Canadian Heritage Committee on Sept. 27th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Mr. Boissonnault, please.

[Randy Boissonnault, Edmonton Centre, Lib.]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, everybody, for being here.

To Mr. Reid's point, not only is it one of the most important things, but in some respects, what artists do for this country is the most important thing.

MIT did a really interesting analysis. Of all the media that we have ever produced of everything we've ever done as a country, and how we are seen in the eyes of the rest of the world in terms of all of our famous politicians, all of our famous generals and all of our famous scientists, the top 10 list is artists. In the eyes of the world, Canada is art, and Canadians are artists.

That tells you whose corner I'm in when I sit at this committee. I was the parliamentary secretary at the committee at the beginning of the mandate, and now I'm here as a member with a voice. I'm going to use it.

I would like to say to my colleague Mr. Blainey that we are not trying to buy time. We are doing good work by taking the time we need to obtain a good revision of the Copyright Act.

It's a new time and a new era for this industry. With streaming, it sounds to me like we went from the wonder of the web to the tyranny of the technology.

I did some math. For an artist to make $2,400 a month, which is minimum wage in Alberta right now at $15 an hour, on YouTube it takes 16.5 million hits. On Spotify it takes 9.8 million hits each month to make $2,400. That doesn't make sense.

I'm a business person. I want to know where the money is going to come from. We have to get money into the pockets of artists so they can keep producing. That's what we need. Ecosystems need things. They need nutrients. They need sun. They need water. They need oxygen. Pick whichever one of those makes money for you as an artist. Clearly they need more.

I want to ask a question of each of you. Do we make the pie bigger or are we simply talking about cutting the pie differently, and if so, what does that look like? You have a minute each.

Brianne, we'll go first to you.

[Brianne Selman]

To speak to some earlier questions, too, incentive and reward are frequent frameworks that we talk about when we talk about any economic production. That's why some of our suggestions have focused on the lack of incentive. There is no incentive up front to artists to extend term to 70 years after death. It really doesn't work that way, because they're often not the rights holders of their music.

A rights reversion offers a real incentive to artists, especially when we're talking about musical acts from 1993. You don't know the future value of that music. You can't predict that. There's a value gap in our time. We don't think in terms of 70 years after our death most of the time. Immediate rewards are closer, term rewards such as a rights reversion. Just to clarify, reversion and ownership of rights do not exclude actual term extension. They can exist. Rights reversion can exist within the Berne Convention, and it does in the U.S. The rights reversion in the U.S. clearly doesn't act as a disincentive for cultural works being provided there.

I think we really need to analyze things like incentive and reward, and see who's getting the incentive and who's getting the reward.

[Randy Boissonnault]

Thank you.

Dr. Fauteux, we share an alma mater. You're teaching now where I went to school.

Do we make the pie bigger? Do we cut it up differently? Where does the money come from?

[Dr. Brian Fauteux]

Since I read the submission, I've been giving my time to Brianne for the questions, if she has anything else to add.

[Randy Boissonnault]

Sure, keep going.

[Brianne Selman]

Certainly I would argue for a redistribution of the existing pie. There is a vast amount of money being made. We're talking about billions of dollars, and we are not seeing it in the hands of artists.

Approaches that count on the benevolence of business to pass it on, if there is a sudden windfall, don't reflect the realities of the current market. We're seeing a shallower market. We're seeing the promotion of giant stars with very limited investment in anything in the middle end or in the deep end. That's going to hurt Canada specifically, because we sort of have a lot of novelty acts or really interesting little quirky things that don't necessarily read at the outset as if they're going to be big star power, but then we surprise the world with what we come up with.

We really need to think about a distribution that is deeper.

[Randy Boissonnault]

Thank you.

I'm going to Madam Rioux, and then to Jackie and Allan with some questions about biodiversity in the music ecosystem. How diverse is it?

Madam Rioux, can I hear from you on the question of where the money is coming from?

[Caroline Rioux]

We need to grow the pie.

[Randy Boissonnault]

How do you do it?

