Canadian Heritage Committee on March 21st, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Bittle.

Mr. Uppal, is that on the same point?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Yes. It's on the same point of order, Mr. Chair.

We had other witnesses talk about potential tax changes that may or may not be in the upcoming budget. We're still going to discuss those. They will affect their ability to make a living.

I think this is an important opportunity to discuss these issues.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Uppal and Mr. Bittle.

I will allow Mrs. Thomas to continue with the question. She was actually quoting from the act, I believe, in posing her question. We will allow it and offer a reminder that the subject at hand is the Status of the Artist Act, which is a very broad piece of legislation.

I will turn the floor back over to Mrs. Thomas.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

In addition to the tax that would be applied to you, Canadian content will be defined. The CRTC will determine whether or not your content gets defined as such and therefore either promoted or demoted within the virtual spaces that you currently use. Of course, this is very concerning.

I'm wondering, Oorbee, if you would be willing to comment on this or offer your reflections with regard to Bill C-11.

[Oorbee Roy]

Sure. Thank you, MP Thomas, for your question. I'm comfortable answering the question, but I'll answer by telling a story, because I'm a storyteller.

Picture me back at the beginning of the pandemic. Locally, there was a big drive to make masks for the community. I took some fabric from my last business and donated a bunch of fabric. I donated so much fabric that my name was put on a plaque on a wall in the hospital.

An artist decided to do a small documentary about the story of mask-making, and she took my fabric—because that fabric is gorgeous and it looks great on camera—and showed the lifespan of it: dropping the fabric off, opening the fabric, cutting the fabric, making the fabric into masks, packing the fabric, donating the masks and then giving them to people. You know what? I was cut out of that documentary completely. Somebody else told the story and cut me out. When I asked her why, she said, “Oh my God, it's unconscious bias.” That, in my mind, is kind of racist.

That was one of the backstories, the darker side, of why I started my TikTok channel, because she said, “I took you out of the hero role.” I didn't look at myself as a hero before that, but if I get to tell my own story.... I don't trust that people are going to tell my story properly. It's my story, and if I get to be the hero, I'm going to own that.

Now, over 200,000 people liked my story and are inspired by my story, and I feel that being regulated is going to restrict me. I don't want restrictions put on me. It hasn't worked for me, in my favour, and I don't think it will. For a lot of people who don't fit into these boxes, it's not going to work for us.

I'm very concerned about Bill C-11. I'm very concerned about how this is going to affect all of us artists, especially in the digital space.

I hope that answers your question.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Mrs. Thomas, you have about 45 seconds left.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay, Chair. With all due respect, I do hope the interruptions were accounted for, because I did start and stop my clock, and I have just over a minute.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Yes, we did stop the clock.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Darcy, I have the same question for you, please.

[Darcy Michael]

Okay. I'll try to keep this brief.

Bill C-11 will directly affect my ability to earn an income.

That aside, I'm also an ACTRA member, so I do want to say that I'm on both sides: the traditional and the digital media. The sheer logistics of the CRTC trying to approve Canadian content for every video uploaded to social media is impossible. Across the country, there are thousands of videos uploaded every day. There is simply no way to approve this. You are creating a logistical nightmare, with all due respect to the members, without properly understanding the industry that we're in.

I just think that we need to make an amendment to that one portion of the bill. I don't want to be included. I don't want to be paying 30% to something that I don't benefit from as a digital creator. I think it's a second tax. I think that by the end of the day I'll be paying 80% tax on my income. That isn't fair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Michael.

We will move on to the Liberal round with Mr. Louis.

Mr. Louis, you have six minutes.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses. It's very informative already and we're only just getting started, so I really appreciate this.

If I could begin, my questions are for CARFAC and Ms. Britski or Mr. Beveridge. I want to talk about the artist's resale right. You mentioned that as protecting Canadian artists, which would help those artists, creators and copyright holders. Making changes to the Copyright Act is in our mandate letter and is something that I'm a strong proponent of. Adopting the artist's right to resale requires little to no ongoing costs for our government.

Many people profit when artwork is resold, but not the artists. As some of our panellists—and I as a musician—will know, musicians and writers are paid for the growing popularity of their work over time through sales and copies, but this does not apply to visual art. The artist's resale right would allow visual artists to receive a small percentage when their work is resold.

