Thank you, Pierre.
Good afternoon, everyone. As a good Montrealer, I'll be speaking some franglais, so I'll be giving the translator some difficulty.
Thank you for giving us some time to provide our testimony and express our thoughts about our great industry. It's a great success story.
I am wearing several hats today. As Pierre mentioned, I'm the proud president of Alliance numérique and also a proud GM of a major studio in Montreal.
Just last week I was invited by the federal government to participate on a panel in Seattle for Invest in Canada. The three chosen industries were aerospace, green energy, and digital media.
This summer I went to the Olympics and was at Canada House in August for an Invest in Canada work session with potential foreign investors. I'm going to preach for my neighbourhood. Obviously, digital media was high level and received the most questions after the panel, and was the most interesting, I think, in the eyes of the investors.
Video games are a serious business involving serious money and serious jobs. I will use my studio as an example. We opened up barely five years ago and we have created 500 great-paying jobs. Our first game took 4,000 man-months. Think about that. That's about 100 people for 40 months. We're very far from two guys working out of a basement. Don't get me wrong; that still happens in some aspects, but the maturity of the industry is there for sure.
As Pierre also mentioned, what the investors are really looking for, after talking to them, is that the talent is there. Yes, the subsidies and incentives are truly important, but if you have money without talent, it's a short-term goal. The pool of talent has to be there. Yes, the schools play a part. We're working hard in every province, but we sometimes need to go outside Canada, unfortunately.
Two years ago my staff was composed of about 24 different nationalities, about 15% and now two years later, about 20% of my workforce. Sometimes we need to go outside because there's such a demand. When we go outside, we need some help from the government. As Pierre mentioned, the delays have been increasing. Two years ago we were looking at maybe eight weeks. Now we're looking at 16 weeks. That really hurts a project. When we invest in HR people to scan the globe to find the right talent, the right specialist, it takes four to five months before that person comes to our workplace to help us produce international high-quality games. It really hurts. Sometimes we need to cancel a couple of mandates because of that.
This is obviously something that is very close to our hearts.
As Pierre mentioned, we would like the video gaming product to be recognized for what it is. Last year, I believe, the U.S. Supreme Court said it officially considered video gaming a cultural product. That acknowledgement made south of the border was very welcome. I do not know why we could not do the same. As you know, most Canadian products in this field are of high quality, internationally recognized and well received. I believe we have reached a level of maturity in this area that deserves some recognition.
As regards intellectual property, a number of international publishers are established in Canada, more particularly in Montreal. To help the pendulum swing back the other way, it would be a good idea to stimulate the Canadian intellectual property associated with our products.
Thank you.