Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

We'll get started. Welcome, everybody. Good morning.

This is the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage's first meeting on our study of Canada's 150th anniversary, and we're all quite interested to embark on this study. I think we have a great panel here today to kickstart us on our study of the 150th.

We have Andrea Shaw, who is the founder and managing partner of Twentyten Group, but she was the vice-president, sponsorship sales and marketing, for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, of which we are all so very proud as Canadians. It's nice that you could be here with us, Andrea.

We also have Dr. Keith Neuman, from Environics Research. They have done a survey of Canadians on the subject of Canada's 150th anniversary, so we're interested in hearing from you, Dr. Neuman.

As well, we have with us someone who's literally written the book on 1967, Dr. Helen Davies, who's an independent scholar. She has written a book on the subject we'd like to reflect on. We're very glad that you could be here with us today.

The way the committee works is you'll each be given ten minutes, if necessary, for opening comments, and then we begin questions and answers. In the first round there are seven minutes for the question and the answer, back and forth, before we move on to the next person. In the second round it's five minutes.

With that, we'll just go to Andrea Shaw.

[Andrea Shaw, Founder and Managing Partner, Twentyten Group]

Thank you very much, honourable chairman and committee members. It's a pleasure to be here today.

As the chairman said, in my former role I spent ten years on the Vancouver Organizing Committee, first on the bid as we were bidding, and then with the organizing committee. The ten years were fantastic, and my responsibility as vice-president of sponsorship and sales was to raise all the corporate money to offset the operating budget of the games. I was also responsible for the development and strategy and the execution of the torch relays.

Today I've been asked to focus on the torch relays and corporate partnerships, which I will do. I'm excited to be here because it takes me back to 2001, when we had this dream of celebrating and winning the right to host the games, and then really looking to engage Canada. And we sat down and thought, how are we going to do this? The starting place, which is where I think the healthiness of forming this committee is, is the critical starting point for us to form a vision, to form a very clear vision.

I probably would not have joined the organization had it not been for their vision of our games. We wanted them to be Canada's games. I was not going to join the organization simply to host a two-week sporting Olympic event and a one-week Paralympic event. It was going to be more than that. If we won the right to host the games we had the opportunity to engage Canadians, to inspire our youth. And we very clearly, in the early days--and that was 2001, so nine years in advance of the games--formulated the vision.

In 2003, as you know, we won the right to host the games, and that thrust us into really solidifying that vision. That vision was absolutely to walk the Olympic spirit through the homes of all Canadians. We were very clear about that vision.

My encouragement to the committee for the celebration of the 150th anniversary is that before you start thinking about program parts, it's essential and critical that you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Your vision will form the foundation and the platform. It will weave the DNA into all the programs that you ultimately do.

That's what we did when we sat down and started to talk about what Canada's games mean; how we could achieve that goal of engaging the nation, inspiring our youth, and bringing future generations into the fold and bringing about a sense of pride and patriotism. In the bid we did a lot of research and we asked Canadians what success would look like to them in 2010. Canadians told us a couple of things, but a few rose to the top: we would welcome the world like never before, we would be Canada together welcoming the world, and we would host flawless games. The other thing that rose to the top was that our athletes would be supported and they would get to the podium. So we knew what Canadians wanted that would make the pride surge.

So off we went. We had our vision and then obviously the next step was to put the strategic plan together. As we all know, the strategic plan combines all aspects of program elements. What were we going to do, specifically, to achieve this? That's the stage this committee will be heading into, to create that vision and that strategic plan.

One aspect I'll focus on was the torch relays, for which I was responsible. We sat down and decided that program was a critical aspect of achieving our greater vision of engaging Canada. Again, this program unto itself was just one aspect, one component of our overall vision. But it was a very big component, as hopefully most of you saw the flame come through your communities.

We started the planning and the visioning for the torch relay in 2004, six years in advance of the games. Planning takes a lot of time. Obviously when we planned properly and created the vision, we knew what we wanted to achieve.