Many countries are doing this already. Often, the full value of artwork is not seen on that first sale, so this would benefit visual artists, as you mentioned—in particular, Canada's indigenous artists—and this could be an addition to our Copyright Act.

I would start with you, Ms. Britski. Are there countries that already have artists' resale rights?

[April Britski]

Yes, there's a growing list. There are over 90 countries around the world. A couple of them added it recently. Korea is one of them, and New Zealand implemented it through a recent trade deal with the U.K.

It's not new. It's not something that we created as an idea. It's been around for a while, for over 100 years now. I've often wondered what it would have been like to be there when the exhibition right came into the act in 1988. I wasn't involved with CARFAC then, but we were the first, and that has gone on to lead to, as Karl mentioned, really important changes in terms of what artists earn through their work with the gallery.

Yes, at this rate, hopefully we won't be the 100th country to implement the resale right; it's something that we're really looking forward to seeing happen in the very near future.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Are there organizations in Canada—perhaps yours—that are already equipped to collect and distribute compensation with systems in place?

[April Britski]

Yes. There are copyright collectives. We have found in other countries that it is the easiest thing to administer and implement when there is collective management.

We recommend Copyright Visual Arts, but there are others as well.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

What would that reporting process look like?

[April Britski]

Every country does it differently. In the U.K., they distribute payments every month. In most countries, they usually collect sales information on a quarterly or an annual basis. It depends on how rigorous you want to be.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

That's fair enough.

I have one last question on artists' resale rights. We're talking about threshold of sales, so this wouldn't apply at the different areas. I think in your studies you recommended $1,000. How did you come up with that number? Whom would and wouldn't that affect?

[April Britski]

It's $1,000 in Australia. It's 1,000 euros in Europe. We had a look at various case studies of Canadian artists and what it would mean if it were higher or lower, and it seemed that it was a good point to make it worth the administration of sending it out and the amount of the royalty to the artist. Keeping the burden of the distribution of it made sense.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

I only have a limited amount of time, so maybe I could turn to ACTRA and Mr. Martin Gordey.

Your opening statement was very similar to my little preamble here. We're talking about the median income of artists being about half of that of other Canadians. I think it bears repeating. At the same time, pandemic or not, you talked about income volatility, and how different sectors in the arts are going to recover at different paces. We know that the arts will be the last, but within that sector, recovery is going to happen differently. Many of us in this meeting know that in the arts, we're the first to lose our jobs during an economic downturn and the last to get them back during recovery. You also mentioned that about 65% of artists are self-employed.

What lessons we can learn from some of the pandemic financial supports moving forward? What are some of the short-term solutions we can use from the lessons of the past few years? What are some of the long-term solutions?

[Keith Martin Gordey]

I know for a fact, from the many members I've spoken to, that when the pandemic hit on March 13 and the business just stopped, not only did their work as performing artists vanish, but their side gigs vanished. A lot of them work in restaurants, for example. It revealed a huge gap in the social network in Canada for these workers.

It's important to find a way to have EI available to gig workers. It's absolutely critical. The supports that the government provided through CERB and other things made the difference for people facing homelessness if those supports had not been there.

That's a really important thing to take a look at. There is a way to do it, and we're willing to pay. We'll definitely pay into it if we can receive the benefit when we're in a tight corner. We want to work. We'd love to work. This is what we're built to do.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Gordey and Mr. Louis. Thank you for your time.

That's it for that round.

We now go to the Bloc Québécois.

Mr. Champoux, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our guests today, who are attending our meeting virtually. They are here to talk about a subject that has often been brought up by representatives of associations and artists as well as cultural workers we have heard from in various studies the committee has conducted.

There are a number of provincial counterparts to the Status of the Artist Act. Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec have theirs, for example. Other provinces are thinking about it, like New Brunswick. In fact, I had the opportunity to speak with representatives of the Association acadienne des artistes professionnels du Nouveau‑Brunswick. This group attaches great importance to a bill like this. I feel that the federal legislation could have a few more teeth and is worthy of a review, as they will soon do with the Quebec legislation.

I'd like to ask my first question to Mr. Lemay from AQTIS.

Mr. Lemay, in February, you submitted a brief on the proposed reforms to Quebec's artist status legislation.

Is that correct?

[Christian Lemay]

That's right.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Among other things, you say that some producers who have signed collective agreements are, in spite of everything, using subcontractors and that there are repercussions.

Could you tell us what the repercussions of that might be?