Thank you. I'll do it in French, if you don't mind.
Good morning.
My name is Bryan Perro. I live in Shawinigan, but I have no connection to Jean Chrétien. I am a writer who is known in Quebec and internationally. I have sold 1.7 million books in French-speaking Canada alone. My books have been translated into 24 languages and are sold in 27 countries, making me one of the most translated Quebec writers in the world and perhaps even Canada. I wrote the Amos Daragon series, 15 medieval fantasy fiction books inspired by mythology.
I was a publisher for 10 years and a bookseller for five years. I have been involved in major productions, contributed to a television series based on my book and participated in large concerts with the Montreal symphony orchestra. With all of that experience, I have an intimate understanding of the interface between the book industry, show business and copyright, as well as its importance to the author who created and owns the work.
I am 53, but I began writing at 24. I wrote my first novel thanks to a $10,000 grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. How many books do you think I sold? Don't answer that. It's a rhetorical question. I sold 133. You might say that, with 133 copies sold, a $10,000 grant makes an expensive book.
I received a second grant of $10,000 for my second novel, which did way better—134 copies sold. It was a slightly less expensive book. My third book, also written with the help of a grant, sold 800 copies. Things were picking pick up—nothing crazy, but it was clear things were shifting.
Then came my 15‑book series, Amos Daragon, which, as I mentioned, sold 1.7 million copies in Quebec and French-speaking Canada. Translated into 24 languages, the series was sold in 27 countries. It did very well in France, of course, but also in Japan. You can find my books in countries as far away as Bulgaria.
Let's look at the numbers, shall we? The government, be it provincial or federal, invested $30,000 in a young writer. The books I sold in Canada alone generated $20,315,000 for the economy, supporting the bookselling, publishing and distribution industries, not to mention the author's share. The return on a $30,000 investment was $4,469,300 in taxes for the Quebec and Canadian governments.
You could argue that not everyone ends up as successful as I am. That's true, but for every successful writer like myself, how many writers does the government invest in to take up the torch and generate revenue? It's about creation, but it's also about the cultural industry. Creators are the foundation of the cultural industry; it is their contribution that brings in the revenue. When I collect my Japanese royalties and I pay my taxes in Canada, the money goes into Canada's coffers, of course, not France's. That's one reason to pay writers well, at every stage.
Copyright is an inalienable right, attributable to France's Beaumarchais. It belongs to the author. A person cannot use copyrighted content without paying the creator royalties. I'll give you an example. I see Mr. Rayes, whom I know. Mr. Rayes worked hard and bought himself a car. The car belongs to him. If I go over to his house and tell him that I'm going to take his car keys, he'll ask me why. If I tell him that I'm a school principal and that his car should support a good cause, he will say that he worked hard to buy his car and that he owns it. I can argue all day long that it's for a good cause, children's education, but it doesn't work that way.
All the members of Parliament are paid, are they not? Why, then, shouldn't a writer who creates a work not be paid fairly for their reproduction rights and their published work?
This isn't about justice, my friends; it's about fairness, and the intellectual and financial prosperity of the country.