When you think of Canadian Musicians, who do you think of?

Is it the Weekend, Drake, or Justin Bieber? Most likely on that list is Bryan Adams who’s been in the music industry for quite a while now.

You’ll likely know his song Summer of ’69 which was released back in 1984 and became his most defining song.

Even today, his music get’s played on the radio quite often and one of the main reasons for that is what’s known as Canadian Content (CANCON) regulations.

Back when the regulations were introduced, it was to help promote Canadian artists by requiring radio stations to have a certain percentage of their content be Canadian.

This worked extremely well back then and help people like Bryan get into the spotlight internationally.

Today, a lot of those same bands and artists are still being played to help stations fill their CANCON requirements.

But that creates a problem for new Canadian artists to break out as their air time is still filled with older artists like Adams and Nickelback.

It seems almost like the regulations that went in to promote Canadian artists are having the opposite effect.

New Canadian artists are popping up and starting to make a name for themselves though most aren’t doing it through radio anymore.

Take Boslen who I had discovered from friends who played NBA Madden 23.

I think it’s time for a change in regulations and what I’d propose is a separation between old CANCON and new CANCON requirements so that new artists can get the airtime they deserve.