Thank you, Greg, and thank you to the committee members for conducting this review. I must say that after hearing everybody speak, I'm a bit emotional. This is a very important topic for Canada and for all citizens.
My name is Damhnait Doyle. I'm the Vice-President of the Songwriters Association of Canada. I have been in this industry for 25 years, and I have only seen the standard of living decrease for those of us who have chosen to make this our profession. It is that—a profession, a highly skilled trade. We get up in the morning, get our kids off to school, and go to work, just as you do. We create the content for radio stations to play on your drive to work, for the DJ to play at your daughter's wedding, for your favourite album that you stream off the Internet when you have a dinner party.
When you signed on to this job—and thank you very much for being here today—you negotiated your salary, your health benefits, and your vacation days. If you were told, “I'm sorry, there are some issues going on with the government, and you are not going to be paid”, would you still be here today? How would you pay your mortgage, your health care, your child care?
I sit here today not getting paid but paying for after-school child care, so I can paint a vivid picture about the hard truths of the poverty affecting creators today. I wish I could use the term “middle class”, but the middle class of creators has been eviscerated at this point. I know only one musician in Toronto who has bought a house in the last 10 years; most cannot pay their rent, let alone go to the dentist.
I'm not talking about failed artists here. I'm talking about very high-profile, award-winning creators, people whose songs you know and love, who simply cannot make a living. It used to be shameful to say, as a creator, that you were struggling, because perhaps it looked like a reflection of your artistic merit, but we now are all in the same leaky boat.
I consider myself a very fortunate songwriter and musician. I have a hefty catalogue of songs, which I have placed in film and television in more than 100 countries. I've had several top five radio hits. I've won East Coast Music awards, SOCAN awards, Canadian Radio Music awards, and I've been nominated for several JUNO awards. I've performed here on Parliament Hill for Canada Day, toured with Willie Nelson, and played all over the world as far as Japan and Afghanistan, but still I do not make a living from music. Creators are being hammered from all sides, from minimized streaming income to piracy to outdated exemptions for big business. Everyone is getting paid in the music industry. They are. The only people not getting paid are creators.
Ten to 15 years ago, this was a very different story, but the entire ecosystem is sinking at the precipice. The water is rising, and it's rising fast. We need to stimulate the cultural economy before there are no more new artists and writers.
This brings me to copyright term extension. We need to get in line with the majority of our trading partners and extend the copyright term to life of the author plus 70 years. At life plus 50, we are way behind modern copyright laws, which puts our writers and rights holders at a serious disadvantage, not only in our country but globally. The loss of this income for Canadian publishers means less money spent developing new writers, which means fewer artists, fewer musicians, fewer studios, fewer touring crews, and fewer jobs all around.
As for the degradation of intellectual property as an asset, I liken it to buying a house. What if you passed that house down to your children; then, 50 years after your death, your children are kicked out of the house that they grew up in? Our laws are consistent with only minimum protections from the 100-year-old Berne convention, when 50 years was meant to cover two generations of descendants. This is not in line with current life expectancies.
I sit before you knowing that as writers, musicians, and creators, our impact in the culture in this country is immeasurable, and we do deserve to get paid for our work.
Thank you very much.