Good afternoon.
My name is Éric Lefebvre, and I'm the secretary‑treasurer of the Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec. First and foremost, I would like to say a few words about our association. It has about 2,700 members, including musicians, instrumentalists, conductors, arrangers, orchestrators, in short, people who practise just about every profession related to being a professional musician. We're affiliated with the American Federation of Musicians, and we're known as local 406 within that federation. We're also accredited under federal and Quebec legislation on the status of the artist to represent all professional musicians in Quebec.
As part of our activities, we negotiate collective and framework agreements with producers in virtually all areas of artistic production. We understand that Canada's Status of the Artist Act applies primarily to federal institutions and broadcasting undertakings under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio‑television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.
Within our federation, we have indeed negotiated collective and other agreements with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board, which are important agreements because of the standards they promote and which are frequently applied by production companies that obtain the services of artists subject to provincial government regulations. Unfortunately, that is not always the case, and we still have to deal with a significant number of independent producers, who cannot be regulated in any particular way to ensure that agreements with reasonable working conditions can be reached between artists and those producers.
At the same time, we believe that the Status of the Artist Act could play an even greater role with respect to the performers, musicians and singers when their recorded performances are broadcast or distributed on an online platform, be it an audiovisual platform or a sound recording platform.
In a 2014 Supreme Court decision in Canadian Artists' Representation v. National Gallery of Canada, the court upheld the ability of an artists' association to negotiate royalties for authors of pre‑existing works in a framework agreement under the Status of the Artist Act. This reality that was noted by the Supreme Court is a step in the right direction that would allow us, as performers, if given the opportunity, to negotiate terms and conditions for royalties related to the use of recorded performances by musicians and singers.
A problem arises for us with the Copyright Act, under which producers who are not signatories to a collective agreement, in the case of audiovisual works, are not required to pay royalties to performers. In order for performers to receive royalties when their performances are recorded as part of a film, video or television program, it would be important for artists' associations to be able to negotiate directly with federal undertakings and CRTC-regulated organizations, as provided for in the act, a framework agreement providing for the payment of compensation without regard to the fact that a collective agreement or contract has been previously negotiated for the payment of a royalty. It is therefore important to ensure that the Status of the Artist Act and the Copyright Act are complementary acts.
In addition to the right to negotiate, it is also important that individual creators and artists have rights to their works and performances. The Copyright Act was amended in 1997 and 2012 to benefit performers, but this has not diminished our concerns about the performances of our member musicians and singers. In fact, a section of this act ensures that performers lose their rights to their performances when they agree to have them integrated into an audiovisual work. In this context, it would be important for the Status of the Artist Act to allow for the negotiation and payment of royalties related to the use of a video, film or television program, whether the content is broadcast or distributed on an online platform.
In 2018, we appeared before this committee and expressed our concerns, which have unfortunately not changed since then. Creators and artists continue to grow poorer. The pandemic has obviously not helped artists make a living from their art. Furthermore, the Copyright Act, as it stands, does not allow us to improve our remuneration.
The structural changes in the industry created by Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Netflix have turned the middle class of musicians into a class of poor artists.