[Caroline Rioux]

You do it by reducing the value gap that has gone out of control. You need to be able to get the services that are out there to stop hiding from the hosting services exemptions under the Copyright Act so that we can have better tools to monetize the content to get better royalty rates out of the service that they deliver to consumers. That's how we reduce the value gap and get more money in the hands of rights holders. That would be a very, very good first step in this industry.

Other than that, I'd say limit exceptions to copyright that are also damaging to rights holders. It's all about growing the pie.

[Randy Boissonnault]

Ms. Dean, thank you for an amazing Junos in Calgary. I was happy to attend when I was parliamentary secretary, and I saw and listened to the phenomenon that is Shawn Mendes, who was discovered at 15 by posting on YouTube from his garage. For every Shawn Mendes, there must be at least 10,000 artists struggling to be discovered.

I see in the University of Alberta and University of Winnipeg submission that this preponderance of mega-corps is cutting out diversity in the system. Is that your anecdotal and professional experience, that we have less diversity among musicians in the Canadian marketplace now?

[Allan Reid]

Actually, no. It's interesting. Through the Junos each year artists submit to us to become a nominee in 42 different categories. This last year we saw the highest number of submissions in Juno history. Over 2,500 artists submitted for the Junos in 42 categories. That was a 20% increase from the year before. There are more recordings coming. I want to thank the Government of Canada for supporting the Canada Music Fund and funding FACTOR, which allows all of those artists to actually make their way to our stage as well.

On diversity, I think about who has been on our stage in the last few years. When we were in Ottawa for the Junos, Buffy Sainte-Marie opened the show. We have had Tanya Tagaq, A Tribe Called Red, Black Bear. There are phenomenal artists out there, but it takes investment. It takes a lot of investment from record companies, from managers and from promoters. There's the whole music ecosystem. As you were saying, it takes a village.

Honestly, it's probably the most exciting time in Canadian music right now. There are more artists happening, maybe not at a massive global level like Drake, Justin Bieber and The Weeknd, but there is a whole swath of incredible musicians. This is that value gap issue we keep talking about.

[Randy Boissonnault]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much.

We were negotiating a little bit to see if I can get two more sets of questions in before our time is up. In order to do that, we can go to Mr. Shields for three minutes and then to Mr. Long for three minutes.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I very much appreciate the witnesses being here today. I am an alumni from the U of A as well, but probably a generation before you.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

When you talked about growing the pie, I think you were talking about redistribution.

[Caroline Rioux]

Well, it depends who you include in the pie to begin with, I suppose.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay.

Going back to amalgamation of huge.... Amalgamation happens all the time. If you go back a century ago, you'll find the car industry did it. This is not a new concept. How do we deal with amalgamation and the artists to keep them alive?

[Jackie Dean]

Referring to Randy's question, in the industry, if we don't compensate the artist properly, you're building that gap. A lot of the artists will just leave the industry. They will only do it on a part-time basis: "I can't pay my rent, so I have to get another job." As successful as Canadian artists have been on the international stage and within Canada, we are slowly seeing that middle class of artists dwindle down because they all have to pay bills. They all have to pay rent. They want to have children and have a sustainable life.

As far as the amalgamation goes and the exemption, I can't speak to the profits of the radio stations and what's on their books, but that exemption was there to assist them financially. That has actually sustained itself. We can utilize those dollars for the artists because it was a temporary measure. It needs to change now. It had its time.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Good.

Mr. Yurdiga will take the last seconds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

You have one minute.

[David Yurdiga, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC]

Okay, I'll be quick.

Who controls the value gap at this point? Should the government be controlling who gets what or do we let private industry control that?

[Jackie Dean]

I think it's a mix of both. There are things the government can do. In our recommendations, along with looking at the Copyright Board and the decisions they make, not just for these but further on, we say there are things they can do to try to control that and split the pie a bit differently. It's private industry as well. The music industry itself is supporting the artist, but it's the bigger pieces of the ecosystem—from radio, from TV, from film—that need to buy into this and understand the artists are their bread and butter and that they need to support them and give them a reasonable living in order to contribute.

We need to keep growing the pool of artists and the talent we have. There is a ton of talent. You should see who comes through our office with all these submissions. It is incredible. We have a lot of artists who come into the office and play acoustically because they so want to succeed. It's impactful, and a lot of that talent doesn't get utilized.