TikTok’s world CEO is requesting an pressing assembly with authorities officers upfront of the corporate’s ordered shutdown in Canada.
Following an order citing nationwide safety dangers last November, the social media app is getting ready to wind down its Canadian operations. Whereas TikTok has vowed to fight the order, the clock is ticking. Final week, TikTok Canada halted its arts sponsorships all through the nation.
“We’re nonetheless seeking to get to the desk,” mentioned Steve de Eyre, director of TikTok’s authorities affairs for Canada, in an interview with Bloomberg. “Time is operating out,” he continued, although the corporate hasn’t shared a timeline.
On July 2, TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, wrote a letter to minister of innovation, science and trade Mélanie Joly requesting an pressing in-person assembly inside the subsequent two weeks.
Within the letter, obtained by Billboard Canada, Chew writes: “The windup course of is quickly approaching a crucial juncture the place, until you intervene, TikTok can be pressured to fireside all of its Canadian staff.”
The app would additionally should halt funding and assist for creators, the letter says. TikTok will nonetheless be out there on app shops for Canadians to obtain after the proposed shutdown.
Chew’s letter warns that with out authorities intervention, the ByteDance-owned platform can be pressured to terminate its total Canadian workforce. The platform says it has paid $340 million in Canadian taxes from 2019 to 2024, using about 350 folks throughout its Toronto and Vancouver workplaces, citing 14 million Canadian customers. De Eyre tells Bloomberg that some staff have left for different alternatives because the shutdown order, and so they aren’t legally allowed to rehire for these roles.
In his letter, Chew criticizes the shortage of response to TikTok’s requests, particularly because the shutdown order got here earlier than Mark Carney was elected and whereas Justin Trudeau was nonetheless Prime Minister of Canada.
“There isn’t any upside to this outdated and counterproductive authorities order, which was issued below a distinct authorities and in a distinct period, and which doesn’t replicate right now’s actuality,” he writes.
“This order will solely punish Canadian employees and content material creators, with out addressing supposed safety considerations. No proof has been offered to indicate that TikTok is itself a safety menace to Canada; fairly, this order is predicated on sensationalized reporting and tenuous claims of nationwide safety — none of that are addressed by shutting down our native workplaces.”
Chew writes that the corporate has made repeated requests to debate options by means of the nationwide safety evaluate course of, however has not had any substantive discussions with the Canadian authorities. He proposes options by means of enhanced knowledge safety protocols and platform transparency and oversight measures to “present higher accountability on points corresponding to on-line security, elections and international interference.”
Although Wednesday (July 16) marked his two-week timeframe, Chew has not but obtained a gathering with Minister Joly.
Learn extra here.
The Prism Prize Goes on Pause
The Prism Prize is hitting pause.
As one in all Canada’s largest boosters for music movies, the annual award acknowledges one of the best Canadian music video of the yr, with the winner getting a $20,000 money prize. The MVP Challenge can be happening hiatus this yr.
Generally known as the richest money prize for music movies in North America, the award has acknowledged movies for songs by quite a lot of artists, together with Charlotte Day Wilson, Kaytranada, Snotty Nose Rez Kids and Mustafa, who took residence the award for a second time eventually yr’s ceremony.
For founder Louis Calabro, vp of programming & awards on the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Tv, the aim of the break is to encourage new concepts and adapt to the present music video panorama.
“The choice to pause is a proactive transfer,” he says. “The Prism Prize was successful, however I’ve the mentality that you just shouldn’t anticipate one thing to crumble. You begin to re-evaluate so you may fireplace it up even higher.”
When Calabro launched the award independently in 2012 alongside Neil Haverty, it was a pivotal second for music movies. MuchMusic was on the wane, and YouTube was taking up as the first platform for the medium. Funding was dwindling too, with Bell Media later axing the MuchFACT music video grant in 2017 after the CRTC eliminated the situation in its MuchMusic TV license. That fund contributed $2 million yearly for music movies.
The Prism Prize developed to satisfy the second. Whereas initially unbiased, it grew to become a part of the Academy (which additionally administers the Canadian Display Awards) quickly after — recognizing music movies and their creators not solely as a part of the music trade, however the movie and TV trade as effectively. Artists like Director X, Karena Evans and Chandler Levack and extra all stored a foot within the medium whereas additionally transferring into TV and movie.
