Evidence of meeting #23 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artists.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chair, Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR)
Certainly, the CRTC could play a role in allowing radio to consolidate, which would generate more money for funding agencies like FACTOR and Musicaction, so that's also an option, as well.
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
Anybody else? Please go ahead if you would like to add something.
Otherwise, I have more questions.
One point that has been raised by some witnesses, although I agree with Mr. Nantel that most comments about what you are doing were very positive, is the difficult balance between well-established artists and creators and emerging ones. Some said that maybe you should focus more on emerging ones and that when an artist is well established they should be on their own.
Is that something that you're aware of as a concern?
President, Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR)
I think it depends on how you define well established.
President, Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR)
That's a very interesting point. Who's well established? We know people who have won Juno Awards who still have part-time jobs, and they're in the FACTOR system. We know people like Jennifer Gasoi, who we mentioned, who won a Grammy award for a children's album. She still works part-time. That's hardly well established in the sense of a well-established doctor, lawyer, or other profession. These are people who still live marginally on their music and have some opportunities to commercialize it but are not doing it on a full-time basis.
So, I think, yes, we do have that balance between people who are more established and people who are less established, but I think we try to develop our program so each has an opportunity to benefit from the system.
Remember, too, that one of our responsibilities is to provide commercial radio with records to play, to provide people with commercial opportunities, and to introduce new artists to the commercial world of the industry, and not so much subsidize them to, say, learn their instruments or something like that. We are operating in that niche. That's an important point to remember.
So, yes, we do struggle with that, but I think we have a good balance right now, and it works very well.
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Rodrigue, would you like to add something?
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fondation Musicaction
At the other end of the spectrum, there will always be those young artists who will claim they should get funding when they were not selected by their industry's jury system. Juries receive dozens and dozens of applications and cannot accept everyone.
I empathize with them, but from an industry perspective I cannot feel for artists who have not been successful in attracting interest when others are able to do so...
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
These artists are not even at the “emerging“ stage yet.
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fondation Musicaction
They are at the front door, if I can put it that way. I think that if those artists are truly talented and relevant, they will succeed. In 2014, people who were told “no” may wonder, “why not me?” My answer would be, “because not everyone can make it.“ And that happens often.
Liberal
Stéphane Dion Liberal Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC
Mr. Rodrigue, since you have finished, we would now like to hear three or four recommendations.
Could you give us more details? You talked about flexibility and tailoring to outside markets. Is there anything we should include in our report about this? Or are you rather asking that we leave you alone, that we provide you with that flexibility and let you deal with things yourselves? Is there anything about these policies we should put in our report to the government? Whether it is the structure of the Canada Music Fund or anything else?
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fondation Musicaction
I would say I have the same concern you expressed earlier when you asked my colleagues what would happen next.
If you look at the francophone broadcasting ecosystem, the transactions that should have been done were done. As for French-language radio in Canada, mainly in Quebec, there is the Cogeco group, the Bell Média group, to which I belong, and some independents. As Susan mentioned, it would be almost impossible for other transactions to take place unless current CRTC rules were changed.
While FACTOR may be able to plan how it will manage its money over the next five, six or seven years to get as far as possible, for us, with this latest transaction, part of Bell-Astral, part of Cogeco and part of Corus will be no more. After that, if the government does not find a way to increase its funding to Musicaction or if the CRTC does not change its rules, we could have a problem. I am not here to talk politics. As an individual, I may have my proposals and ideas...
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fondation Musicaction
You know what projects are floating around. Should the CRTC look at what is happening on the Internet? Since new media are increasingly involved in music, should Internet service providers one day be called upon to contribute? Should international players, the Netflix and YouTubes of this world eventually be called upon to contribute as well?
Conservative
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Chair, let me add my voice of welcome to the panellists for taking time to visit with us. I'm sure you're very busy.
Staying with my colleague's questions on finance for a minute, can you explain to the group what are the advantages and disadvantages of handing over administration of the two components of the Canada Music Fund to the third party?
President, Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR)
What are the advantages of having us administer the fund, rather than say having the Government of Canada administer it directly? Is that the question? It's a sort of a compare and contrast question. Is that what you mean?
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
The Department of Canadian Heritage, our department, has assigned Music Canada and FACTOR to administer two components of the Canada Music Fund. The question really is what are the advantages and disadvantages of that kind of structure?
President, Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR)
The real advantage, I think, is initially we have a private-public partnership, so we don't just have public money being administered directly by a third party. Had there not been that, perhaps the department could administer it directly. It would only be government money. But in order to lever this relationship you can combine the two. Then you have the possibility of doing more. You can take the government money and combine it with the money from the broadcasters and create larger programs, other programs, alternative programs, more support for artists, more support in the regions, sponsorship programs, things like that.
Of course, the other advantage is we can move more quickly. We can make decisions on programs and their development and distribution of money in a matter of days or at least a month. I think you'll admit that sometimes it takes a little longer in government to get money out the door and spent and in the hands of the people who might want to use it.
Those are two advantages.
I think the disadvantage is we're out there in the public and people criticize us. We serve two masters. There's always a tension there and we live with that, but I think we're able to manage it fairly well.
We know there's a component of the Canada Music Fund now administered exclusively by government. You might ask some recipients of that how they're living in that world. I don't know, but I think we're doing a pretty good job in the relationship we have now.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Good.
François, what do you think of that question, the advantages and disadvantages?
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fonds RadioStar
I rather agree, that is, the word flexibility was used a number of times. Being close to the people you are helping is, in my opinion, one of the strengths of this type of organization. It means that you have a better understanding of everyone's challenges and that you can fix problems fairly quickly. I would say that it is a good thing in that sense.
Conservative
Ray Boughen Conservative Palliser, SK
Part of the whole operation is to encourage young performers to stay with their skill and develop it and move forward.
What feedback do you give applicants whose funding requests have to be refused? It's kind of like Canadian Idol. How did that work?
President, Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR)
Jake Gold is not on my board. That's a little inside joke.
We have a jury system, as I said, and a jury will consider each submission. It's a responsibility to give feedback on a number of dimensions. They score people on a number of dimensions and give them that straight score feedback, in addition to which these music professionals are asked to give the applicants specific feedback on where they thought they were weak, where they were strong, and how they might improve.
I have to say the system works. An anecdote I often tell people is that Dan Mangan once told me—he was a well-known artist from Vancouver who won a number of Juno awards—that he tried the system four times before he succeeded, but every time he was refused he took the advice of the jury and tried to improve. In the end he won multiple Junos. There is a lesson for any young artists who might not make it the first time that if they listen to the jury and try again, they can succeed.
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fondation Musicaction
I quite like the expression “the system works” because it is true.
The Musicaction board of directors is made up of 11 or 12 members who are broadcasters and record producers or who represent songwriters. They participate in launches and events in show business in general. They are very much present. They form a sort of community where artists who receive assistance and those who receive less, as well as those who have already received assistance but who no longer do so are very much aware of the group's programs and direction. Nobody can hide. It is not some kind of court that conducts its activities behind closed doors and that no one can access. There is a lot of communication. The same is true for my colleagues at FACTOR. No one can hide. The community is part of the system. I must say the system works.