So I got a team together that was going to lead the torch relay, and we mapped out where the relay would go. We were quite excited, because as we all know, this fantastic country of ours is large. We were determined to reach 80% of all Canadians. We mapped a route on which 80% of Canadians would be within a one-hour drive. We were pretty proud of that plan. We went in and presented, and the leader—as many as you probably know, John Furlong, said: “What about the other 20%? Andrea, we have to go coast to coast to coast; we have to get to more Canadians than 80%.” The end result of our torch relay was that we reached the point that more than 95% of all Canadians were within a one-hour drive.

That takes planning and thinking. The planning that went into the torch relays and into the way we engaged the nation was through focus groups across the country. We talked to all stakeholder groups. From tourism to aboriginals to athletes, we polled people across the country as to what this torch relay would look like. We looked at such things as inclusivity; we looked at all aspects. We knew that if this was to be engaging enough to engage Canadians, we had to get right into the roots of Canada: we had to get into municipalities and small communities; we had to have government involved at all levels, municipal, provincial, and federal; we needed to engage the nation at all levels from coast to coast to coast. That's what we went about in our planning. It took six years to plan that torch relay and be able to go out and flawlessly execute the plan.

As many of you know, the torch relay was the longest torch relay in Olympic history. It lasted 106 days, and every day we had two celebrations, a lunchtime celebration and a nighttime celebration. As you all know, when the torch arrived from Greece and we travelled around and across the country, that torch touched over 95% of Canadians.

You can imagine that in the smallest community the Olympic day was the day that the torch passed through their community. Every day, twice a day, those celebrations were their Olympics. My team of more than 250 people had to put on their A game every day, because every celebration was an Olympic Games to the community we were in. As I sit here and recount, I am shivering. Every day people thought, we'll come out with a jump start, and then it will calm down. On not one of those 106 days were people not lining the streets. People in wheelchairs were wheeling out of hospitals at 5:00 in the morning. We witnessed in the dark of the night young kids, old senior citizens, people of all ages with flags lining the streets as the flame would go through communities, from one to the next to the next.

As you can imagine, my team.... Operationally I knew we were sound; I had an unbelievable team. But who motivates the motivators? I was on and off that relay making sure of the emotional side of my team, who were working day in and day out, including Christmas Day—and I was with them on Christmas Day. They worked tirelessly, but I had to make sure, as you will for the team that puts together this production for the 150th birthday, that the team were flawless in their strategy and their execution.

We know the results of that torch relay. By the time the torch reached Vancouver, this country was galvanized from coast to coast to coast. But It takes time and planning.

The last area of importance that I want to touch upon is the critical role of corporate partnerships. Corporate partnerships played a vital role.

We can't say that the people who were in VANOC were the cause of the success of the games. No, it was about all of us. It was about government partners; it was about our corporate partners. Our corporate and government partners played a critical role in the funding. We like to say that we got out of the sponsorship game and into the partnership game.

Our target when we submitted our bid book to Prague was to raise $453 million in corporate partnerships. Many thought we were crazy: how could we ever raise that kind of money through corporate partnerships in Canada? As you know, as we won and did the budgets over, the budget went to including $765 million that we had to raise in corporate partnerships—and during the recession of 2008—and we did it.

How? We did it by forming strategic partnerships. We formed partnerships with companies that had like visions and values to ours, and in our whole Canada game strategy, which was our vision, we knew that the Bells and the RBCs of the world wanted to align with something that included their customers from coast to coast to coast, which is essentially how and why we were able to raise that kind of money to support both the games and the torch relay.

I close my ten minutes just saying that the parallels between our games and the celebration of our 150th anniversary are very close. But in summary, the critical aspects are to ensure that government create a vision that is solid and clear and directional, because what that vision does is put your stakes in the ground, whereby you spend money that is important to achieve your vision and don't spend money on aspects that are not going to help you achieve your vision. And it is critical that your strategic plan be done well in advance.

