Ongoing History Daily: A brief history of Cancon

Before 1971, there really wasn’t much of a domestic Canadian music industry. There were some tiny record labels and branch offices of major American and British labels, but that was about it. But on January 18, 1971, all radio stations had to devote 30% of their playlists to playing Canadian artists.

This was a twofold plan. First, it would be a way of preventing Canadian music from being completely overrun by foreign material. It was a cultural strategy. But by creating an artificial demand for Canadian music, a whole music industry infrastructure was required: Recording studios, producers, engineers, record labels, managers, agents, and so on. This also made it an industrial strategy.

It was very hard at first, and there were many growing pains, but this set Canada on the road to eventually becoming the international music powerhouse that it is today.