Thank you.

Madam Chair, my name is Erin Finlay, and I'm the Chief Legal Officer of the Canadian Media Producers Association.

With me today is Stephen Stohn, President of SkyStone Media and executive producer of the hit televison series Degrassi: Next Class and all previous versions of that great show.

The CMPA represents hundreds of Canadian independent producers engaged in the development, production and distribution of English-language content made for television, cinema and digital media. The CMPA works on behalf of its members to ensure a bright future for media production and for Canadian content.

Do you have a favourite Canadian TV show? Those Canadian films that are getting all the hype on the festival circuit, chances are one of our members produced them.

From Degrassi, which Stephen will talk about shortly, to the Oscar-nominated feature film The Breadwinner, the adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, Letterkenny, and Murdoch Mysteries, we have a lot to be proud of.

Last year, $3.3 billion in Canadian independent film and television production volume generated work for over 67,000 full-time-equivalent jobs across all regions of the country. The directors, writers, actors, crew and producers who work in these high-value creative jobs make the programs that provide audiences with a Canadian perspective on our country, our world and our place in it.

Our successes are the direct result of a highly effective regulated system. From cable company contributions and the Canada Media Fund to Canadian programming requirements and intellectual property laws that protect and incentivize Canadian creation, our communications and copyright legislative framework is the backbone of our current, vibrant domestic market.

But we are now at a crossroads, a pivotal point in the digital economy. It's no secret that we have a cultural behemoth just over the border. Over-the-top foreign platforms like Netflix and Amazon are drawing Canadian audiences and subscribers away from our domestic broadcasters and cable companies. These foreign players are delivering U.S. content straight into our homes with complete immunity from the regulations that help build our strong creative industry. This not only has created an unfair competitive advantage, but is putting immense stress on our funding system for Canadian content.

Failure to regulate these foreign entities and how content now reaches audiences is an existential threat to Canadian artists and creative industries. We must level the playing field and give the CRTC the tools it needs to do so. Put simply, our system must be modernized to require foreign over-the-top services and the new distribution channels operating in our market to contribute to the production of Canadian content, or there will be no more Canadian copyright to review.

The CMPA would like to highlight three issues with the current Copyright Act that are negatively impacting remuneration for artists in the creative industries.

First, these new ways of delivering content will eventually make the retransmission regime in the Copyright Act obsolete. Since inception, this regime has generated approximately $600 million for the Canadian creative industries. The retransmission regime must be modernized and made technologically neutral to account for online and mobile uses of copyright-protected works.

Second, the current tools available under the Copyright Act are ineffective against large-scale commercial piracy. We ask that the act be amended to expressly allow rights holders to obtain injunctive relief against intermediaries, including by site-blocking and de-indexing orders.

Finally, we strenuously oppose the writers' and directors' efforts to be made joint authors of copyright in a cinematographic work. The market has long ago worked out this question, and no change is required to the Copyright Act regarding the authorship or ownership of a cinematographic work.

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