Yes, that's a challenge.
Revenue in the music industry, for example, has plummeted with the rise of streaming platforms. Artists are therefore turning to live performances in front of an audience as a major source of income. Beyond that, digital platforms can help offset some of this. Our fear is that this could become a trend. We're already inundated with screens. Young people are already constantly in front of screens—or, at any rate, quite often. We're trying to bring them back into venues so that artists can interact with a live audience. If we place too much emphasis on digital platforms, we'll continue in this direction, which, in our view, will continue to harm the industry. We believe that live performances in front of an audience, which generate income for artists, remain the best option for our artists in Canada.
You made an important point earlier, Mr. Champoux. We're often told that an artist could do something else in addition to pursuing their artistic career. I'm sorry, but you can't tell a violinist who has a doctorate in music and has spent 20 years of their life doing that to go find another line of work, no matter how interesting it may be. That makes little sense. It would be like telling our artists to stop practising their art, to stop honing their craft, to stop raising the standard of Canadian artists to an international level, and to go do something casual on the side. This line of reasoning is starting to become problematic, to say the least.