I'd suggest that today's date is a very timely point for this committee to get off the ground and start informing the process for an incredible anniversary in 2017. I believe that as we look back to the past.... I remember 1967, with my passport, as a young child, and to this day—I was very young—it resonates with me.

We think of what the games did to unleash the pride in Canadians. Imagine what we can do in 2017 while we bring the events of the past and those generations that are still with us from the past and take that product and infuse the younger generations, so that we can absolutely harness what was done in the games, what has been done in our past, and add that equity to a brilliant celebration in 2017 that we can all take forward and thus make Canada an even better place than it is today.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Andrea.

You guys did a fabulous job on the torch relay. Many of us were able to be at those relays in our communities. They were really top-notch. I can see how you were able to motivate the motivators, because you seem still quite motivated. That's great to see.

Dr. Neuman.

[Dr. Keith Neuman, Group Vice-President, Public Affairs, Environics Research Group Ltd.]

That's a tough act to follow. Well done.

Thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning.

As was indicated, I want to talk about a bit of public opinion research that was done in conjunction with an event held here in Ottawa in March of 2010, a conference on 150 Canada organized by MASS LBP and IPAC. The purpose of that conference was to start a dialogue among a lot of key opinion leaders in this country about how the country should proceed to celebrate 2017. The idea came about to do a public opinion poll as part of that, simply to extend the dialogue a bit beyond the boundaries of that particular event and hear from other Canadians.

In the few minutes that I have, I would just like to speak briefly about that survey. I believe that copies of the presentation deck have been circulated. I will just touch the highlights.

The premise of doing this research is that Canadians overall like know-how and like to celebrate important occasions, and I certainly think the experience from the Vancouver Olympics as well as Expo suggests that perhaps Canadians do. The notion was to go a little beyond that and understand a little more in 2010.

A national survey was done by Environics for the conference, a very modest survey as these things go, just 1,000 Canadians across the country by telephone in February. The survey was sponsored by MasterCard, which was willing to front costs.

Three themes or questions were addressed in this survey. The first, and I know Helen will speak to this, is what do Canadians remember about 1967 and the centennial celebrations? How do Canadians think we should celebrate the 150th? And finally, who do they think is responsible for making that happen? So those were the three broad questions this research went into.

Again, we'll hear more about this, but in answer to the first question, about the centennial, quite clearly, as Andrea indicated, many Canadians have very fond and very strong memories of 1967 and the centennial celebrations. About one-third of Canadians remember directly what was there, like Andrea and I'm sure Helen, and another quarter remember from hearing about it from other people. Those numbers would be higher if you factored out all the people who had come to Canada since that time who obviously weren't here. I count myself among them.

We ask people what they remembered most about the centennial celebrations, and the thing that stood out most was Expo 67. Perhaps that's not surprising. There are various memories about it, as you might expect. Perhaps more importantly, we asked people in the survey, if they remembered it, what were the feelings that the centennial or Expo 67 brought to mind? Do you still have those feelings? The feelings were all very positive. It was pride, pride in Canada, joy, happiness. There was very little negative emotion. What's striking is that going back that many years, people who were there even as young children still had vivid emotional memories. It may be that emotional connection is the most important.

Turning to the second question--perhaps an obvious one, but we wanted to ask it--we asked Canadians how important it is to celebrate the 150th anniversary coming up in 2017. Our guess is that most Canadians either weren't aware of that or weren't thinking about it when we called them, so it wasn't exactly a top-of-mind issue we were asking about. Almost half of Canadians, 49%, said it's very important that we celebrate this in some kind of meaningful way. Very few said it wasn't important. Perhaps those people were having a bad day.

What's also important is to look at that across important subgroups of the population, for instance by age. Those people who remember Expo are thinking we should do this again. You'd expect them to put a priority on this. But what about the millenials? What about the young generation? Do they really care whether we celebrate an old birthday like this? We found in the survey that those 18 to 29 put almost as much importance on this kind of celebration as those 65 and over.

