October 26, 2015
During the longest Canadian election campaign in 143 years, musicians came out in droves to make political statements, sing protest songs, and encourage citizens to vote regardless of their allegiances. Somewhere along the way, the #ImagineOct20th movement raised its voice in the interest of a Canada run by, well, anyone but Stephen Harper. October 20, 2015 came and delivered what the group of musicians was dreaming of in the form of a Liberal majority. But that doesn’t mean the work is finished. So now what?
Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, like all political parties before them and all those that will come after, made a lot of promises during their campaign. Canada has long provided a wealth of government funding for musicians, with grants for everything from touring to marketing to production assisting the nation’s songwriters in getting business done. So what has Trudeau pledged that the system will look like now? What changes should songwriters expect?
Billboard has done a pretty great job of compiling all of the promises the Liberal party has made regarding arts funding, and they are not few. Among them are: reversing cuts and making new investments to the CBC, doubling investment to the Canada Council to the Arts (from $180 to $360 million per year), and increased funding for Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board.
The promised increases to the nation’s arts communities could definitely be a beacon of light in the wake of Conservative cuts, but they’re also not small. Time will tell whether Trudeau can deliver some happy tunes to Canada’s musicians, but in the meantime, you can revisit the protest songs that helped usher him in.
In Other News:
- M for Montreal releases its full 2015 line-up.
- YouTube announces its very own paid subscription service.
- Not Dead Yet took on Toronto this past weekend.
- Yike (Tony) Yang, 16-year-old, becomes the youngest recipient of the Chopin prize.
- Drake danced some really funny dances in the new video for ‘Hotline Bling’.
