Thank you, Mr. Chair.
People might have noticed that I have an amendment coming right after this. It would have been a subamendment, but I can't put subamendments forward to amendments. Basically, it says the same thing except that people would be exempt from this process and their programs would be exempt under the act, except where Canadian creators of programs want to voluntarily choose to be subject to the act for discoverability purposes. The undertakings would be exempt except in those situations where Canadian creators want to be part of the program and voluntarily be subject to the act.
There's been a lot of discussion about how to determine what is Canadian content. It's actually a very simple process. In addition to being a professional musician, I ran an artist management company for a number of years. I had some very successful Canadian artists I did record deals for. I negotiated international record deals and distribution deals and licensing agreements for them. I stepped them through the process of MAPL—the music, artist, production, lyrics process—in determining what is Canadian content for music. It's a very simple process. It's an easy thing to step through and score.
I've also produced documentaries and educational films. When I got a Canadian broadcaster that was interested, that hadn't commissioned a film before it was made but wanted to play it afterwards, I stepped through the CAVCO process. That's very straightforward as well. It's based on a points system. It's really easy to get something certified as Canadian content.
The actual tax credit system, where you get money back, is a little bit more onerous and difficult. You have to engage accountants to step through everything and determine what you're eligible for in terms of funding. If you don't have a big budget to deal with that, it's not necessarily advantageous for small producers.
But that's a whole other thing. The actual determining of what is Canadian content is pretty straightforward. It's in the regulations. Those regulations haven't changed for a long time. I think they do need to be reviewed, but the idea that CanCon actually fences in Canadian artists is erroneous. That's not true at all. In fact, CanCon has made it easier for Canadian artists to be discovered in Canada and have the financial wherewithal to be able to go and expand into other markets.
Take musicians working in Canada. When they're eligible for grants or whatever, or when they're getting airplay, whether it's on commercial radio or on college radio and getting promoted because they're Canadian content, they can tour across Canada and get airplay. It helps them to finance tours going into the United States, where it's harder to break in as an artist if you're not making it through the algorithmic process on YouTube, Facebook or the social media platforms.
I have produced stuff for social media. I've had YouTube videos that have gone viral and had millions of views. I didn't have to bother going through a CanCon process with them. I just let them loose. But I've also had programs that I wanted played on a Canadian broadcaster, so I hopped through that process, which was very simple and easy, just to determine whether or not it met the certification requirements. To have a voluntary system where artists and producers are able to actually determine for themselves whether they want that discoverability, and then have a system where Canadians who are looking for Canadian content can find Canadian content easily through this process, makes a lot of sense for continuing to support Canadian talent—musical talent, film talent and all of these other things.
The CRTC regulations say that programs under five minutes aren't covered under the Canadian content rules. There's no requirement for somebody making a TikTok video or an Instagram video to apply for Canadian content rules, and you can submit stuff for broadcast that is under that limit. It's not required that you meet the CRTC regulation for it.
Of course, those regulations can change, but it doesn't make sense, really, for the CRTC to be doing something that would be detrimental to Canadian artists. The idea that there's a fence around Canadian producers that would be created by these CanCon regulations is ridiculous. The CanCon regulations have helped artists who I've worked with tour Europe, tour all over North America and break into those markets, because they could afford to after making it here in Canada.
I don't know if somebody wants to put forward a subamendment to this one, or we'll just wait and see what happens when we get to my amendment, but I think that having a voluntary process would meet the needs of people who are concerned about free speech and just want to put something out on the Internet, those who want to be discovered as Canadian content and audiences who want to be able to buy Canadian content more easily through a discoverability process, and also have these giant social media companies pay into a fund that helps produce more Canadian content.
Thank you.