Canada Eliminates ‘Tour Tax’

The Canadian government has eliminated a fee that was apparently keeping foreign acts from playing bars and restaurants.

The country’s Conservative Party – the Tories — tried cracking down on temporary foreign workers last summer, adding a $275 processing fee on top of a $150 work permit for each member of a musical group that was visiting the country to play small venues, according to the Canadian Press.

The Tories removed the work permit requirement recently amid a flurry of governmental measures.

“They corrected something incredibly dumb that they shouldn’t have implemented in the first place, NDP MP Andrew Cash, a longtime musician, told the CP. “The music sector wasn’t abusing the temporary foreign worker program, and there was no consultation in advance of the government’s decisions. … There was no one asking for it, in fact.” The so-called “tour tax” did not apply to arena acts, and critics said it was unfair to small businesses.