Industry committee  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. With your permission, I'll present in English, but I'll be happy to answer you in the official language of your choice. My name is Mark London, and I'm the owner of Galerie Elca London in Montreal, which was founded by my late parents in

Industry committee  It's interesting. Canada is often compared to Australia because of our population size and also the large number of indigenous artists, etc. In Australia, I think the ARR was enacted in 2010. This is just off the top of my head, but in 2007, the national figures for indigenous ar

Industry committee  That's right, although in most of the countries with an ARR, the people who are actually in charge.... In other words, if someone brings a piece into my gallery to sell on a consignment basis, such as someone who has a copy of Kenojuak's The Enchanted Owl, I would get a relativel

Industry committee  The problem with The Enchanted Owl is that it's a great sound bite. The fact is.... Well, actually, because—

Industry committee  It's not inherently, no. In other words, part of the value in a work of art is its perceived rarity and also the fact that someone owns it free of any and all encumbrances. The second you attach all sorts of other things to it, it becomes a less attractive thing. Again, the analo

Industry committee  Of course. That's our greatest fear. All they have to do is post it on Kijiji. In other words, they would easily be able to circumvent the traditional dealer or auction house network. In a private sale, no HST, GST or PST is collected. Capital gains may or may not be reported, et

Industry committee  It's funny. I personally take umbrage when I hear about exploitation of Inuit art. First, when I buy, I buy outright, so there's no consignment. I buy everything from the Inuit-owned co-operative. In other words, when an artist sells his or her work to the co-op, the co-op of whi

Industry committee  It's a very good question, but again, that is not necessarily the best example. I was friendly with Annie. I knew her very well when she lived in Montreal. Unfortunately, she sold on the street for a fraction of what she was selling for to the co-operative. In order to maximize m

Industry committee  It's a very good question. The Inuit market is in decline, whether we're talking about the primary market or the secondary market. It's just not as popular as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. Production is very high, but the demand has decreased significantly. How do you increase t

Industry committee  I don't know what the answer is.

Industry committee  My answer would be those examples that I gave on the Australian auction market. The sales are going from $28 million down to $10 million, then down to $8 million. When you think about art galleries and the people employed by art galleries—the art movers, handlers, etc.—there is

Industry committee  Well, as I said, it's a very real fear that sales at the higher end of the market would move south of the border. Forgetting all the private sales that will circumvent the traditional gallery or auction house market, what's to stop a major Canadian auction house from opening up i

Industry committee  I haven't a clue. I think it's in the venue where the piece is sold. It's like when something is being imported, assuming it's being imported with the correct price attached, as opposed to coming in with a zero that has miraculously dropped off.

Industry committee  Okay. All this is assuming that the GST, HST, PST or whatever would be collected at the border, but I don't know that.... Again, it's not the government's job to collect that.

Industry committee  Exactly. That's what I was saying. In all these venues where it's a shared thing, it's almost like 90 countries agreeing to use Times New Roman 12 instead of Arial 14. It's a compliance issue, so it's the same across trading partners.