Evidence of meeting #7 for Canadian Heritage in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cultural.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Executive Director, Regroupement québécois de la danse
…and they have to be the best.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
We will recess right now. We're going for the vote. I encourage as many as can to come back after the vote for 22 minutes, please.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
I call this meeting back to order. I apologize that we were so long. There were two votes instead of one.
We will run until 6:40. Thank you again for your patience.
Ms. Lavallée, would you like to go ahead with your questions, please?
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Thank you very much.
Thank you to all our witnesses, not only for being here today, but for being so patient. Please accept our humble apologies; it is part and parcel of life on Parliament Hill.
I'm going to go quickly because I only have five minutes, I'm really annoyed and I have lots of questions for you. First, I want to be sure that I understand the Trade Routes Program. This is a program aimed at exploring opportunities to export cultural products. Is that correct? You can just nod.
Executive Director, Regroupement québécois de la danse
There is also support for development officers. For example, Paul Tanguay of the Marie Chouinard Company received money to go to Asia to develop the next tour and find co-producers. That is very important. Also, it made it possible to host programmers of festivals or for different markets, so they could come and see local Canadian products.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
So, if I understand you correctly, there were two main components: one that allowed our artists to travel abroad, and another involving cultural officers around the world. Is that correct?
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Every time I talk about Trade Routes with the Minister, he tells me that the administrative costs amounted to $5 million and that it is unheard of to spend $5 million for a net gain of only $2 million. So, I would like you to explain this in detail; it will appear in the proceedings.
Is it true that $5 million was used for cultural officers hired by the government who were simply duplicating the work done in the embassies?
Executive Director, Regroupement québécois de la danse
No, they were commercial officers. I suggest you put this question to Alain Paré from Cinar, who will be appearing on the 9th. He will explain exactly what those officers did. They were commercial officers working in the field. What we don't know is whether they were doing a good job. The actual spinoffs of their field work should ordinarily be part of the program evaluation. They were commercial officers. There was no duplication with cultural officers; it was a different job.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Do you agree with the Minister when he says that the government was spending $5 million for bureaucracy and only distributing $2 million?
Executive Director, Regroupement québécois de la danse
As long as we don't know what were the actual results of the work these people were doing, we cannot say whether it was effective or not. Based on the salary you receive, are you effective, or not? I hope you are.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Well, at least I was able to bring you before the committee so that we could talk about cuts to these programs. I'd say I earned part of my pay this week.
Mr. Dancyger, would you like to add something?
Executive Director, Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal
I was talking about Paris. Thanks to Trade Routes we were able to bring 40 international presenters to see the company. The contract in the Middle East resulted from negotiations in Paris, even though we started the discussion two years ago. They said the final decision would not be made until they saw the company, and Paris was closer to Israel than Montreal. They said it was a great contract we had at the Grand Ballets, and they would come to see us in Paris. That's where we finalized the deal.
So the money we got from Trade Routes served to bring those 40 presenters to see us in Paris. I mentioned earlier what positive results we got from that special program.
National Director, Independent Media Arts Alliance
Can I answer a little as well?
National Director, Independent Media Arts Alliance
If we're talking about how much it costs to keep that program running, the economic spin-off effect from the grants that were given to artists and production companies was enormous. In the film industry, if you can't go to other countries to present your movies, you don't have buyers. Audience and market development are key for the film industry.
Another example is bringing in people from other countries. We have one organization called imagineNATIVE, based in Toronto. It's the largest aboriginal film festival in the world. Trade Routes was so key for them, because they brought in broadcasters from around the world, from almost every country. They were so interested in this. As a result, those films are shown and screened in countries everywhere. The box office is huge; we're talking about ticket sales. So these little grants for travel for a few people generate an enormous amount of money. That's just one example.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
Starting with Mr. Dancyger, can you quickly tell us whether, before these cuts were announced, Canada had a good funding formula?
Executive Director, Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal
Yes, it certainly did. The fact is that I often travel abroad. I am part of Dance/USA and other international organizations.
In fact, the Canadian model in terms of financing international touring has been, in most cases, presented as one of the best models. Why? Because somehow it's between the European model, where it's mostly the government supporting our colleagues, and the American model, which is exactly the reverse--private money.
Why was it considered the best model? Actually, in many workshops I was talking about why it was one of the best models. It actually brings the best of each partner in order to bring success to our organizations abroad.
Now we are looking at what's going on in the States. It's a total disaster. Because they can only rely on that private funding and because there is this amazing crisis out there, not only are my colleagues panicking, but they just don't know what to do.
We are lucky in that sense to have found that balance between all sources of funding. Everybody is making an effort to make it work. In that sense, it was considered, particularly by our colleagues in America, as one of the best models.
Conservative
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for appearing today. I do appreciate your time and your patience, as we had to leave for the vote.
I had a couple of things I wanted to go through. I want to correct the record a little bit, because there have been a number of things said that are not factually correct.
Mr. Rodriguez is not here, and I won't speak ill of him, but he did accuse our party of being ideological in its approach. I just wanted to make a couple of statements and then I'll get around to some questions.
In the strategic review, of some of the items that were indicated, one, for example, was the Canadian Memory Fund, a program of almost $11.6 million for working with the National Archives on archiving historical works and so forth. They completed their objective. That's why it wasn't renewed. The northern broadcasting program was about $4 million. Of course, with the move to digital, nobody actually uses antennas, or won't be using that kind of broadcasting, and that's why it wasn't renewed. Then, of course, we had Culture.ca, a search engine that was running at $2 a hit because essentially nobody was going to it.
Just those three programs together are half the money that we're talking about. I'm pretty sure that none of the parties opposite would actually advocate those programs being restarted. This was not ideological. That's my first point.
Mr. Dancyger, I don't want to misquote you. You have some tours, which you reduced from 16 cities to 4 in the United States, and there are also some trips to Poland, France, and possibly Britain that you may not be able to go on. Is that right? Okay.
I did look up to see how much support you received from Trade Routes last year and I found that your group got about $8,000. Is $8,000 really the difference between 16 trips and 4 trips and all these trips to Europe?
Executive Director, Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal
When we're trying to bring key presenters, international presenters to come to buy the company, every single dollar matters. In fact the original request was for much more than $8,000. If my memory is correct, the original request was for $25,000. For budgetary matters, it was cut down to $8,000. Of course, we'll take it, right? We're not going to say no to $8,000.
We invested a little more because Paris was such an unusual promotional platform for the company. We said it's better to invest, even though we don't have the financial means, because we believe this is going to be key. In fact it was, because we managed to get all those potential tours going.
You know, dance companies and artists work so hard. Do you know the average salary of a dancer in Canada is $14,000? Part of that salary is for guaranteed weeks, which are part of touring. If you cut touring, not only do you hurt the image of Canada abroad, but you will also bring the dancers--they're already below the poverty line--even further down.
When Les Grands Ballets Canadiens is considered one of the hot companies internationally and you're in demand and you have all those potential contracts, it kills me to tell the presenter in Venezia, “I'm sorry, I cannot commit now because I don't have the money.”
Executive Director, Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal
Particularly now, in times of recession.
But you should also know that the private sector is reverting--
Conservative
Dean Del Mastro Conservative Peterborough, ON
Okay. I have a very quick question. I read your comments in Le Devoir. You don't really think the government coming to the assistance of the North American auto industry is bailing out dinosaurs--