Evidence of meeting #44 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you. You spend 4,000 person months developing a video game, and somebody calls it content. That's kind of demoralizing sometimes, I guess.
Thank you, everyone, for coming here today, by the way.
I'd like to ask Maureen Parker a question, please.
You talked about a concept for developing a domestic talent pool. Could you comment briefly on how that might work? Would there be a role for the federal government?
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Thank you for the question.
We're not envisioning the same system as film and television. I agree with my esteemed colleague, Peter Miller, that we're not talking about a point system and we're not looking at content, as Kelly Lynne was saying, beavers and so forth. What we're looking at is tying public federal money to Canadian jobs.
While we appreciate there is a learning curve, and based on your presentation, I think you said one of the companies has been in business for 25 years.
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
It's 20 years. It seems to me there's a lot of time to get some training done. In some ways, the film and television industry is constantly retraining as well.
We now work with green screens, etc. The tech is moving so quickly in our industry that there is always retraining, but in the cultural industries, and I want to include you in that, we've made a commitment to ensure that our top jobs are going to Canadian creators and residents because those are stories, those are cultural products, in whichever way you want to tell them.
I certainly see that some support is needed, and perhaps more support for training in different capacities.
To answer your question, what we're looking at is to definitively tie any federal moneys to a domestic talent pool requirement.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
The corollary of that is that the U.S. or the U.K. could do the same for their homegrown talent. Have you ever thought about that side of the coin?
Executive Director, Writers Guild of Canada
Sure. I'm only using television as an example because that's what I know, but we do things called co-productions, minority and majority. You work out deals based on who put in more money and you split the financing.
We're not saying there can't be any level—I was listening when the alliance was talking about having a software expert from San Francisco, who's the only person who can do this. That sounds reasonable to me. There has to be some flexibility in the system, but we certainly know from our perspective that we can provide writing skills, that you don't need to go to L.A. to get a writer for Assassin's Creed. That's my point.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Hilchie, you said that Canada is number three worldwide in the gaming industry. Can you give me a 45-second answer on why?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Entertainment Software Association of Canada
We have spoken a lot about why in the various conversations we've had, but in general, I think the theme is that the talent pool that exists, the skilled labour that's available, along with the government support and the creative nature of the employees and the industry, really was a fantastic mix to help this industry grow.
As the industry has grown, it has trained domestic labour and enlarged the labour pool to be able to grow. The history of games that have been made here, NHL, FIFA, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect are blockbuster games that sell millions of copies all around the world. In a sense, being involved in successful projects like these has created the skill set for some of those employees to continue to create games like that, and the companies here benefit from the support.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Mr. DePetris, you were saying the Canada Media Fund does a lot of good things. It's $375 million. You also said that the gaming industry is still considered experimental. It sounds like they're way behind the times on that.
You said maybe we could put the money to better use. If you were in charge, how would you do that?
Senior Manager, KPMG
If I were in charge, I would do less picking of winners and losers in using a fund. I would start off by asking: What is the success of this fund? Are you making money on it? The criteria seems to be that you should be investing in commercially viable ventures. It's a repayable loan, so how much of it has been repaid over the last number of years? I'm curious about that answer. My gut feeling is I don't think it's that high, but I don't know.
What would I do?
Senior Manager, KPMG
I would put the money into infrastructure, into investing in incubators to help small entrepreneurs. The federal government has done some of this in my hometown. I would put the money into looking at systems and credits or grants that go out to people, without trying to pick a winner or loser.
October 30th, 2012 / 4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Executive Director, KPMG
Yes. I think that automatic measures such as tax credits have great value. The results have been tremendous so far in the gaming industry, mostly for provincial tax credits.
I agree with Rob, in a way, about picking losers and winners. Another option doesn't have to be taking the money from the Canada Media Fund, but could be in parallel. We've talked a lot about there not being a lot of venture capital and equity, especially to put into projects. Private third party venture capital has been quite successful in picking losers and winners, but in a more market-driven way with a portfolio approach. You need to have losers; you can't just have winners. Government can play a role in supporting those third party investors, either directly or through incentives to individual and private investors to the third party venture capital fund.
Senior Manager, KPMG
An example of that would be where the Ontario government has put together a fund to invest in certain innovative projects, a fund of funds.
NDP
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for being here.
This is an excellent opportunity for us as parliamentarians to get a handle on what is not an experimental industry, but a very significant part of the Canadian economy and the cultural space we endeavour to support.
On that subject, I want to touch on the need for an overarching digital plan on the government side. I believe that many of you made submissions to the Government of Canada's study in 2010. How important would it be for the sector if the government finally revealed the results of that study? It's almost three years since we did the study.
I'll start with the folks from Ontario and then I'd like to expand that out.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Interactive Ontario
Chair, thank you.
Definitely, there is a need to have a bunch of policies that work together to help support this very complicated industry. I think it was actually the ESA that had made submissions to the digital media strategy, as opposed to us, so maybe I'd let Jayson speak to that.
Definitely, it's a complicated industry. There are lots of questions we don't know the answers to that need to be researched.
To answer your question directly, it would be helpful to have a path to know what things need to be done. I think that's the purpose of having these types of meetings, to educate and inform members from both sides of the House on what needs to be done.
General Manager, Alliance numérique
We were part of a mémoire with TechnoMontréal at that time, in 2010. Basically what we were asking from the federal government was to put out money to help implement infrastructure across Canada to have accessible broadband for everyone, at a low price, on any device: using a cellphone in subways and everywhere across Canada, if it's possible, and using a cellphone or tablet with WiFi everywhere across Canada. That basically sums up a way to look at it. There is a way to access everyone across Canada with an infrastructure that will help everyone across Canada.
Chairman of the Board, Alliance numérique
If we look at a broader vision, obviously, entertainment and information comes to mind, but there is digital education.
My daughter, who is 15, started this year with an iPad as her new support. I get medical broadband.
Once you've poked into the digital plan, you'd better strap yourself because you're going to be talking about a lot of things that will impact a lot of people in different ways.
NDP
Andrew Cash NDP Davenport, ON
Just so I'm clear, that was part of your submission in 2010.
Others participated, I believe.
