Music Canada’s President and CEO, Graham Henderson, was recently interviewed by Canadian Musician’s Michael Raine for the Canadian Musician Radio podcast. Graham and Michael began by discussing Graham’s November 1 speech to the Economic Club of Canada, in which he gave an impassioned defence of creators’ rights. The conversation then flowed to the Focus On Creators initiative, which launched on November 29 with a joint letter to Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly signed by nearly 1,100 musicians, authors, playwrights, poets, songwriters and other creators, urging the government to put creators at the heart of future policy.
A common theme of both Graham’s speech and Focus On Creators is that our government must act to restore a fair and balanced working environment for creators before full-time creativity becomes a thing of the past.
“We are out of our enabling phase. We’ve enabled this new digital marketplace,” said Graham. “Very clearly, we created market distortions we didn’t intend, and now we are going to play the role, the government, will play the role of a leveler. We are going to restore balance.”
Graham spoke of the widespread support behind Focus On Creators from high profile Canadian artists and creators, but stressed the significance of the younger generation of artists who have added their names to the joint letter.
“What is just as important is the young artists. They’re signing up in droves because they’re the ones for whom this promise evaporated,” said Graham. “Our new generations of musicians are digital natives. There’s almost nothing about that environment they don’t know and they don’t understand…The problem is, they do it all, and they don’t get paid properly. They can’t afford rent. Prominent musicians who’ve had their music on 75 records, who have JUNOs, JUNO nominations, can’t afford rent. Ridiculous!”
The full interview is available on Canadian Musician Radio’s website. Graham’s interview begins at the 22:50 mark.
Nominations are now open for 
According to the report, labels remain the largest investor in music, maintaining tens of thousands of artists on global rosters, and investing 27 percent of their revenues—US$4.5 billion—in artists around the globe. “That’s an incredible figure that reflects their commitment to artists and the future of music,” says the report. “No other segment of the music sector invests in artists on anything like this scale.”
Canadian alternative rock outfit 
10 sleepless hours overnight, I finally landed in London. Sleepless because I couldn’t stop watching all the new releases they had on the flight. Our tour manager Pete Bright picked us up. We’d never met him before but he would be our handler for the next 10 days. We grabbed some beer, our drummer Chris (already in the UK touring with another band) and then it was off to our label rep Gary’s house for the next few nights. An energized Englishmen who we met a month or two before in Miami.
had the same humor as us, and sharing dressing rooms sometimes became great times. Too many beers, making fun of each other’s accents, and keeping each other entertained.
We tried to sleep on the hardwood floor near the lobby. Didn’t work. By the time we settled into our room it was 3:30 and sound check was at 5. No sleep.
thing as us.. “Of course”. We tried to sleep on the cement floor in line to check our bags.. but at this point it was useless. After 2 nights of no sleep we finally boarded our 15-hour flight, scrambled with layovers. If you’ve ever gone on tour, or stayed up that long you’ll know there’s an ongoing fight to “stay human”. We were no longer human. There were humans around us though. Families on vacation to California. Couples.. businessmen traveling for work. And then there was us. 3 guys in clothes we’d slept in and worn for 10 days, reeking of someone else’s stale smoke. Our gear and bags piled up around us like a fort, looking likes assholes for wearing sunglasses indoors to hide our eyes. BUT it was all over after this final push.
Prior to their show at Toronto’s
Music Canada