Canadian Heritage Committee on March 23rd, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

I call this meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 11 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Once again I'll be chairing today's meeting in Ms. Fry's absence, so we'll muddle our way through. If anything happens to me, we have Mr. Champoux on deck as our designated survivor, our second vice-chair.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

I do want to acknowledge that this meeting is taking place on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people, and, of course, the territories of those who are attending virtually as well.

Pursuant to the motion adopted by this committee on Monday, January 31, 2022, the committee is meeting for its study of the Status of the Artist Act and its impact on improving basic working conditions for artists.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

I'm going to skip the next paragraph for those in person. You know the rules. For those participating virtually, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. You may speak in the official language or your choice. You have the language option choices at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately and we will ensure interpretation is properly restored before resuming proceedings. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. I remind you that all comments by members should be addressed through the chair.

We have six sets of witnesses with us this afternoon. Each set of witnesses will be given five minutes to make opening statements.

When you get near the end of your opening statement, I will try to gently interrupt you to let you know when time is coming to an end. If I do so, would you wrap up with the last few sentences. If you're not able to finish your opening statements, we do have written copies with us as well, and you might be able to make note of them in answers to questions.

Without further ado, we will go to our opening comments, beginning with ArtSpring and Mr. Howard Jang, executive and artistic director.

Mr. Jang, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Howard R. Jang, Executive and Artistic Director, ArtSpring]

Thank you very much.

My name is Howard Jang and I am of Chinese descent and a fourth-generation Canadian. I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude for the privilege of living and working on Salt Spring Island, the unceded ancestral territories of the Coast Salish First Nations people of Salt Spring and our surrounding areas.

Over the past 30 plus years I have dedicated my career to building the right environment for the artist and the arts to succeed. Recently I joined the community arts centre, ArtSpring, here on Salt Spring Island. Our cause sounds deceptively simple—to enrich lives and build communities through the arts—but the impact is great and the potential is enormous.

Prior to being with ArtSpring I was with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, where our cause was to be a resource for the advancement of arts, culture and leadership—an artists-focused mandate. It showed me very clearly what environment was needed to support artists of all disciplines throughout their entire career. And, most recently, as executive director with the BC Alliance for Arts + Culture and board member for the Dancer Transition Resource Centre, for me the capacity and funding gaps were so obvious.

It would be an understatement to say that the past three years have been the most disruptive in modern history and continue to be. It is also widely understood that the arts and cultural sector will be one of the last that will begin to enter a recovery period.

In terms of recovery, we have been using the phrase for several months that there's “light at the end of the tunnel”, but I would certainly say that the light we see at the end of the tunnel is so different from the light we entered it on. With restrictions and mandates lifting we are now beginning to see a clearer picture of what our new world will look like.

Excuse the analogy, particularly here in British Columbia, but it feels like we have been hit by an earthquake and we are trying to rebuild from the ash and rubble. We know we must rebuild to become earthquake proof.

A comprehensive study released a couple of months ago in the U.K. entitled “‘Culture in crisis—Impacts of Covid-19 on the UK cultural sector and where we go from here” provided a comprehensive understanding of what the cultural sector is facing. “Culture in crisis” shares research findings from one of the world's largest investigations into the impacts of COVID-19 on the cultural industries. Over 15 months of research findings were shared in real time with policy-makers, and more widely so that the cultural sector policy and practice could be informed by evidence emerging from the project.

Here are three key findings.

For audiences, while the shift to digital transformed cultural experiences for those already engaged with cultural activities, it failed to diversify cultural audiences.

For the workforce, the cultural sector is undoubtedly at an inflection point and facing imminent burnout alongside significant skills and workforce gaps.

For organizations, in light of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter, many cultural organizations re-evaluated their purpose and their relevance to local communities, which was complemented by increased local engagement.

We need to rebuild with the goal of regrowth, re-emergence and sustainability.

