Thank you very much for inviting us. I am here as chair of an organization that represents 1,600 of Canada's best authors.
What do these authors do, actually? Well, we may not show up on Oprah, but we do tell Canada's stories that would otherwise remain untold. What would we know about Canada's Arctic exploration without authors like Ken McGoogan? Joy Kogawa reveals the hardships of Japanese-Canadians during World War II. Pierre Berton has praised the valour of our soldiers at Vimy Ridge.
But we're pretty good for the economy too. Writers help drive a cultural sector that contributes more to Canada's economy than forestry, farming, or mining. What do we get in return? A median income of just $12,000 a year. But I'm not here to ask for money.
There are, however, some changes that you can make. Writers' incomes fluctuate wildly. They're high when our books are published and low while we're working on the next book, yet just guess which income rate we're taxed at. To reduce that inequity, we're asking to change tax laws to allow back-averaging for writers' incomes in order to even that out.
We're also asking for copyright income deduction for what we earn on those books. This has proven workable and popular in Quebec.
We would also like to be secured creditors when publishers go bankrupt—it happens, you know. This would let us put a lien on copies of our own books that would otherwise be stuck in a publisher's warehouse.
We would like employment insurance extended to writers who are self-employed. Royalties don't last forever; neither do publishers.
And we would like heritage minister Bev Oda to honour her campaign commitment to double funding to the Canada Council for the Arts. These funds help develop writers' skills and promote their works. Every tax dollar invested in the arts brings five tax dollars in return.
These points and others are all in our brief, which I know you're anxious to rush out and read.
But I would like to close by giving you a scoop on a new literacy initiative the Writers' Union is starting. Last summer, Canadians were riveted by the plight of Africa's AIDS orphans when the Stephen Lewis Foundation brought the grandmothers to Canada. Therefore, the Writers' Union is asking Canada's children's book writers to donate books they have written to this AIDS orphanage. We will be coordinating and shipping these books to an AIDS orphans' school in Nyaka, Uganda. The first shipment will take place in November.
So what are authors good for? We reveal Canada's stories, we help drive a vital economic sector, and we try to help Canada's image abroad. With your help, we can continue to do all these; without that help, not so much.
Thank you very much.