Good evening.
My name's Pierre Lapointe. I'm an author-composer-performer and co-producer of shows.
I'm 37 years old. I began in this work in 2001 and I've seen my field of work deteriorate phenomenally over the last 18 years. To give you a concrete example, I had a big francophone number one hit in Canada with La forêt des mal-aimés in 2006. We're talking 32,000 copies in one week, which was extraordinary. I had a number one in 2017, last October, when I released my last album, La science du coeur. A number one in Canada in 2017 as a francophone means 5,600 copies. Eight months later, we're at about 20,000 copies. For an album like La forêt des mal-aimés, in 2006, we're talking 200,000 copies.
At the time, we could rely on shows and records for income. Today, that's not the case. I feel a sense of great urgency and I don't see that in the government, regardless of which one is in power, whether the Conservatives who were there before or the Liberals who are there now. I find it completely absurd that governments do not protect Canadian creators. We are a small country on the world stage and, if we don't promote Canadian creators, in a few years, we'll really regret it.
You have the power to change things. Do it quickly. Spotify has just gone public. Do you have any idea of the value of a Spotify logo? Have you tried to quantify the value of Canadian content that has not been paid to Canadian creators to increase the value of the Spotify logo? Think about iTunes and YouTube. They're laughing at us. That's money that's leaving Canada and that won't come back to the pockets of Canada.
I just want to tell you one thing: move fast, because I'm still able to live well with copyrights, but with a million streams on Spotify, I earned $500. That's $500 for a million streams. If I'm receiving $500 for a million streams, I'm not mentioning others who are not as well known as me.
That's all I have to say.