A warning to musicians wanting to perform in Canada:

[Dism]

It just got a whole lot more expensive to cross the border.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/enterta...759/story.html

What was once a one-time fee of $150, is now $425 per artist/roadie/tech/etc per venue. Yet, it doesn't apply to big tours and festivals... So only small venues and bars have to pay it.

This is f***ing ridiculous. I don't understand why our government is bent on putting more pressure on our already suffering small club owners. I can't even count how many clubs have shut down in the last 5 years in Toronto alone, and this isn't going to help. Most promoters already avoid hiring full bands due to the cost difference vs. hiring a DJ/MC... but this is going to ensure that it just stops happening altogether.

Not sure if this will make a difference, but for anyone interested, there is a change.org petition set up with 15k+ signatures so far.

https://www.change.org/en-CA/petitio...1-time-150-fee

[Emcha_audio]

hey! long time

Frankly I'm not surprise.. anything that is not right winged, christian, military, petrol and dictatorship will get stiffled... hey.. look at that hipy junky left wigners that has a solar car and is for peace instead of war.. we can't help him!!!

[The Weed]

Stephen will play piano and sing Beatles covers in any (right wing) bar for a lot less than those fees. Maybe it's a Conservative ploy to make sure Little Stevie has a gig after he leaves Ottawa. No way he - or the rest of them - could possibly survive on the golden pension they'll get when they retire.

Cheers,

[Dave Lang]

I can't believe I find myself in the position of "defending" the government we have up here right now but this information is not entirely accurate.

The new fees, for example, do not apply if you're a member of the union, which almost every Canadian who plays in the US has to be so....

In a perfect world "free trade" would include labor but it rarely does. Only capital. Cause who makes the big donations?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle14060411/

[Emcha_audio]

That would be correct if it was about Canadian playing here.. it's about foreign artist (even the ones from the US) crossing the border to come and play here, that the promoter (bar owner etc) get charged exorbitantly. US artists are not part of the Actra or the UDA (and other provincial artist unions), even though there's the AFM and the CFM (which are exonerated go favor favoritism of a union over an other??????) which is a joint union between the USA and Canada, it does not represent 100% of artists and that does not exonerate the promoter (not the artist) of having to pay that disguised tax. Let me give you an example, you're a promoter and you sign up a band to play in 5 small bars that are not specifically dedicated to music, they are not part of the AFM and they are 5 members. That means you have to mutiply 275 x5 members x5 shows = Total 6875, it would seem that this is actually exempted as it would be 1 hiring from 1 promoter, if they play lmo-exempted places, but most bars aren't.

[Dave Lang]

Is that english?

Did you read the article?

Because you clearly didn't understand it.

[Dave Lang]

http://www.cfmusicians.org/uploads/f...204%202013.pdf