Thank you very much for inviting me to participate.
I'm Erin Benjamin, president and CEO of the Canadian Live Music Association.
Our membership includes both non-profit and for-profit entrepreneurs and organizations that together create the conditions for an artist to stand on a stage in front of an audience, venues, festivals and promoters, talent agents, service providers and many others whose work intersects directly with and supports live music performance.
I'd like to take my allotted time today to focus on one thing we consider to be key to the long-term success of the music industry, a simple shift that will see us through COVID recovery and beyond, that if implemented will increase impacts for government and artists substantially.
Canadian artists perform on all kinds of stages. Without what we call for-profit venues and festivals, however, most artists would have significantly fewer places to play. However, these businesses and other entrepreneurs in the live space are not currently eligible for Canadian Heritage programs as our non-profit members are. In other words, funding categorically excludes essential spaces serving Canadian artists, which today especially seems an obvious gap.
Coincidentally, it was one year ago today we launched a social media campaign with the rallying cry #ForTheLoveOfLive, to amplify the crushing impact of COVID on our entrepreneurs, artists, and supply chain and on our reputation as a competitive world-class live music market. That campaign now, with a reach of over 65 million, spoke directly to everyday Canadians, who were inspired to share stories and photos of how and why live music mattered to them. Government heard that united cry for help, diagnosed the indispensable nature of live music businesses and provided the historic $50 million in temporary funding we saw in last year's federal budget. We thank you for that. That support helped in two vital ways: it extended the lives of many businesses and it signalled to our community that the government believes that live music companies and entrepreneurs matter. I can't tell you how meaningful it was to see the words “live music venues” in a federal budget.
Like others in the broader sector who are already permanently at the heritage table, our members also undertake activities that are central to the development of Canadian artists, the promotion of their music, and the expansion of their audiences. They work to ensure that Canadians have access to a variety of professional artistic experiences and they are key generators of both jobs and economic impact. In fact, as one of the hardest-hit industries, the live music sector—all of us, formerly contributing upwards of $3 billion to GDP and creating 72,000 jobs—can't wait to unleash the full spectrum of music and entertainment activity we create so we can all begin to leverage the economic and social impacts that follow from Allison Russell to Elton John. Every city, town and village in Canada has some amount of local live music capacity, and therefore the ability to benefit from it. We'll draw people back into our downtowns; we'll enhance tourism as audiences reintegrate travel and hospitality through live music experiences, and we'll put more Canadian artists on stage than ever before. We know that the potential and power of live music can be fully realized through the modernization of programs and polices embracing live music entrepreneurs as stakeholders and harnessing their direct impact on an artist's ability to succeed.
COVID picked winners and losers. We know that. The live music industry of tomorrow is being built today on sheer determination and the understanding that artists need live music businesses not just to survive but to thrive. We've asked government, through our pre-budget submission, to provide a dedicated and permanent $50-million Canadian live music support fund, because if there's one thing we've learned above all else it's that live performance is fundamental to an artist's ability to build and sustain a career. Sadly, we don't have to look very far to see that today.
Canadian Heritage programs should change to reflect the way industry works so we can revitalize and rebuild the touring framework in this country, which we know our artists both need and deserve. That starts with all live music businesses, entrepreneurs and organizations being celebrated and supported as playing a vital role in the cultural, civic and economic lives of all Canadians.