That's actually a timely point, Mr. Brown, because just last week we launched the festival season. We actually have more festivals in Ottawa per capita than any other community in Canada. There are over 65 not-for-profit festivals that take place throughout the year.
I'm not sure if Councillors Hobbs and Bloess are attending, but tonight the lineup of the Bluesfest is being launched, now one of the largest music festivals in Canada.
We've met with a number of festival groups. We have the president of Ottawa Festivals on our task force. We very much see our building on the success of those festivals, and perhaps through summary branding or some add-on programming to those festivals, making them particularly special during the sesquicentennial celebration in 2017. They already have a very strong following, and we think we can almost piggyback on some of their successes to reach even more people to perhaps convince residents and visitors to stay an extra day or couple of days before or after the festival.
Tourism in our local community is the third-largest employer. My time at the CTC taught me that every single member of Parliament has a vibrant tourism industry in his or her own community. It's important to job creation. You all have unique characteristics and so on. But we have only one national capital, and we think there's an opportunity for us to work in collaboration with the federal government, with the private sector, as well as with the not-for-profit sector, particularly in culture, arts, and tourism, to ensure that we can capture some of the success that Quebec City had with their 400th anniversary.
I recall that when I was a provincial cabinet minister, virtually every federal-provincial-territorial ministers' meeting took place in Quebec City. It was the place to go because it was branded by the Government of Quebec, the City of Quebec, and the federal government as the destination of choice in that particular year, similar to the success of Vancouver with the 2010 Olympics. So we see the festivals as an ideal opportunity to help act as a magnet to bring people in.
Obviously, when they come here, some of the highlights of their visit would be Parliament Hill. We'd like to give them that added opportunity of a “Canada House” concept across the street from Parliament Hill, the beautiful museums, the art gallery, the National Arts Centre, and so on as a complete package.