Clearly this is not a generational issue. It's not just for the older folks to celebrate. We looked at it by income. Perhaps only those people who are higher up in the socio-economic spectrum can think about this sort of thing. But no, even those people at the lower end, with less education and income also felt this was important. I think this was borne out perhaps in the response to the torch relay that Andrea was talking about, that you have all sectors of society coming out.

Finally, we also looked at it by first language, and as you might expect, there seems a bit more enthusiasm among anglophones than francophones. There are historic reasons for that, and perhaps that shouldn't be surprising. What is surprising is that new Canadians, those people that we define as allophones—whose first language was not English or French, who for the most part came to this country from somewhere else—were even more enthusiastic than anglophones. Even though this was their adopted country, they were feeling that this was a very important event to celebrate.

We asked Canadians what they thought about Canada was worth celebrating with this birthday. This was an open-ended question. We didn't want to feed ideas ito them that they would just parrot back to us on the survey. We came out with a number of key themes. The one theme that was front and centre in what ought to be celebrated were Canada's beliefs and values, however those were defined; followed by people in history, notable achievements, role in the world, and finally, natural resources.

These were the broad types of issues that people came up with out of their own minds when we asked the question. What's important here is that people weren't studying for this before we called them for the survey. This was their spontaneous reaction. As for some of the specific things that were mentioned in response to this question, number one was multiculturalism and welcoming people from other countries.

It may be surprising, but maybe not. When we asked Canadians how this birthday should be celebrated, that was one of the things that came out. It's consistent with other research that we've done indicating that this is one of the strongest sources of pride in this country today. They cited the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, natural beauty and resources, aboriginal history and culture, and a peaceful country.

Some of the things that we might have expected to be sources of pride in Canada, and sources of celebration, weren't quite so significant. The heath care system was mentioned by 4%; peacekeeping, 3%; bilingualism, 2%; social programs, 1%; hockey, 1%. It's not that people don't embrace hockey, but it was not very closely tied to celebrating our 150th.

Also on the survey, we wanted to present a number of concepts to get people's reactions to things that the country might do to celebrate. We had a list of 10 to 12 different items, or different ways, and we basically asked people, “Do you think this is a great way to celebrate, an okay way, or not so good”?

I won't go through all the details, but the one that garnered the most interest was scholarship programs to help students go to college and university. About 51% thought that was a great way to celebrate the 150th. Community events, local culture, new improved infrastructure, travel programs, national events—most people thought these were all fine ideas, but some generated more excitement than others.

Finally, who is responsible for making sure that an appropriate celebration takes place? We presented about five different key actors, and asked what role they had to play. All five were seen as playing an important role, but front and centre was the federal government, most widely seen as having the biggest role to play. This is not at all surprising, given that this is something that's of national scope, and something that Canadians have typically looked to governments to play a leadership role in, if not a sole role.

If I were interpreting these numbers, I would conclude that it's not that Canadians are looking for just the federal government to take this on, but they're looking for the federal government to make sure that all the pieces are in place and the supports are there, and that the other partners are brought on board.

Are people interested in participating? We're talking about something happening seven years down the road. They have no idea what it's going to be, but 37% said they were very interested in participating in whatever it is, sight unseen. Most of the rest are somewhat interested.

It's striking that, given how vague and long-term this is, there is some clear interest. Similarly, in regard to interest in volunteering, we know something from VANOC, and probably from Expo, where perhaps there were a lot of people volunteering. Over 50% felt that they would in principle be definitely or likely willing to volunteer in some capacity over time. It suggests that many Canadians are not simply looking to be passive.

To conclude, there are four points I want to close on that I think we've learned from this rather modest piece of research. The first is that 1967 centennial is still alive for many Canadians in a very meaningful way. It has not disappeared into the distance of history.

The second point is that Canadians grasp that 2017 is something important. Even though they haven't been thinking about it, spontaneously they're thinking, “Yes, that's a big birthday. We really ought to do something, and we want it to mean something.”

Third, the Olympics have demonstrated that even in this age of globalization and skepticism and everything else, Canadians know how to celebrate something and do it right.

