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.