Thank you very much for having me.
I'd like to reiterate some of what the past speakers have said. I think it's important to realize that things have changed a lot over the years. The digital technology has certainly had an effect on all of us musicians, writers, photographers, and visual artists. All of that has basically brought down the whole income structure for all of us, yet we expect to produce more and more and get paid less and less.
My name, as mentioned, is Mike Grandmaison. I'm a proud Canadian visual artist specializing in capturing Canadian landscape in images and in words. I feel strongly that Canadian content is essential for us as Canadians in developing our identity as well as our own art.
Forty-two years ago, I made a conscious decision to focus my lens on Canada. As an artist, my lifelong commitment is to capture the beauty of this great country and to share it with others to remind us all of the importance that a healthy environment brings to the richness in our lives.
I believe that I've made some important contributions to the Canadian content over the years, having illustrated some 15 coffee table books, as well as having written some of them. Over the last decade, I have also contributed to countless magazine articles internationally, images and writings about discovering Canada. I am proud of my contributions to the body of Canadian work to date and I feel honoured when Canadians across the board, many of whom I have met personally, including students at all levels of education, can learn and benefit from our Canadian content, experiences, stories, and images.
As many others, I have been personally impacted by the addition of education as an allowable purpose under fair dealing since the Copyright Modernization Act was passed in 2012. Royalties to creators and publishers have declined by close to 80%. In my case, it's 70%.
The publishing industry in Canada contributes about $9.7 billion to the Canadian GDP, and the $120,000 is nothing to sneeze at for sure. The loss of royalty revenue has had significant impacts, including layoffs, to all of us, and to the business itself. Some publishers have been hit quite a bit. Also, the cuts to funding hurt us as creators as well.
Allowing these things to continue as they are will seriously jeopardize the continued creation of Canadian content for the classroom and beyond.
Thank you.