Coalition of Canadian music organizations sign Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct, announce training & education resources will be available through Unison Benevolent Fund
March 16, 2019, London, ON: A coalition of Canadian music community groups has joined in solidarity and is working towards environments free of harassment, discrimination, violence, and bullying for the music community.
Today the coalition announced that 42 music groups have formally signed on to the Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct. By signing on to the Code, the organizations are acknowledging their responsibility to build safe, respectful workplaces, and are committing to improving and implementing policies to keep the music community safe.
As a first step, members of the coalition have formed an Education, Training and Safe Support Committee, which is working to provide each member of the Canadian music community with the appropriate resources and training to identify, confront and prevent harassment, bullying and violence in any workplace. Unison Benevolent Fund has volunteered to host a suite of educational and training resources through its website at no cost. These resources will be made available to the music community at a later date.
Today’s announcement was made at Allies in Action, an event focused on initiatives undertaken or underway to create safer spaces as the Canadian music community gathers in London, Ontario for the 2019 JUNO Awards.
Because of the uniqueness of the music business and the spaces in which musicians and music workers often operate, the coalition has added the following music-specific preamble to the existing Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct:
“We, the Canadian music community signatories, support the Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct. We recognize that in the music industry, the terms work, workplace and work-related, are extremely broad and can include any physical or virtual spaces at any time.”
You can read the full Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct at www.ReadTheCode.ca
Additional organizations that would like to sign on to the Code can register online. Once the form has been completed, new signatories should email a high resolution company logo to [email protected] with your organization’s name and “Becoming Code signatory” in the subject line.
Music industry groups that have signed on to the Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct are:
Across the Board 50/50 by 2020
ACTRA RACS (Recording Artists’ Collecting Society)
AFM Local 1000 (American Federation of Musicians)
Calgary Musicians Association
Canadian Conference of Musicians
Canadian Country Music Association
Canadian Federation of Musicians
Canadian Live Music Association
Canadian Music Publishers Association
Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd. (CMRRA)
Canadian Private Copying Collective
CCMC Music Gallery
CONNECT Music Licensing
Creative BC
Cultural Industries Ontario North (CION)
Edmonton Musicians Association, AFM Local 390
Film & Entertainment Industries, City of Toronto
Folk Music Ontario
Guilde des musiciens et musiciennes du Québec
Gypsy Soul Entertainment
Island Musicians Association (IMA)
Manitoba Music
Music BC Industry Association
Music Canada
Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (MusicNL)
Music Prince Edward Island (PEI)
Music·Musique NB
Musicians Association Local 276 CFM (Canadian Federation of Musicians)
Musicians’ Association of Ottawa-Gatineau
Musicians’ Rights Organization Canada (MROC)
Re:Sound
Regina Musicians Association
SaskMusic
Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN)
Songwriters Association of Canada (S.A.C.)
SONIC UNYON
The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
Toronto Musicians’ Association, AFM Local 149
Unison Benevolent Fund
Vancouver Musicians Association, Local 145 of AFM
WCMA (Western Canadian Music Alliance)
Women in Music Canada
– 30 –
Supporting quotes
“The Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct addresses the distinct circumstances of music professionals, and the unique ways in which we work. Unison exists as a resource for the Canadian music community during times of crisis, and we look forward to investing in more proactive solutions that prioritize the safety of music workers. On behalf of the Unison Board of Directors, we would like to extend our most sincere thanks to the Education, Training, and Safe Support Committee for putting such a vital program together. We’re proud to partner with them to further serve the Canadian music community.”
– Amanda Power, Executive Director, Unison Benevolent Fund
“As organizations, CARAS and Music Canada deeply value respect, inclusiveness and excellence. Both organizations believe everyone working in this beautiful and complex music community deserves to feel safe and supported. To achieve this, we’re working on national initiatives like the Allies in Action event, as well as local CARAS partnerships in our host cities with groups like Anova in London and Good Night Out in Vancouver to make JUNO Awards events safe for everyone.
Signing the Code is a way for Canadian music community groups to affirm our dedication to our shared values, and to reinforce those values with action. Through the work of the Education, Training and Safe Support Committee, I’m very pleased that we will be able to offer all members of the Canadian music community the resources to help make all of our workplaces safer.”
– Jackie Dean, Chief Operating Officer, CARAS, The JUNO Awards, MusiCounts
Chief Financial Officer, Music Canada
“Canadian Federation of Musicians (CFM), as the union for professional musicians, is committed to representing and protecting its membership in all facets of their career. Signing the Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct represents the music community’s shared action towards creating a healthy culture with zero tolerance to all forms of harassment. Working to ensure health and safety in the workplace for our membership is one of the union’s many functions. We will continue to pledge our resources, support and expertise and proudly sign on behalf of our over 17,000 active Canadian members.”
– Liana White, Executive Director, Canadian Federation of Musicians
“The Code is a community statement and commitment that each signatory organization and company takes their own measures to discourage and address harassment in their workplaces. It acknowledges that music industry workplaces are often non-standard workplaces, known as extended workplaces, and include studios, venues, bars, green rooms, and tour buses, among others. If we collectively are motivated to meet the commitments in the Code, it will help musicians and all workers across the industry feel safer and more enabled to collaborate, create great music, and ensure that there is a professional platform to share the work of the world’s best artists.”
– Michael Adam Murray, Executive Director,
Toronto Musicians Association (TMA), local 149
“Canada’s live music industry is doing its part to ensure that every live music space is a safe place through our recently launched Raising the Bar program. Raising the Bar addresses safer spaces, harm reduction and event safety at live music events – be they indoors or out, and will work to complement both the ethos and practical implications of the Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct. We are all in this together, and we are vigorously working to supplant systemic issues with positive change.”
– Erin Benjamin, Canadian Live Music Association President & CEO
“The Canadian Creative Industries Code of Conduct is a wonderful initiative that provides a uniform set of standards to ensure the safety and success of of our colleagues throughout the
industry.”
– Samantha Slattery, Founder, Women in Music Canada
“It is important that we have all signed on to the Code as a community but now it is even more important that we look at ways to proactively change the way we do business.”
– Margaret McGuffin, Executive Director, Canadian Music Publishers Association
For more information:
Victoria Lord, VLPR Inc.
416-484-9047
[email protected]