Our most single pressing issue is how our current models of funding can respond to the changed needs of artists, audiences and communities as we move toward the new light of greater social, racial and environmental activism in our work and presentations. The arts hold up a mirror to our world while also pointing the way forward. Ford Foundation president, Darren Walker, said “the arts create empathy, and without empathy, you cannot have justice.”

You have asked us to talk about how the Status of the Artist Act has an impact on improving the basic working conditions of artists. As it relates to the Status of the Artist Act, the primary focus is on working conditions, and the definition of an artist in the act is as an independent contractor, in essence part of the gig economy. The act does not address basic needs.

This much we know. The gig worker was the most disrupted part of the economy due to COVID-19. If you were to ask an artist how much money they earned, they will tell you that in terms of monthly income, not annual income, because making ends meet is the most pressing issue.

The Canada emergency response benefit provided $2,000 per month in guaranteed income along with the Canada emergency wage subsidy, which subsidized employee wages for eligible businesses. The fact that the government was able to provide this emergency support so quickly and with few bureaucratic hurdles for applicants proves that what is often deemed impossible is actually not.

While CERB was the closest Canada has come to a federal basic income program, it still left many out and was dependent on meeting a previous employment threshold. Here's how one artist put it: “COVID is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I was in a position I had never been in before. I could make the work I wanted to make with no restrictions. The security put things in a different perspective.”

This is where basic income differs. Basic income programs are not tied to employment, and unlike welfare and disability assistance, they do not require constant monitoring to determine eligibility and deservedness. Recent examples in Ireland, Finland and New York state give me hope that providing basic income is good for the economy and well-being.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Mr. Jang, I'm sorry to interrupt, but we're at the end of your five minutes. Could you wrap up in a couple of sentences and come back to that in questions?

[Howard R. Jang]

I will.

I can give the examples of Ireland and Finland and upstate New York. Addressing the income crisis will advance the recovery period of our sector, which is, as I have said, the last in line.

Thank you for your time.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you very much, Mr. Jang.

Next we will go to Digital First Canada. Scott Benzie is the executive director.

Mr. Benzie, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Scott Benzie, Executive Director, Digital First Canada]

Thank you, Chair and committee members, for allowing me to speak today.

My name is Scott Benzie. I am the lead coffee-getter of a new organization called Digital First Canada. Our main goal is to ensure that artists who choose digital platforms as a distribution model are heard and included in important discussions like these.

I would like to say at the outset that I certainly don't speak for all digital creators, as they are a far too diverse collection of Canadian storytellers, but I'm happy to lend my insight where it's valuable. I know that the topic of this meeting is the Status of the Artist Act. I promise to do my best to limit my statement to that act.

I would like you all to ask yourselves one question when considering the act: Are digital first creators artists, and are they covered under the act? If you come to the answer that, yes, they are, there are a few places in the act that I would like to address.

The proclamation states:

(b) the importance to Canadian society of conferring on artists a status that reflects their primary role in developing and enhancing Canada’s artistic and cultural life, and in sustaining Canada’s quality of life;

(c) the role of the artist, in particular to express the diverse nature of the Canadian way of life and the individual and collective aspirations of Canadians;

I think we would all agree that those are admirable. I hope the government would in no way pass legislation that would violate that proclamation and decide which artists are more valuable.

If you believe digital creators are covered under the artists act, I ask you this: Are they also eligible for tax incentives, tax credits, averaged salary declaration, access to EI and other programs that we're discussing here, or do they have to be a member of an approved union, lobby group or association to have their artistry validated?

There are more digital creators in Canada than any membership of any organizations we hear from all the time in these meetings, but today, nothing in the act covers the rights of the digital creator—rights that should be protected with their platform partners, and, more importantly, the right to not have the government intervene and decide what types of content should be discovered and what should not. The act discusses at length the rights of artists when negotiating with producers, but makes no mention of the rights of artists who are their own producers, who own their own content and who should have the ability to compete equally globally, on global platforms.

