I work hard for any critical and commercial achievements I've had, and while I enjoy teaching, I need this second income in order to make ends meet, to feed my family and to continue to make what I think is a valuable contribution as an artist to my community and to the larger Canadian community.
When I think about what I need as an artist to continue in my practice and feel confident in the belief that I stand a fair chance at succeeding in my chosen profession, the answers are modest in scale. One of the answers to this is access to incremental income derived from exhibition royalties and reproduction payments, which are currently limited under the existing law. Another answer, which I think about more now that I'm 60 years of age, is that I might share, in some small way, in a profitable resale of a work of mine at a commercial gallery or auction house. As expectations go, these are pretty basic, but meaningful remuneration for artists comes in small packages. A $400 exhibition royalty payment or a fee for reproduction is what keeps us going in this notoriously unpredictable pursuit.
Please bear with me on this next point. These are comments that I think can be extended to the working lives of writers, composers, musicians, choreographers, and others when I say that in our work places we have around us unsold work, art that is unseen in public, unpublished or unstaged work. This is part of the working life of the successful creator. As with a scientist who does many experiments before making a discovery, we as artists have no guarantee of succeeding in the short term. In our unrecognized and unrewarded work, we make a substantial contribution to the cultural production of Canada.
I am bringing this up in the context of the statement today because to ask us to walk away from any financial return possible from a successful work that finds its way into the larger world is unreasonable. All we ask is that, when a work of art does reach the public through exhibition, publication, staging or reproduction, we not be asked to take a pass on payment that might be derived from that engagement. The balance between users' and creators' rights that we're looking for can be summarized in two words: licensing and royalties.
I'd like, for a moment, to specifically address fair dealing as it has come to be understood in relation to our creative content in Canada. I recently visited the Canadian Association of University Teachers' website to better understand its stated position of support for fair dealing as it applies to education. This is a position that I don't share, but I did find myself nodding in agreement with much of what I read there. Artists do want to see their work included in affordable course packs. They want to see their videos screened in the classroom and their art involved in engaging class content.
The big difference that I have with CAUT's position is my belief that the content should be adequately paid for through licensing. I'm not a corporate publishing cartel attacking fair dealing for mercenary reasons, as referred to on the website. I'm a working artist who is compelled to identify the aberrations of the 2012 copyright legislation that have unfairly impacted my own and my fellow workers' incomes. The copyright payback cheque to artists used to be enough for a trip to the dentist or for back-to-school clothes for the kids, but not anymore.
Here's something about rules-based agreements. We've heard a lot about rules-based agreements over the last year in relation to a certain trade agreement with a certain economic partner. But which set of rules is it and in whose favour will it be applied? Fair dealing might be looked at through this same lens. If you walked onto the campus of any Canadian university heavily involved in research today and proposed a wide-ranging reduction of protections for intellectual property covered by patent law, your reception would be cool, to say the least.
The same might be said of a suggestion that teachers and university professors—