Recommendations to Canadian Heritage (Jan 2021 – Phase 3)

January 8th, 2021

The Honourable Steven Guilbeault

Minister of Canadian Heritage House of Commons Ottawa,

Ontario Canada K1A 0A6

Dear Minister,

Happy New Year. I hope this finds you well, having enjoyed some healthy and restful time with family during the recent holiday season. Thank you for all of your many efforts on behalf of Canada’s live music industry to date. Unfortunately, the sectors’ struggles continue to intensify. After 10+ months of little-to-no earned revenue, we are writing today with a renewed and urgent call for additional and immediate sector-specific, targeted support.

Live music workers, companies and organizations will be among the last to recover, with still no end in sight. It is understood that live music will, unquestionably, have a key role to play post-pandemic and we are hard at work ensuring environments will be safe for the public to return to. While we are all excited to watch the vaccine begin to reach Canadians, our sector's ongoing sustainability is frighteningly tenuous. CLMA members report thousands of job losses, with skilled workers - including artists - exiting the industry to seek employment elsewhere. Stemming this exodus, and protecting our infrastructure, is crucial so that we can be ready to provide Canadians, and Canadian artists, with live performance opportunities when it is safe to do so.

"As venues close, every single day jobs are lost… continuing to stay viable as a business is becoming impossible. I’m starting to realize we might never be back… that live music may never recover." CLMA member, November 2020

A horrifying number of career-building venues have disappeared, or are teetering on the edge of extinction. Artists now have substantially fewer places to play, and supply chains that help to underpin the ecology of the industry are being radically diminished at an increasingly alarming rate. This threat affects all live music workers including lifetime venue owners who can no longer afford insurance, self-employed, contracted and freelance musicians and crew members who are used to working steadily on cross country tours and who continue to fall through the cracks of support, among others. The extensive, unyielding decimation of our cultural infrastructure has been brutal.

As you consider how best to effectively disseminate the new $40m announced in the fall economic statement we urge you to consider the following recommendations:

1. Innovating on initial Phases, a “Phase 3” should seek to protect all venues, festivals, production/sound + lights/supply companies, others whose core business is live music (talent agencies, management companies, and so on) and self-employed people working in live music who continue to fall through the cracks; targeted support should be provided quickly and qualifying expenditures should be expanded.

2. Ensure extension of vital programs such as CEWS, CERB, CERS and HASCAP programs for as long as necessary.

3. Support the UNISON Benevolent Fund - Canada’s leading music industry charity, so that the music industry can have access to emergency funds and mental health aid.

Taken together and with swift action, these recommendations can make the difference. The future of every touring and performing artist in this country hangs in balance.

Please let me know when we can meet to discuss these ideas in greater detail so that we work together to address our many common goals, quickly - before even more, permanent, devastating loss.

Sincerely,

Erin Benjamin

President & CEO Canadian Live Music Association

450 Churchill Ave North

Ottawa, ON

K1Z 5E2

C: 613.769.5559

E: ebenjamin@canadianlivemusic.ca