I'm Rodger Touchie, the president of the Association of Canadian Publishers. The association is the national voice of Canada’s independent English language book publishers, who produce the vast majority of books by Canadian authors. We represent 134 Canadian-owned and -operated businesses from across the country.
The Department of Canadian Heritage, through the book publishing industry development program and the Canada Council for the Arts, has over the past 40 years invested in our industry with strategically designed and carefully managed programs. These programs increase our capacity to compete with the large multinational companies that dominate our markets and thus enable us to return the taxpayers' investment with abundant cultural and economic value.
Today the book industry is undergoing enormous change through digitization. Over the past 10 years, the Internet has transformed the book-selling process as Amazon, Chapters-Indigo, and others have created highly successful online retail operations. Now the books themselves are going electronic, driven by environmental concerns, economic factors, and the introduction of devices such as the Kindle and the Sony reader.
These changes offer enormous opportunities to Canadian-owned publishers for new markets and new business models. They also present enormous challenges. Investment in new publishing technology and human resource development must be part of Canada's strategy for the development of a knowledge economy.
Last Tuesday we came here, and we appreciate the opportunity to do so. Our primary contacts and presentations to government do go to Canadian Heritage, so I am pleased to quote from a press release from the office of the Honourable James Moore:
The Honourable James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, today announced renewed funding for the Canadian book industry totalling $39.5 million per year over the next five years. The renewed investment will help publishers and other book industry stakeholders to weather the current economic slowdown.
This is very, very welcome news for a whole bunch of people I know, for our association, and for members of the French language association, with whom we tend to partner when we make presentations. The emphasis of the new moneys is to go to assisting with the transition of our industry from traditional book production to the world of digital. It's also designed to reduce the administrative burden for our industry.
I just wanted to say today that having dealt with Canadian Heritage over the last decade, and having interfaced with the people who run the programs, I've found them an outstanding group of people to work with. They are efficient in what they do, they're competent, and they listen.
I would also like to thank Minister Moore for being accessible, for listening to our presentations, and for responding to our needs.
Thank you.