending a film tax credit-like system to music.
Demand uncertainty has always been an issue for the music sector and our development of artists is fundamentally a form of R and D. Therefore, we believe it deserves some type of public support akin to tax credits available to R and D-intensive industries in Canada. We are not suggesting the money should be diverted from programs such as FACTOR, which offer vital and effective support to the independent community. What we are suggesting is that for sound business reasons you should implement a framework to encourage foreign direct investment in Canada's music industry. It worked for film and it will work for music.
Take the example of the Province of Ontario, which just this year implemented a revolutionary support program for all sectors of the music community not just recorded music. Live music is a beneficiary. But there is also a very specific program that is designed to encourage Warner Music Group and our competitors to bring foreign direct investment to the province of Ontario, and that is exactly what we are doing. Over the next three years Warner Music alone hopes to bring over $4 million of fresh investment into Ontario, into the music sector.
I'll stop there. I'm happy to expand during the question period. Thank you for your time.