The CCA urges the government to keep investing in musical development and diversity

CCA Bul­letin 25/09

Octo­ber 28, 2009

 

Just the facts

Last week, the CCA appeared in front of the Stand­ing Com­mit­tee on Her­itage which is cur­rently study­ing the impacts of los­ing two pro­grams abol­ished by the fed­eral gov­ern­ment: invest­ing in the record­ing and mar­ket­ing of “spe­cial­ized” Cana­dian music. These pro­grams gave grants to musi­cians pro­duc­ing works which, while not cur­rently com­mer­cially viable, are deemed artis­ti­cally inno­v­a­tive and capa­ble of build­ing an audi­ence through the new dig­i­tal economy.

Though we applaud the gov­ern­ment for rec­og­niz­ing the need to increase tar­geted bud­gets at FACTOR and Musi­cAc­tion, the CCA asked the gov­ern­ment, to find the $1.3m required to main­tain these strate­gi­cally impor­tant pro­grams abol­ished to fund the increases. The CCA sent both a let­ter to Min­is­ter Moore and gave a pre­sen­ta­tion to the Par­lia­men­tary Committee.

The CCA expresses par­tic­u­lar con­cern about the dis­ap­pear­ance of a very low-cost ser­vice giv­ing 200 small inde­pen­dent Cana­dian labels access to 300 on-line dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices and to 2000+ pub­lic libraries sub­scrip­tion ser­vices around the world.

Tell me more

Given the breadth of its man­date and the wide per­spec­tive it must adopt to be inclu­sive of its mem­ber­ship, the CCA does not nor­mally inter­vene in such spe­cific issues.  How­ever, the CCA inter­venes when­ever fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples are at risk with respect to the health of the Cana­dian cul­tural sec­tor and the wel­fare of the artists, cre­ators, and arts pro­fes­sion­als who work within it.

The CCA voiced its encour­age­ment that the Min­is­ter of Her­itage rec­og­nized the need to increase fed­eral invest­ments for dig­i­tal and inter­na­tional mar­ket devel­op­ment for Cana­dian music. Those two sec­tors of activ­ity will be effected pos­i­tively through the imple­men­ta­tion of increased funds by FACTOR and MusicAction.

This said, the CCA deplores the fact that this wel­come injec­tion of funds was done at the expense of an impor­tant strate­gic invest­ment in Cana­dian cul­tural diver­sity. The pro­grams abol­ished fos­tered the devel­op­ment of new forms of music which, while not nec­es­sar­ily com­mer­cially viable now, could even­tu­ally become so.

Why does the CCA invite the gov­ern­ment to seek new fund­ing to main­tain those programs?

• First, because invest­ing in what is deemed spe­cial­ized today may well shape our cul­ture tomorrow.
• Sec­ondly, because it is impor­tant for the fed­eral gov­ern­ment to help develop one of Canada’s most promis­ing nat­ural resource, namely the diverse cul­tural com­mu­ni­ties which weave the fab­ric of Cana­dian society.
• Thirdly, because we value the role the fed­eral gov­ern­ment plays in invest­ing in exper­i­men­ta­tion, lead­ing to the devel­op­ment of new forms of music by Cana­dian artists. This is sim­i­lar to risk cap­i­tal or invest­ing in fun­da­men­tal research in other sec­tors of activity.
• Finally, because the gov­ern­ment has com­mit­ted inter­na­tion­ally to sup­port and pro­mote cul­tural diver­sity. Cul­tural diver­sity starts here, through the sup­port of cre­ativ­ity rooted in the rich diver­sity of our own population.

Why is the CCA specif­i­cally con­cerned about the demise of the Dis­tri­b­u­tion Services?

Funded by an annual grant of $150K, the Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ser­vices run by the Cana­dian Music Cen­tre sup­port the devel­op­ment of mar­kets for those Cana­dian niche for­mats which would not oth­er­wise be able to reach their audiences.

The not-for-profit ser­vice makes it pos­si­ble for over 1300 titles pro­duced by some 200 small inde­pen­dent Cana­dian labels to achieve inter­na­tional dis­tri­b­u­tion. By group­ing together cat­a­logues too small to be con­sid­ered indi­vid­u­ally by dis­trib­u­tors, the CMC-DS has been able to nego­ti­ate on the labels’ behalf with the likes of NAXOS or the Inde­pen­dent On Line Dis­tri­b­u­tion Alliance (IODA), which gives those Cana­dian artists access to 300 on-line dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vices and to 2000+ pub­lic libraries sub­scrip­tion services.

The CMC will have no choice but to close the Dis­tri­b­u­tion Ser­vices of these record­ings if the fund­ing is not avail­able on April 1, 2010.

What can I do?

Raise these issues locally with your MP and ask him/her to make his sup­port known to the government.