(Thursday, July 14, 2011—TORONTO, ON) Music Canada presented, on behalf of the em-ployees of the major record labels in Canada, an award of appreciation to MP Dean Del Mas-tro in recognition of his efforts to save jobs in the music industry.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Heritage and former Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, MP Del Mastro played a critical role in ensuring the government stayed on course with its commitment to copyright reform.

“Dean has taken the time to understand the recording industry and our employees truly appre-ciate his efforts,” says Graham Henderson, President of Music Canada. “He recognizes that modernizing Canada’s copyright system to bring it up to date with the digital environment, is about saving and creating jobs and during his tenure on the committee reviewing Bill C-32 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister, he made sure that his colleagues on Parliament Hill did not lose sight of that important principle. Now as he moves on to serve as Parliamen-tary Secretary to the Prime Minister, we appreciate his willingness and intent to remain en-gaged – the loss of his deep understanding of the issues would represent an enormous set-back for the process.”

The award was presented yesterday (July 13) at Music Canada’s Annual General Meeting by Charlie Millar of Warner Music Canada.

“I am very humbled to be presented with this award”, stated Dean Del Mastro, Member of Par-liament for Peterborough Riding. “Copyright is a huge issue and our committee worked long and hard on Bill C-32. To be recognized by Music Canada in this way makes all of that hard work worthwhile.”