If you believe digital first creators are covered under the act, I invite you all to have some conversations with us before making decisions that affect us.

Now, in turn, maybe you think digital first creators are not artists covered by the act. That's okay. Maybe you think digital creators are influencers, and cat videos, and young kids in their parents' bedroom. I assure you that they are not. They are filmmakers, documentarians, musicians, dancers, comedians and the modern variety show. But they do not need your validation. If you believe digital first creators should not be covered by the act, you would agree that we shouldn't be writing legislation that would punish them under the cover of an act that doesn't include them.

Let me tell you what would be at risk. Canada is number one on the planet in percentage of content that is exported around the world on YouTube. I'm going to say it again: They are number one on the planet's second-largest search engine—English and French, indigenous and new immigrants, marginalized and silenced, and, yes, sometimes even cat videos—shout-out to Oreo Cat on TikTok.

Thousands of creators make a living and employ thousands of people. This is not a bunch of 18- and 19-year-olds doing very well, although it's great to see some of that too. The next generation of Canadian creators is not waiting on permission or approval from media giants. They are launching their careers on open platforms.

Creators have fostered the great Canadian cultural renaissance without an artists act, without a lobby group and without a handout. If you don't want to support what we're doing and listen to us when it comes to making decisions that will affect our livelihoods, we kindly ask that you get out of the way. There has been a divide created between digital creators and more traditional artists, but it is a false one. We support all artists in Canada, and we hope they get everything they deserve. We would love to help. We are all, in the end, just trying to find our audience. Digital creators just choose a different distribution model, one that relies on complex technical models and a global playing field.

I would like to end on a positive note. Despite a pandemic, despite a lack of access to any government programs or funding, and despite being a relatively small country when compared with the machine to the south, there are more people around the world today consuming Canadian content, generating export and tax dollars and exploring our culture direct from the mouths of Canadians than at any point in our history. That should be celebrated.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Mr. Benzie.

Next we will hear from the Directors Guild of Canada and Mr. Dave Forget, national executive director, and Samuel Bischoff, public affairs manager.

Gentlemen, the floor is yours.

[Dave Forget, National Executive Director, Directors Guild of Canada]

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the committee.

My name is Dave Forget and I am the national executive director of the Directors Guild of Canada. With me today is Sam Bischoff, public affairs manager.

We appreciate the committee's invitation to present DGC's comments on the federal Status of the Artist Act and its impact on working conditions for artists.

The DGC is a national labour organization representing key creative and logistical professionals in the film, television and digital media industries. Today, we have over 6,000 members covering all areas of direction, design, production, logistics and editing. In 2018, the Canada Industrial Relations Board updated the DGC certification to represent the functions of director, assistant director or first assistant director, computer graphics designer, set designer, location manager, picture editor, sound editor, and art director, excluding artists covered by the certification granted to other artists organizations.

First enacted in 1992 and substantially revised in 1995, the federal Status of the Artist Act is directed at improving the economic and social status of professional artists. In practice, this federal legislation presents a number of limitations. While its purpose is to establish a framework to govern professional relations between artists and producers, our experience as a labour organization is that it’s not achieving its initial promise.

At the moment, the only group represented by the DGC that is covered under the act is directors and assistant directors working on National Film Board productions. The act does not have the reach to cover most self-employed creators working on film and television production.

The reality is that federally regulated employers such as the CBC or other private broadcasters no longer typically hire DGC members directly under contract as they used to. Instead, they commission content to be produced by independent producers, who in turn enter into contracts with DGC members under a DGC collective agreement. Therefore, in practice, only a very small proportion of DGC members are working under the jurisdiction of the act.

Nonetheless, we do have some experience working with the act and have some comments on how the act is functioning for artists working under the National Film Board production contract.

