musical space was meager; professional artistic ventures were lacking and virtually absent outside of the largest urban areas; and English Canada produced only 14 works of fiction in an entire year. Moreover, the report stated:No novelist, poet, short story writer, historian, biographer, or other writer of non-technical books can make even a modestly comfortable living by selling his work in Canada. No composer of music can live at all on what Canada pays him for his compositions. Apart from radio drama, no playwright, and only a few actors and producers, can live by working in the theatre in Canada." Gifted Canadians "must be content with a precarious and unrewarding life in Canada, or go abroad where their talents are in demand.As such, the report recommended that the Government of Canada establish a Canada Council for the Encouragement of the Arts, Letters, Humanities and Social Sciences. Due to "the dangers inherent in any system of subvention by the central government to the arts and letters and to the culture of the country generally," the Commission—operating in the aftermath of WWII—proposed that the new council be created with a large amount of independence from government. In introducing the Canada Council Act to Parliament, then-Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent said:Our main object in recommending the establishment of the Canada Council is to provide some assistance to universities, to the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as to students in those fields without attempting in any way to control their activities or to tamper with their freedom. Governments should, I feel, support the cultural development of the nation but not attempt to control it.The Canada Council for the Arts was thereafter created as an independent, arm's-length body, accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage with responsibility for establishing its priorities, policies, and funding programs as well as making grant decisions. In its first year, from an initial endowment of CA$50 million, the Council had a budget of $1.5 million for the arts, humanities, and social sciences. By 1964, the Council proposed for a substantial increase to the endowment. Instead, the Council's main source of revenue became yearly government appropriations. In 1977, the Canada Council sets up the Payment for Public Use Committee to discuss the creation of a Public Lending Right (PLR) program. The following year, the federal government created the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, adopting responsibility for the humanities