To my mind, the most important thing is allowing younger artists the opportunity that I had in the older system. Again, without a great stroke of luck, it's very difficult to launch a career. It's really important from a cultural and a heritage standpoint that those voices are able to be heard from coast to coast to coast. It's important that someone from Victoria can hear someone from St. John's, and that someone from Iqaluit can hear someone from Toronto and vice versa. That's the foundation of a national heritage.
To me, the ecosystem really needs to revolve around distribution, whether it's streaming or traditional radio, but also in creating an environment and investing in the ability for young artists and established artists to go out on the road and to take their shows to places where, traditionally, people don't play. That's how we were able to do it. That was the system. We used to call it “the circuit”, and I'm sure you remember it well.
I'm from a small town in Ontario, and when an established artist came to town, that was a big night. It was a community night. When it was a Canadian artist, you saw them in the context of an international artist and that music meant something. When you looked around, you saw people from your community and realized that you shared a musical taste and you shared a foundation. That, to me, is what heritage really is. If we lose that, it's going to be very difficult to get it back.