Finally, for the most part, for the average Canadian, or even most people, 150 is still kind of a blank slate. People haven't thought about it. They know it's important. When they hear about it, they want something done. But there are very few fixed ideas about what that ought to be.

There are two implications. One, don't go looking for input or direction from the public now to tell you what to do, but there's a certain openness to seeing how this will unfold. There's an opportunity to create a vision for this that people will buy into, but if you do create that kind of vision, people will buy into it.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Dr. Neuman. Your very timely study and research certainly will give us food for thought as we move ahead.

Dr. Davies, over to you.

[Dr. Helen Davies, Independent Scholar, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning as you embark on your study in preparation for the 150th, also known as the sesquicentennial.

I am pleased to be here this morning to make remarks about lessons learned from the 1967 centennial celebrations.

As you've heard from some of the other speakers, Canadians marked the 100th anniversary of Confederation with extraordinary enthusiasm and pride. They participated in great numbers in the official pan-Canadian events.

For example, it's estimated that two and half million Canadians visited the Canadian train that, I suppose like the torch relay, wove its way across Canada, visiting 63 communities. Hundreds of young Canadians across the country took advantage of travel exchange programs. People attended cultural performances organized through the Festival Canada program, or turned out to watch the ever-popular RCMP musical ride or the armed forces military tattoo.

However, even more Canadians participated in local grassroots activities. They were encouraged to celebrate the centennial in their own particular fashion and express a sense of national pride. They did express that national pride in astonishing and, I would say, very creative ways.

They participated in neighbourhood beautification projects. They knitted centennial toques. They planned dances. They sponsored sports tournaments, hosted youth exchanges, organized parades, and participated in such events as the voyageur canoe pageant, where nine provinces and the Yukon territory fielded pageant crews and paddled 3,283 miles over a four-month period, arriving at Expo '67 in September. The Manitoba team won the purse.

Everyone was invited to the centennial.

As you appreciate, the 1960s was a decade of considerable social change, as evidenced by a growing youth culture and women's movement. New voices surfaced. There was a shifting national dialogue. During this period of social transition--and political transition--the centennial afforded an opportunity for Canadians to join together collectively and redefine their membership in a larger group.

Marvelling at the extraordinary level of public involvement, one participant remarked that “...something intangible happened. All sorts of barriers between people--social, religious, and so on--seemed to break down when people started working...on Centennial projects.” As we've heard from Dr. Neuman, the centennial continues to endure in the minds of Canadians.

Large-scale events like the centennial and the 2010 Olympics can serve as powerful tools of symbol and spectacle as they help focus public attention and generate positive excitement as people join together to celebrate collectively. However, there is not always consensus as to the what, the why, or the how of celebration. Organizers of large events like the centennial sometimes opt to move away from overly prescriptive models, choosing instead to instill a sense of shared values and common bonds, which I think is reflected in some of what you were hearing in your survey.

For example, centennial organizers worked to promote a vision of a unified, strong nation during a period of social change. They also succeeded in creating a space for dialogue and a consideration of difference.

However, not wanting to simply promote what one senior official referred to as a “formless jumble of individual events”, they did recognize the value of articulating some themes. They were also cognizant of the view that the year-long celebration should not focus solely on the past or the political act of Confederation. It was about moving into a new future.

Also, there was a sense that “the official side of the Centennial programme should not dominate to the point where grass-roots participation [was] hampered...”. Success depended on the ability to plan events and create an atmosphere that invited a broad range of interpretations and created opportunity for involvement.

Rather than impose one vision of the “what” and “how” of celebration and commemoration, organizers supported an array of perspectives. Whether it was designing a UFO landing pad in St. Paul, in northern Alberta, to welcome unexpected guests, or racing bathtubs from Nanaimo to Vancouver, was actually of little consequence; the centennial commission simply asked one thing of Canadians--to get involved and to do something to commemorate the centennial.

