Thank you very much.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you for inviting us to speak today.
My name is Ingrid Mary Percy. I'm a visual artist, educator and president of CARFAC National. I normally live in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, but currently reside in Victoria, B.C., where I'm a Ph.D. student in the department of art education at the University of Victoria.
As the national association representing Canada's visual artists, our mandate is to improve artists' working conditions. Artists are often asked to work for free, and we believe that they should be paid fairly for their work.
According to the 2011 labour force survey, there are nearly 16,000 visual artists in Canada with average incomes just under $25,000, which was about half of the average income of all Canadians and only slightly above the low-income cutoff. The median income is about $17,000, so more than half of all visual artists are below the poverty line. Visual artists are the most likely of all artists to be self-employed and are among the most vulnerable when it comes to income precarity.
There are many ways we can improve artists' incomes: better taxation policies, guaranteed basic income and social security measures, better funding for the arts and more. Our brief includes recommendations for changes to the Copyright Act that can lead to improvements in artists' incomes.
Our colleagues at Copyright Visual Arts and RAAV are going to speak about two of our recommendations while we focus on the artist's resale right, which we have also presented to the industry and finance committees and a Senate subcommittee.
The resale right allows visual artists to receive a royalty payment each time their work is resold through an art auction house or commercial gallery. We are asking that artists receive 5% of subsequent public sales of their work if it sells for more than $1,000 and meets various eligibility criteria. The resale right allows artists to share in the ongoing profits made from their work. It is common for art to grow in value over time and as the reputation of the artist grows.
Many of our most celebrated artists live in poverty, and while they may still be making more art throughout their lives, everyone wants to buy the early work, the work that made them famous. The resale right will be of most benefit to senior artists as well as indigenous artists, as their work often increases in value within their lifetime. Sometimes the increase is minimal and sometimes it's dramatic.
We have several stories of artists across Canada who would benefit from the resale right, everyone from Kenojuak Ashevak to Rita Letendre, from Mary Pratt to Kent Monkman. In a moment, you will hear from the daughter of the celebrated artist Joe Fafard.
Once the measure is established in Canada, artists would be paid on sales here as well as when their work is sold in countries that also have the resale right. France first legislated it in 1920, and it now exists in at least 93 countries worldwide. Many of those countries worried that if they legislated this, it would drive the markets to countries that do not have it, but that has not happened. The cost and hassle of exporting art is rarely worth the effort. The resale right has been discussed in trade negotiations with the European Union, and the World Intellectual Property Organization is advocating for mandatory international implementation under the Berne Convention.
You may have many questions about how the right works. Won't it be difficult to administer? Why do we need a law? Why add a new tax? Let me be clear. This is a copyright royalty, not a tax. It is not collected by government. We're only asking that you give us the legal right to collect the royalty. We're not asking for government funding. We need a legal mechanism because, if people aren't required to pay, they simply won't do it. We need a legal framework. After that, there are ways to allow the market to administer it efficiently.
We have good models for administration to refer to, and many of the details about how it is administered have been considered by us and our international colleagues. We have studied these issues extensively, and we keep up to date on how it works and has been reviewed in other countries. We have a detailed proposal of how it would work in Canada.
The artist's resale right was discussed the last time the Copyright Act was reviewed and although committee members, including Minister Rodriguez, were supportive, it did not make it into the act last time. They told us to wait five years for the five-year review.
In the meantime, our proposal has been endorsed by the Government of Nunavut and the hamlet of Rankin Inlet. A bill was presented in 2013 but did not pass before the last election.
Last year the finance committee recommended that the Copyright Act include an artist's resale right. Now you and industry are examining copyright and artists' incomes. We urge you to make this change now.
Thank you.