Cultural Industries

"Canada’s cultural industries, driven by internationally-recognized innovators and entrepreneurs, play an important financial role.  Culture contributes more than $46 billion, accounting for 7.4% of Canada’s GDP, and more than 640,000 jobs to our economy. Canada’s cultural industry is three times bigger than our insurance industry and twice the size of our forest industry. At the provincial level, cultural industries are booming.  In Ontario alone, the creative industry GDP is now larger than the province’s energy industry, is approaching 70% of the auto manufacturing sector and surpasses those of agriculture, forestry and the mining sectors combined. Cultural industries create jobs, build relations between arts and business, revitalize urban areas, attract skilled workers and create spin-off businesses. Understanding this dynamic is at the heart of Global Public Affairs’ Cultural Industries practice offering, and consultants are engaged in a number of key areas affecting the sector including:

• Copyright reform and intellectual property issues, including government mandated review of the Copyright Act in 2017
• Levy and tariff applications before the Copyright Board of Canada
• Funding support programs including the Canada Book Fund, Canada Media Fund, and Canada Music Fund as well as a variety of programs available for performing arts, festivals, museums and galleries
• Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings, reviews and studies
• Digital Canada 150 strategy and its impact on sectors ranging from videogames to music, TV to experimental digital art
• Infrastructure funding for cultural projects through the Building Canada Fund and Cultural Spaces Fund
• International treaty negotiations, such as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and Europe, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, to ensure the protection of creators’ rights
• Monitoring federal and provincial parliamentary committees and political initiatives

"Global Public Affairs consultants have worked with a wide range of projects across all areas of the arts and culture community including music industry associations, collectives representing songwriters, recording artists, music publishers and record companies, film and television screenwriters, newspaper publishers, urban development organizations, performing arts centres and museums.  A number of these engagements have been undertaken with clients based in Quebec where cultural issues tend to have a higher profile in a unique environment" (http://globalpublicaffairs.ca/practice_group/cultural-industries/).