These milestone moments afford important opportunities for reflection, reconnection, and rededication to a greater sense of purpose. However, organizers acknowledge that they couldn't control every aspect of the celebration. They did decentralize the actual execution of many of the projects, leaving local centennial committees, service groups, businesses, and more often than not individual citizens to plan events in their respective communities.

This was unsettling for some, as there was concern that this approach could serve to intensify regional loyalties and undermine a primary goal of the centennial, which was to use it as a mechanism to reinforce a sense of shared identity and national unity. There were occasions during the centennial when Canadians disagreed, or at least held different perspectives and opinions. However, in retrospect, worries over any perceived risks were not borne out, and it could be argued that the differences of opinion served to enrich the centennial experience, as they generated a national dialogue.

The federal government played a key leadership role—as we've heard, that's the expectation of Canadians—in developing and managing a pan-Canadian framework that focused attention on disseminating and promoting ideals and values, like national unity and patriotism. In support of the framework, staff organized an ambitious public relations campaign that made full use of the print press, film, documentaries, radio, television, as well as those key anchor events that you've heard referenced—Expo 67--which for some is synonymous with the centennial, but they are distinct events. Then there were the centennial caravans and trains that, like the torch, wove their way across the country.

The centennial served as a platform for Canadians to better understand that there was not one singular authentic Canadian experience. Rather, there were many stories and experiences to share. As I talk to people and get a sense of those endearing memories, that was a very rich element of the centennial experience: this sharing and connection was a key outcome of the celebration. An inclusive planning process that builds on a national framework and incorporates the creativity of non-governmental actors, combined with a genuine effort to support and balance numerous interests and a willingness to support local grassroots activities, are lessons we can take away from the centennial.

By not designing an overly prescripted event, the centennial organizers found a path forward that in many instances served to strengthen existing relationships and forge new ones. Canadians took time to celebrate their own personal and collective stories, painting a picture of a vibrant, dynamic country coming of age.

On hand to officiate at an official Christmas of Light ceremony in Simcoe, Ontario, one official thanked members of the community for all their hard work and said, “It is one thing for governments to organize programs, even for people to respond to programs...”, and he noted that “...the real measure of 1967 goes well beyond that to the thousands of projects undertaken by the people themselves.” In his view, people celebrated “not because they had to but because they wanted to”.

The centennial continues to evoke proud memories, with participants speaking genuinely and compellingly about what was evidently an important and defining moment for them. Many who were children at the time remember Bobby Gimby's song—I won't sing it—Ca-na-da. It's on the record now; I'm singing. They recall a family visit to Expo 67 or the train and caravan exhibit.

When a friend found out I was doing my dissertation on the centennial, he proudly dug away in a cupboard and found a centennial medal he was given as a child at school. One woman, who is now middle-aged, spoke fondly about participating in a travel exchange, where she traveled from northern Alberta to Newfoundland. She said it was a transformative experience.

It's evident that the centennial had a lasting impact. There's value in reflecting on this accomplishment as this committee starts the planning for the sesquicentennial, the 150th.

Thanks for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Dr. Davies. I don't think our study would have been complete without your input.

Now we'll start our question and answer period. Our first person up is Mr. Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

I want to thank all three of you for your presentations. I think this is a very important study we're doing, and I appreciate your comments that we're starting at the right time.

When you said you planned for the Olympics for ten years, we're already a few years behind that, so it kind of scared me. But I think we're going to be all right, and we can learn a lot of lessons from presentations like these as we move along in our study.

Dr. Davies, as I mentioned to you before, I'm going to read your book. I wanted to read some of it last night but I couldn't do it. But I am going to read your book, and I hope we all engage in it.

One of the important things I think we need to study is not only what worked in 1967, but did anything not work. Were there any programs or aspects of the planning that didn't go well?

[Dr. Helen Davies]

Thank you.