Six years later, the Academy and Prism Prize launched the Music Video Production (MVP) Project in collaboration with RBC, which acted as a juried incubator and funder for Canadian movies. That grant introduced in simply shy of $2 million of funding and created 137 movies with grants valued between $5,000 and $15,000.
“There wasn’t a single funding change that triggered the pause,” Calabro says. However to ensure that the Prism Prize to proceed delivering the manufacturing high quality and visuals it’s identified for, discovering new companions is vital. “That’s a part of why we’re talking with numerous funding companies, to make sure we will proceed to evolve and meet the excessive commonplace we’ve set,” he explains.
Whereas Calabro says the 2 hiatuses should not straight linked, there’s a shared need to emphasise a top-tier high quality of the work or the occasions slipping because of useful resource pressures. “We felt it was the proper time to pause, reevaluate and take the area to discover what the following model of every initiative might appear like,” Calabro says.
Learn extra here.
Pleasure at Warner Music Canada Hosts Its First Songcamp for Trans and Non-Binary Artists
A brand new songcamp is creating area for trans and non-binary artists within the Canadian music trade.
On July 7, in collaboration with Canadian singer-songwriter T. Thomason, Pleasure at Warner Music Canada hosted Track4Track, a songwriting camp and mentorship program designed for trans and non-binary musicians. The initiative goals to bridge the hole between rising and established creatives, offering an area the place everybody can create freely in group and security.
For its inaugural version, the initiative (often known as T4T) hosted 12 trans and non-binary artists. The songcamp was an concept that blossomed between Erin Carroll, a Warner Music Canada publicist and the Pleasure at Warner Music Canada co-chair, alongside co-organizer and participant T. Thomason.
Now a well-established artist on Six Shooter Data, Thomason’s thought goes again to shortly after he was a contestant on CTV’s singing competitors present The Launch. Each time he was writing songs with outdoors songwriters or producers, he felt like he was being made to share variations of his “journey” as a trans individual, whether or not or not it was related to the songs they had been making.
“I began desirous about an all trans writing camp again in 2019, when I discovered myself in increasingly more pop writing classes the place I used to be persistently the one trans individual,” he tells Billboard Canada. “It’s so uncommon for a room to be made up completely of trans folks in a mainstream music setting, however this camp confirmed that it’s attainable, and it’s highly effective.”
When the Pleasure at WMC group introduced the concept ahead, Carroll knew Thomason was the proper match to co-organize the songcamp.
“Constructing an area and ambiance for these artists by which they may very well be themselves introduced ahead the beginnings of some unimaginable music,” shares Carroll. “There are such a lot of wonderful trans and non-binary Canadian musicians, and I’m glad we had been in a position to foster an surroundings for this group to proceed to thrive.”
This yr’s contributors embody artists like Nefe, R.Flex, Melody McKiver, club-pop artist Ceréna, rapper Kimmortal, DIANA’s Carmen Elle and multi-hyphenate inventive Wild Black, together with producer Truss and Juno-winning engineer Beau Cassidy.
Within the music trade, Thomason says it’s uncommon for a recording session to incorporate a couple of trans individual, not to mention 12. That’s what made it such a “therapeutic and transformative” expertise, he says, and represents what the music trade might appear like sooner or later: “I would like as many individuals to expertise that feeling as attainable.”
Among the many mentors was Atlantic-signed artist corook, identified for viral hits like “THEY!” and “If I Were a Fish,”
“Writing rooms are at all times a susceptible place, so there was one thing actually highly effective about having all of the artists, writers and producers in these rooms be gender queer,” they are saying. “This writing camp confirmed me how highly effective it could be to get to expertise that form of consolation, and it’s now one thing I wish to search out for myself.”
Whereas there aren’t any concrete plans to host a second songcamp, this sort of programming is a step ahead for supporting trans, non-binary and two-spirit artists. “We’re pleased there was intentional area created for the group, and hope the long run brings larger and longer track camps,” says Carroll.
For Thomason, the affect of the T4T songcamp is only the start of boundary-pushing within the music trade.
“The artists who attended introduced their absolute A-game and the songs that got here out of it are reflections of what occurs when creatives are given an area to deal with expression, connection [and] pleasure,” he says.
Discover a full record of collaborating artists here.