First, the Status of the Artist Act lacks effectiveness and provides little provision to reach a scale agreement. In practice, even when a party is willing to negotiate, additional issues may arise. It has been difficult, for example, for the guild to conduct a complete negotiation to secure both the initial and subsequent agreement with the National Film Board. Our initial agreement took over five years to negotiate and our subsequent renewal agreement, which was just recently ratified by our director members, took over two years.

For this reason, the DGC recommends including a provision in the act that ensures binding arbitration for a first contract as is currently the case in Quebec's Status of the Artist Act, as well as in provincial and federal labour codes.

The benefits to artists derived from the act are only available once an agreement is secured. Keeping in mind the precarious nature of working conditions, any delays in the process only further negatively impact the artists. Any measure that would ensure meaningful bargaining would be a significant improvement.

Moreover, even in such a clear example as with the National Film Board, in our experience, whenever the NFB collaborates with the co-producer, often the co-producer becomes the engager and the agreement falls to the side. This includes all the protections that have been negotiated, such as collective rights, minimum rates of pay and contributions to health plan and retirement plan, among other things. Of course, this also further diminishes the effectiveness of the act.

Furthermore, we've noted in our experience how much technology redefines the work of artists and their categories. This prompts the need to make the act more flexible and responsive to technological change. It has become necessary to update the definition of what an artist is and simplify the recognition process. The DGC recommends updating the act's definitions and language to move beyond traditional filmmaking into more digital spheres of audiovisual endeavours.

Based on our experience, we hope we've provided practical recommendations for improvements that would serve to strengthen the act.

Members of the committee, I want to thank you for your time.

Samuel and I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you very much, Mr. Forget.

The next witness is the representative for the Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec.

Mr. Lefebvre, the floor is now yours.

[Éric Lefebvre, Secretary-Treasurer, Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec]

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.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Mr. Lefebvre, please wrap up your presentation in a few sentences.

[Éric Lefebvre]

Okay.

We suggest that the committee include in the Status of the Artist Act the possibility for artists' associations to negotiate terms of use that would apply to content broadcast and distributed on online platforms.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lefebvre.

Next up we have the International Centre of Art for Social Change and Judith Marcuse, founder and director.

Ms. Marcuse, the floor is yours.

[Judith Marcuse, Founder and Director, International Centre of Art for Social Change]

Thank you so much. Thank you for inviting me today.

I am 75, an artist, producer, educator and consultant working here in Canada and abroad, most recently with the World Health Organization in Geneva on the arts and well-being in relation to the UN's sustainable development goals. I have been involved with arts policy questions over some five decades.

Today, I'm taking a wide shot about the well-being of Canadian artists, and it should take five minutes and 25 seconds if I speak correctly.

Prepandemic, professional artists in Canada earned 46% of the median income of all Canadians. The incomes of BIPOC artists are significantly lower. According to Hill Strategies, 72% of professional arts workers are independent gig workers. Some 94% of all arts funding in Canada goes to the largest arts institutions: opera, ballet, symphonies, museums etc., leaving 6% for the rest of the sector. The Canada Council is Canada's largest granter.

These are just three statistics, but they speak to the ongoing struggles of most artists and their organizations simply to survive. Many are predicting that there will be reduction and triage of government spending soon, putting the sector and its artists in further jeopardy.

On May 7 last year, some 50 arts organizations and arts service organizations signed and sent a letter titled "Reframing the Arts" to then heritage minister Guilbeault and 44 other officials. It proposed a fresh, more inclusive approach to arts and cultural policy, including better recognition of community-engaged arts. This is a sector of over 400 professional arts organizations and hundreds of independent artists who work with and within communities in every corner of Canada. We have yet to receive a response to that May 7 letter.

I have some thoughts to share.

We need an inclusive scan of Canada's whole, interconnected arts ecology, a multilayered mapping. It would collate existing data and fill in the gaps. The last full national survey was carried out by the Massey commission in 1949, 70 years ago. The landscape has changed radically, and policies that impact artists need to respond to today's realities.

