Mr. Kenny,
Recent changes to the fee structure for visa/work permits
allowing touring artists and entertainers will not allow small- or medium-scale
musicians to legally tour and perform in Canada. It is clear to those of us
with experience with the music industry that the government’s changes did not
intend to directly affect the bars and music venues which rely on touring
musicians for the effective operation of their business. Furthermore, it seems
unlikely that the Conservative Party intended for its policies surrounding work
permits for foreign labourers to have the consequence that Canadian bars and
entertainment venues which have capacities of less than 1,000 people would be
affected in the negative manner which will result from these policies. It seems
to me that given the nature of the music business as inherently multinational
in nature, Canadian venues with capacities less than 1,000 people will suffer catastrophically
from the lack of touring musicians able to perform in Canada. There won’t suddenly
exist an expanded stable of internationally-recognised Canadian musicians from
which promoters and venues can choose; rather there will be fewer live music
performances, and venue revenues, with their contingent tax revenues, will fall
considerably. Quite simply, many venues will not be able to remain in business.
Again, it is clear that such was not the intention of the
policy changes enacted by the federal Conservatives. Rather, the problems with
which the live music industry is now facing are the result of a total lack of
consultation on the part of the governing Conservative Party of Canada. As this
situation is simply not acceptable to anyone in the music industry in Canada,
what measures will the government take to immediately address this issue? The
policy as currently extant does not work for the music industry, or for the
arts more broadly. Let me be blunt about the situation, Mr. Kenny. There is
nobody currently serving as MP within the Conservative caucus who understands
or has any experience with the issue of the performing arts in Canada. In fact,
understood within the context of other policy and procedural changes and the
abusive, omnibus-bill methods of public governance which marks the history of
the federal Conservatives since 2006, neither I nor other members of the art
industry communities in Canada have any confidence in the ‘expertise’ displayed
by the Conservative government in this regard.
Will government officials, in consultation with members of
the Canadian live music industry, work on excepting touring entertainers for
the reason that they inhabit an obviously different employment situation
relative to a one-night performance than does a foreign worker coming to Canada
to fill a six-month full-time position? What steps, in the timeframe of the
next eighteen months, will be taken to restore the business viability of live
music venues in Canada, now that recent policy changes enacted by the
Conservative government have seriously undermined the business potential of the
industry in Canada?
Regards,
UPDATE:
UPDATE:
