Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 16th, 2010

[Greg Klassen]

I don't know.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Okay. Thank you very much.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for being here today to discuss the tourism industry with us, although I will say it's lamentable what you've been subjected to here today, which I would say is not much short of a witch hunt or a misguided attempt at partisanship on behalf of the official opposition parties, which is very unfortunate. I think it's based largely on ignorance. It's an ignorance in terms of the good work that you do promoting our tourism industry in this country and I think an ignorance of the fact that the tourism industry is a very important industry for this country. It's very unfortunate that they haven't done a little more homework and tried to understand how important the tourism industry is in this country.

It's a very important industry. Fortunately, we do have a government in our Conservative government that does understand the importance of the tourism industry to this country, the value it brings to our economy, the value it brings to our people, and that also understands that when we go through a time such as we've just gone through—a recessionary time across the world—the tourism industry can often be one that's deeply impacted by that kind of an impact.

So obviously we've chosen, in our economic action plan, to make some investments in tourism to try to help our tourism operators through a very difficult time. Obviously leading up to the recession there have been some other factors at play that have been harmful in regard to the tourism industry. So to be able to make some investments in our economic action plan, things like $75 million for improvements and enhancements at our national parks; $75 million for upgrades to national historic sites; and obviously something that you're a little more involved with directly, $20 million for tourism marketing, which obviously included the “locals know” campaign mentioned earlier by Mr. Del Mastro, which was very successful.... I want to commend you on the work done on that. Certainly I've heard a lot of good things. A large part of my riding depends almost exclusively on tourism, in the Banff and Canmore areas, and I've heard a lot of good comments about the work done by that campaign there. And there is another $20 million to expand marketing in some emerging priority international markets.

We understand that as a government, unlike the opposition on the other side, which seems to not value the tourism industry and its importance to our economy, which is very unfortunate..... We do value that, so we've done that.

Certainly how that manifests itself.... I look only at my own riding and see the value it's produced for tourism operators in my riding, things like the Icefields Parkway, which is the link from Banff to Jasper. There was $2 million put into improvements for that. There were a number of other improvements on roadways and visitor facilities all over Banff National Park. There was almost $10 million put in there...$6.7 million for the Banff Legacy Trail, which is a trail connecting Canmore through to Lake Louise, essentially, which has received rave reviews by people throughout the region and all across Canada, who have used that trail to be able to get a further look at our park, beautiful Banff National Park.

I could go on and on with that list. There's the Cave and Basin—$13.8 million to revamp—the very birthplace of Canada's national parks, which will obviously be a huge tourism boost. Certainly, to top it all off, $130 million to continue and finish the work being done to twin the Trans-Canada Highway all the way from Castle Junction, near Banff, to the B.C. border, including improvements to the Lake Louise interchange....

So obviously there is an understanding there.

As part of that as well, the work that was done—and I'm sure you were a part of this—by our government in order to gain approved destination status with China obviously is going to have a huge impact on the tourism industry. I know it's been discussed a bit today already, but I would like to hear from you a bit more in terms of what you see the impacts of that being for our economy here and for our tourism industry in Canada, the fact that we've been able to gain approved destination status. How do you see it impacting us over the next few years? And what are you doing to position us to maximize our benefits as a country from approved destination status?

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Richards.

Mr. Klassen.

[Greg Klassen]

Thank you.

As I said earlier, we follow the trajectory of other countries, some of our competitors out there—like Australia and New Zealand—who have, post-ADS granting status, seen strong growth in their visitors from China.

The Chinese visitor will start off in what we call “lower yield”, spending a little less money than some of the customers we get from other markets. They'll go predominantly to where Canada's icons are—B.C., Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. But the Chinese consumer is changing rapidly. The Chinese economy is changing rapidly. There is a lot more confidence in that consumer, and those consumers will eventually start to get off the beaten track into other parts of Canada. We think it will be a very short period of time before the growth rate will be significant, and they will go to all provinces in Canada, including Canada's northern territories.

That's the focus. That's why I think an investment now is integral and the timing is good. We're on the heels of ADS, marketing and advertising to the Chinese consumer for the first time, creating an impression of what Canada is all about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Michael Chong]

Thank you, Mr. Klassen, Mr. Richards.

We're going to finish here, since members have indicated to the chair that they have exhausted their questions.

I want to thank Madame Beauchamp and Mr. Klassen for appearing in front of our committee today to answer questions about the $8 million you were given by Industry Canada. I also want to thank both of you for coming here in person on such short notice. Members of the committee should know they were originally to appear on video conference, but yesterday Madame Lavallée requested that they appear in person. They were very gracious in rearranging their schedules to come from Vancouver to Ottawa, and we appreciate that very much.

We'll suspend now for five minutes to allow the witnesses to depart, along with members of the public. When we come back out of suspension, we'll be in camera.

This meeting is suspended for five minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]