I advocate for a universal basic income. Basic income programs for artists are currently running in Ireland, Finland, and New York State. Ireland also provides pensions to their artists. A model of guaranteed income, in the form of CERB, has been a critical economic survival mechanism for artists during the pandemic.

Status of the artist legislation will not fulfill its potential without changes to tax and labour codes, including income averaging for artists and tax relief for those who donate to arts organizations, of similar size to the tax deductions allowed in the United States. We also need changes to EI that respond to the self-employed status of the majority of arts workers.

I propose that Canadian Heritage support and convene a dialogue with non-arts policy makers and, very importantly, with those who are now open to integrating the arts into their own change agendas, especially in the areas of health and well-being, the environment, social justice, housing, immigration, job creation and economic development. These partnerships create employment. The doors to arts integration are more open than ever before, providing new earning possibilities for artists.

Reinstitute regular exchange across geographical and jurisdictional silos, involving Heritage officials, Canada Council, provincial and territorial arts councils, municipal arts agencies, foundations and artists. Some funders are currently really addressing the inequities of arts funding policies and adjusting them to become more inclusive and fair.

Develop more clarity on Heritage's role vis-a-vis the arts and culture. Expand Heritage's current very limited parameters for support of artists' professional training and capacity-building. Develop new supports for community-engaged artists whose work directly affects the well-being of families and communities.

I advocate for the Canada Council to become considerably more transparent, responsive and accessible to the artists it is tasked to serve. I would be pleased to provide more context for this recommendation.

Arts education at all levels is a critical element of a healthy, interconnected arts ecology. Heritage can liaise with arts educators, researchers, national organizations and policymakers. The situation for arts education across the country is truly dire, and jurisdictional barriers should not be an excuse not to talk.

Look to policies that are working outside of Canada—the extraordinary success of social prescribing in the U.K., the pensions and other support for senior artists in many countries, and the arts organizations that are also social enterprises. It's a long list.

Critically now for the well-being of artists, define how we reframe arts and cultural policy, not as something separate from us but as an essential, creative element in all our lives, a way to imagine, co-create and nurture connection and possibility and solutions, even across difference. I believe support for the rights and well-being of our artists is core to the well-being of our country.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you, Ms. Marcuse.

Our final panellists this afternoon are from the Screen Composers Guild of Canada. Mr. John Welsman is the president and John Rowley is the vice-president.

The floor is yours.

[John Welsman, President, Screen Composers Guild of Canada]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, it is my distinct pleasure to appear before you today to discuss the Status of the Artist Act. My name is John Welsman. I'm president of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada. With me is John Rowley, vice-president of the SCGC.

SCGC is certified under the Status of the Artist Act to represent all anglophone screen composers and producers of music for audiovisual services in Canada. SCGC's members create musical scores and background music for original television and film productions. They work with other members of the creative team to conceive and develop the sound of the production. They write and perform the music, sometimes in collaboration with other musicians and performers. Screen composers embrace the latest in digital technologies to oversee every aspect of the engineering, mixing and editing of the sound recordings. They synchronize the music to the picture and deliver individual musical components to the production's mixers. They adjust and amend the score as required by the media producer.

When a media producer engages a Canadian screen composer for a project, it triggers one point under the “key creative points” system used by CAVCO and the CRTC to determine whether a screen project officially qualifies as Canadian content for regulatory and taxation purposes.

Over to you, John.

[John Rowley, Vice-President, Screen Composers Guild of Canada]

The Status of the Artist Act is a key instrument for ensuring that artists and creators are equitably remunerated for their work by producers and other intermediaries who engage the services of key creatives and assemble their contributions into a finished TV or film project.

