Evidence of meeting #112 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was publishers.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Okay, and then you still receive some provincial funding for—
3:25 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
Yes. We receive it, and in some cases school boards across Manitoba are almost 50-50. We're seeing the province vacate the space. It used to be around 80% and 20%, which we've always asserted is the right place to be, with the province being at 80% and our being at 20% and property taxation setting the mill rate. Some school divisions in the province are at 50-50, and an eroding 50% at that. We're at an eroding 60-40, and we have about roughly 2.3% from other sources, including the federal government, which compensated us last year for the increase in refugees.
We have 5,000 staff, so about $287 million of our roughly $406 million budget is for teaching staff. That's not a lot to keep the lights on.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
It's always the number one cost.
Do you have first nations within your board, or are they urban indigenous?
3:25 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
Some reserves in Manitoba still do not have high schools, so yes, we have students from sovereign first nations across the province who end up coming to our school. Clearly, in Winnipeg we're an indigenous school division, as all school divisions are in Manitoba, and about 30% of students are declared indigenous in our school division.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
I was leading up to the K-to-12 education that's happening. Of interest to me and to this committee is copyright as it relates to indigenous culture. We're asking universities and colleges, and a lot of times it's a very oral tradition. Sometimes it's in a sacred form. How does your board utilize elders and other traditional teaching methods in your school board? Give some examples, perhaps.
3:25 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
We have a traditional knowledge keeper, Dr. Myra Laramee, who herself is an author, a creator of content, if that's what you mean. We have several elders attached to schools, not just our traditional knowledge keeper. They create curricula, curricular documents, books. Dr. Laramee creates videos to share.
3:25 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
Yes. Often she's the owner of the content. She publishes through publishers. I'm not just talking about her specifically, but other elders and teachers publish through Manitoba publishers. We have teachers who have contributed to compilation documents. We have artists in our school divisions. They're creators of their content as well.
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Sheehan Liberal Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Is that all the time, or does MP Jowhari have a chance to question?
3:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
You're out of time, sorry.
Our last question for the panel is from Mr. Masse.
3:25 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you.
With regard to the Copyright Board, is it reform, or maintain the status quo, or are there any suggestions on improving it in the short time we have? I have two minutes, so I'll start with Ms. Wheeler, if you have any comments, and go across. If you don't, take a pass. I'm just trying to get a snapshot of the Copyright Board.
3:30 p.m.
Copyright Strategy Manager, University of Manitoba
I think our comments are probably similar to those you've heard from other universities. Right now the process is quite slow. There could be more case management. The retroactive application of tariffs is somewhat problematic. Also, just on the issue of interrogatories, they should be for a specific purpose. Perhaps when an organization—for example, Universities Canada—is involved, a representative number of institutions could be subject to the interrogatories rather than all. Those are our general comments.
3:30 p.m.
Author, As an Individual
As I said earlier, I think we need a functional collective licensing regime that recognizes the rights of creators to be compensated. I don't know specifically how the Copyright Board is involved in that.
3:30 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
I'd like to go back to something you said. A lot of the comments I have are perhaps not for this committee. In the school system, you were making comments that—
3:30 p.m.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I only have a few minutes on the Copyright Board. If you don't have a position on it, then I'll come back to you if I have free time, but I want to get across the board here, if I can.
3:30 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
I'll have to say, then, maintain the status quo.
3:30 p.m.
Editorial Director, Portage and Main Press, Association of Manitoba Book Publishers
We support the concerns of the Association of Canadian Publishers about the timelines and process, the amount of time it takes to have something heard and all the stuff that happens in the background, because it can take many years for a case to come through. Streamlining that process is important.
The other one is enforcement. That's a big issue. That mechanism has to be improved.
That's about it.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
There are 10 seconds remaining.
Ms. Rollins, did you want to make another brief comment?
3:30 p.m.
Chair of the Board of Trustees, Winnipeg School Division
Yes. I just handed my card over to Ms. Greenberg because I agree with her statement that there should be more clarity around fair dealing. As a board, we can do that. We do have policies, but more clarity could be put to that, and this committee could help in that regard for sure.
3:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
As you can see, it's not an easy subject. With everything we've been hearing and with each panel we have as we continue to go forward, we get more questions that we need to be asking our panellists. The questions are getting harder and harder, and it's not an easy thing to do, because we know it's such an emotionally charged subject. Bear with us. We have a lot more to do. This is a study that's not going to be finished overnight. We'll likely be seeing witnesses until the end of the year.
On that note, I'll take a moment to thank everybody for showing up to our panel today and playing along with us.
We have a second panel today. We will suspend until our next session at four o'clock.
Thank you.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much, everybody, for coming to the second panel on the legislative review of copyright.
It's important to understand that part of the role of the committee is to ask really good questions. Sometimes they're not comfortable questions, but if we don't get good data into our report, then maybe we won't make good recommendations.
We're doing the statutory review and are on a five-day tour. This is day four. We're in Winnipeg. Our study will continue for about a year. We have divided things up into sections.
Today, the second panel focuses on indigenous concerns. I want to make sure that you understand that this is not the only time. When we go into phase two, there will be a focus on indigenous concerns as well, so whatever information you present to us today will be a good introduction that will help us when we are introducing more witnesses in phase two of the study.
Today we have, from the Winnipeg Arts Council, Alexis Kinloch, Public Art Project Manager, and Dominic Lloyd; from the Manitoba Metis Federation, Sharon Parenteau, General Manager, as well as Georgina Liberty; and we have, as an individual, Lynn Lavallee, Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement, University of Manitoba. We also somebody else coming who is late. We'll introduce her when she arrives.
We're going to start with the Winnipeg Arts Council. You have five minutes, or seven minutes if you need it.
May 10th, 2018 / 4:05 p.m.
Dominic Lloyd Program and Arts Development Manager, Winnipeg Arts Council
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the clerk for accommodating us.
My name is Dominic Lloyd, and I have been managing arts funding programs with the Winnipeg Arts Council for eight years now, prior to which I worked in the Canadian music industry for almost a dozen years.
The importance of the arts to our quality of life, to the cultural, social, and economic well-being of Canada, cannot be overstated. However, even more important is the value of art itself. The creative ingenuity of people for its own purpose. Experiencing the arts provides us the capacity to perceive, to feel, to interpret the world, and to build empathy.
What is less often stated but should always be at the forefront of our discussions is the recognition of the individual artist as the primary source of creative activity in all artistic disciplines. Without artists, quite simply, there's no art. This is what drives the Winnipeg Arts Council, and we ask today that you too keep this in mind as you cross the country and develop legislation that will have a great impact on the entire Canadian cultural ecology.
Innovation is a word that's bandied about all the time as though it were a new concept, but by definition, artists are innovators. They've always been the ones looking for new ways to express our goals as a society and to interpret the world. It follows that where conversations around ownership and financial rights of creative material occur, they must involve artists, first and foremost, and their interests must remain paramount in your deliberations.
Here in Winnipeg, we know that the arts are a significant contributor to the economy. Independent research from PRA in 2014 showed that the arts employ over 26,000 people in our city, and contribute over a billion dollars to our GDP. It sound impressive until one considers Hill Strategies' research from the same year, which showed that artists in Canada are earning, on average, $33,000 a year, which is high when you consider the income of artists in the visual arts, music, and dance.
We know that artists in Canada do what they do with very little money, but the work they do is essential to building our community, our identity, and our economy, and their interests above all must be included in your discussion.