Ouellette Marc

Describe your background and industry experience, and explain how it will help you contribute to the SOCAN Board of Directors?

Marc Ouellette holds a music composition degree from McGill University and underwent further training with Ennio Morricone in Italy. Dividing his time between composing, producing and conducting in many musical genres, he has been nominated and won different distinctions such as SOCAN, Gemini and ADISQ awards. Over the past twenty-five years, Marc has written original music for a variety of projects ranging from movies (Deadly Isolation; 2005, When We Were Boys; 2013, Ambert Alert; 2016), children television series (Mystery Hunters; 2002-2009), entertainment and circus-oriented shows (Azul at SeaWorld of San Antonio; 2009-2018), and multimedia presentations (summer and winter Sound & Light on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill; 2010 to date) to name a few. As arranger, producer and conductor, he has contributed to concerts and recordings featuring such diverse artists and groups as Isabelle Boulay (Mieux qu’ici bas; 2000), Pierre Lapointe (La forêt des mal-aimés; 2007), Roch Voisine (Duophonique; 2013), The Tea Party (tours across Canada; 2002 and Australia; 2017) and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. 

Marc began his involvement for the advocacy of music right holders in the mid 1990’s and served as board member of the Société professionnelle des auteurs et compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ), la Société du droit de reproduction des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs du Canada (SODRAC) and was respectively President of both of them. He also served as President of the SOCAN Foundation and has been President and Chairman of the SOCAN board since 2018. 

 After several years on the Board of Directors, I hope to continue to contribute my opinions and ideas on how the SOCAN of tomorrow should operate. Collectively, this Board and the new Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Brown have collectively begun to make structural changes to the internal operations of our company. Having served on various Board committees over the years, I now have a desire to see SOCAN’s governance renewed and, with my experience and openness, I hope to help bring about these necessary transformations. I have had the honour of serving as Chair of this board since 2018 and despite the pandemic, SOCAN has managed to weather the early stages of this storm. While nothing can be taken for granted, the challenges facing all SOCAN members are very real and our rights must be vigorously defended at all times as business models are still constantly changing in our industry. Through a new partnership with our professional associations, we, the copyright holders, have a responsibility to continue educating new generations of creators and publishers on the value of our rights. The next term of the SOCAN Board of Directors will be devoted to the renewal of our strategic plan as well as operational and governance transformation.  

In your opinion, what issues will be most important to SOCAN members over the next three years?

SOCAN has already been facing major upheavals in music consumption for several years now. Among the important issues that the next Board of Directors will need to tackle is the access to reliable and complete data on members’ works, a functional and efficient members’ portal that allows transparent consultation of this data, better administration of our musical performing and reproduction rights, a change in the conditions favouring some of our members to flee the collective management of copyrights; these are some of the very pressing issues that directly concern the day-to-day administration of the copyrights of SOCAN PR’s members (performing rights) and SOCAN RR’s clients (reproduction rights). Much of SOCAN’s strength lies in the representational strength of its repertoire, its catalogue of works. If it were to melt away substantially, the whole principle of collective management would be jeopardized. We must take the necessary steps to transform SOCAN back into a modern, strong and flexible society in the eyes of its members and all players in the global music industry.