SCGC members are the only points-generating key creators in the Canadian content system without a collective agreement with the Canadian Media Producers Association. This leaves the screen composers that SCGC represents in a marginalized and vulnerable position, which some CMPA members exploit by demanding as a condition of engagement that SCGC members surrender their intellectual property rights and revenues that rightfully belong to the composer as author and maker of the score under Canada's copyright framework.

The demands from CMPA members are often accompanied by “work for hire” and “work made in the course of employment” language, even though the Status of the Artist Act recognizes that artists and creators who are hired by producers are independent contractors, not employees. In fact, where such language is included in agreements, the agreements between independent media producers and screen composers often go on to stipulate that no employer-employee relationship exists.

Where producers demand a grant of screen composers' rights and revenues, demands are typically couched in this type of language as a “take it or leave it” condition. If the screen composer refuses, they won't get the job.

I should note that this situation is unique to anglophone screen composers in Canada. AQPM, representing Quebec-based francophone media producers, has entered into an agreement with SPACQ, representing francophone screen composers.

I'll hand it back to John Welsman.

[John Welsman]

We have on multiple occasions requested that CMPA sit down in good faith to negotiate the type of scale agreement that the Status of the Artist Act makes possible, and that CMPA has negotiated with every other organization that represents creative and technical contributors to film and TV projects in Canada. Every time we ask, CMPA finds an excuse to avoid negotiations. Most recently, they actually told us they were too busy negotiating scale agreements with other creator organizations to talk with us.

This situation is ironic, given CMPA's strident advocacy in favour of regulated terms of trade to protect producers from forced buyouts by broadcasters. This is why SCGC has proposed three amendments to the Status of the Artist Act.

SCGC respectfully recommends the following: first, the definition of producer should clearly capture independent media producers; second, forced buyouts should be a prohibited pressure tactic under the act; and third, the act should make explicit the board's authority to order arbitration at the sole expense of the recalcitrant party.

We thank the committee for the opportunity to be here today and look forward to answering any of your questions.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Nater]

Thank you very much.

That concludes our opening comments. We will now move into our rounds of questions. The first round will be from each party for six minutes each. We will begin with Kevin Waugh from the Conservatives for a six-minute round.

Kevin, the floor is yours.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome to all six groups.

It's interesting looking at the Status of the Artist Act. Technological changes is a big area when we look at this act. Should the Status of the Artist Act be amended now?

I'll send this to Mr. Benzie with Digital First.

We've seen so many changes in the last number of years. With technological changes, people are getting their information in new ways and their entertainment has certainly changed in this country and in the world.

Can I just start there? Should the Status of the Artist Act be amended for the technological changes that we're seeing today in the world?

[Scott Benzie]

Thank you, Mr. Waugh, for your question.

The truth is that it's not that easy. I think trying to lump an industry like ours all into one act with a bunch of different creators and artists with different needs would be really difficult. Half of our world is technology. Half of our world is understanding very complex algorithms and very complex technical decisions that our artists have to make on a day-to-day basis.

If there's going to be one catch-all act for all artists in Canada, it certainly should be amended to include technology and digital-first creators. It might be more fruitful to do separate, quite frankly, because I don't know that our needs are really the same, other than trying to find an audience.

[Kevin Waugh, Conservative, Saskatoon—Grasswood, SK]

I learned a lot on Monday, and then you backed it up by saying Canada leads the world in percentage of content that is exported today on YouTube. Darcy Michael and Oorbee Roy were here on Monday and they both gave us their stories.

Do you have thoughts on that?

[Scott Benzie]

Going back to the original stat that we both quoted, 90% of Canadian digital creators' audiences consume their content from outside of Canada. We're number one in the world. I think the COO of YouTube said there are other countries around 70 or 80%, which is great, but we're the only one at 90%.

It's important because it's so different from conversations we're used to having about culture in this country. I don't know that for digital-first creators the importance of having their content prioritized and shown in Canada is as important as it is for some other artists. We have to compete globally on global platforms. Currently we're the best in the world at doing it.