Good morning.
It's a pleasure to be here with the committee to discuss Bill C-11. Music Canada is the trade association for Canada's major labels: Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Universal Music Canada and Warner Music Canada. Canada's major labels sign and partner with Canadian artists, helping them achieve commercial success in Canada and export that music abroad. Overwhelmingly, it is artists partnered with major labels that Canadians listen to on the radio, stream or hear synched to their favourite TV shows. I'm in the enviable position of telling the committee we support Bill C-11's core principles of accessibility of Canadian content through regulating broadcasting on the Internet.
Canada's commercial radio rules, developed five decades ago, were integral to today's successful Canadian music industry, with Canada's major labels leading the way. Those rules opened new opportunities for careers and professional development for artists, labels, studios, managers, venues and an entire emerging Canadian music industry. That commercial success in turn enabled businesses to reinvest in the next generation of talent. In fact, I like to think that our members have served as an example for this bill.
Proposed paragraph 3(1)(f.1) requires making the “greatest practicable use of Canadian creative and other human resources”. That is the business model of Canada's major labels. We have offices in Toronto and Montreal full of Canadians, making Canadian music for the Canadian market and the world. In a global digital marketplace, success in Canada is a stepping stone to international success.
Music is one of the most recognizable and successful exports. Canada is the eighth-largest streaming market in the world. Out of the top 10 most streamed artists in the world, three of them are Canadian. Those names you all know—Bieber, The Weeknd and Drake—but I want to tell you about some of today's biggest Canadian success stories that perhaps you haven't heard about.
Ali Gatie, raised in Mississauga, is an artist of Iraqi descent who surpassed 3.5 billion streams for his 2019 single, It's You. Tate McRae, a singer-songwriter from Calgary, one of the world's artists to watch, held down the number one spot for five weeks on Billboard's emerging artists chart, with over 3.2 billion career streams. Eli Rose, a Montrealer, named Breakthrough Artist of the Year at the 2020 ADISQ awards, with numerous hits, has 14 million global streams and counting. These are just a few of the names of the next generation of Canadian talent, and they're finding success in streaming that maybe they wouldn't have found in radio alone. These successes come from both the incredible talent of these artists and from the investments made by our members, publishers, indies and the platforms that license the music.
Turning to the bill, we support the bill as the minister describes it. We agree when he says the CRTC should not regulate the algorithms of online services or user-generated content. We hope the committee will clarify the bill text to clearly reflect the minister's intent. The committee has now heard about the CRTC's potential to reach into algorithms and to regulate user-generated content. That wiggle room in the bill, compared to the minister's certainties, was at first confusing, but following the outgoing chair of the CRTC's testimony here, that wiggle room is concerning. This can be fixed by honing the language of the bill to reflect the minister's stated intent. The bill can be amended to clarify the prohibition on the CRTC regulating algorithms, and the language regarding professional content can be sharpened to reflect the minister's statement of no cat videos.
The global music industry has just come back from nearly two decades of decline. The growth reflects the hard work of companies like ours to ensure that music uses are licensed and artists are paid when their music is played. We know what happens when Canadians feel there's too much friction between them and what they want to hear: They will find their music elsewhere. If regulation proves too burdensome on our industry partners, we know that consumers will move to unregulated spaces, which, by definition, will be harder to license, which will mean a devaluation of music, making it harder for artists to be paid when their music is played. That flies in the face of the good intentions of this bill.
To that end, I ask the committee to listen carefully to the platforms that will be regulated. They are our business partners, and they are where our artists and labels increasingly make a living in the 21st century. Ultimately, they are the people who bring your favourite artists to your phone, your car and your living room.
In conclusion, this is an important bill, with real-world goals.
I look forward to answering any questions you may have.