I've actually been reflecting upon this question and anticipating that this might come up. My sense is that planners and community organizers did much right during the 100th anniversary. Did anything go wrong? Did they miss anything? I'm sure if you talk to people across Canada, there's always room for improvement. Perhaps there's a greater opportunity for dialogue or more programming, I'm not sure. But generally I would say the 100th anniversary of 1967 was a tremendous success and there was much that was done right.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

One of the things you focused on was kind of a citizen-driven paradigm, from the ground up, that was established. It really takes leadership right from the top to establish that as the theme of any large event. It's either going to be from the top down or it's going to be grassroots led.

I think what you emphasized in what you presented to us today is that one of the things that worked was the fact that we had engagement all across the country because they had the power to be engaged. They had actual directional control of events in the local communities. Am I correct in saying that's one of your major themes here?

[Dr. Helen Davies]

I think that's a very fair conclusion, absolutely.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Great, thank you very much.

I'm going to move on to Dr. Neuman.

First, thank you for doing this research. I think it's going to be of great help to us.

One of the things I'm confused about when I look at the numbers you presented was we have across the board in all age groups about 80% engagement in this process--they're looking forward to it or have some engagement or care about this. Then when you look at the numbers regionally, Quebec's a lot lower. Can you balance that for me?

It would seem if it was that high across the country, how can Quebec be as low as 60%? Or were there two different questions that led to different answers there?

[Dr. Keith Neuman]

I guess we'd have to look at which specific question you're looking at. Again, the interest in the 150th isn't as high in Quebec as it is in other parts of the country. Most of the numbers in the presentation deck are the national numbers, so they do even out a little bit. It's clearly stronger among people outside of Quebec, but it's a matter of degree.

If you want me to speak to a specific question, I can dig through the numbers here, but let me know.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

It's really that national questions and questions that were specifically asked could derive some different answers? There is some diversity there?

[Dr. Keith Neuman]

I guess my conclusion would be for the main conclusions. I think the main conclusions apply in all regions of the country, but there's a matter of degree. So the level of interest, if you look across the country, the one region where there is less interest is in Quebec, compared to the other places. But you wouldn't draw a different conclusion in Quebec from elsewhere; it's just that the level of interest isn't as strong.

I hope that answers your question.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

It does. Thank you.

I'm going to use that to talk to Mrs. Shaw. In the Vancouver Olympics, I'm supposing, because it was a winter Olympics and Quebec is so involved in winter sports, you didn't see that at the beginning of your study. It was probably straight engagement all across the country and your polling probably showed that.

[Andrea Shaw]

Yes.

Quebec was absolutely engaged from the get-go. One of the things we did that has not been done in prior games--Calgary and Montreal--is we had every province participate as a distinct partner. So we had MOUs with everybody, and Quebec was the first to sign on. They've got a tremendous number of athletes, as we all know, and they are very representative, but they were absolutely encouraged from the get-go.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

As we move forward as part of this study, one of our recommendations could be that we have to make sure we follow a similar path where we do MOUs with the particular provinces, and probably we would make Quebec a centrepiece of that or a point of emphasis just to make sure. Because if there's any place that isn't quite as engaged at the beginning of this process, it is them.

Would that be something we could recommend?

[Andrea Shaw]

Absolutely. Without question, it would be a strong recommendation if I were sitting in your seat. Engagement, as we've talked about, is the key--engagement, inclusivity of provinces across the board.

Somebody said to me the other day, and I hadn't appreciated it, that when Jean-Luc Brassard won his gold medal in the 1994 Winter Olympics and he came back home there was a bit of rumbling, which I hadn't appreciated, because he had a Canadian flag on. When you saw the first gold medal come in our games, that was absolutely dissipated.

So I think as a nation we've evolved on this note you're concentrating on, and we are a nation and Quebec is moving right in there with us.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Back to Dr. Davies, one of the things I think was striking from the research was the emphasis given on some sort of nationwide scholarship program, promoting academics, promoting post-secondary involvement. I think there are probably literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians across the country who participated in that. Do you see that as something we could engage in again as part of sesquicentennial?

[Helen Davies]

I think whenever there is an opportunity to implement a program or an initiative that has a legacy feature and has a lasting impact, that helps to ensure that enduring memory of the event.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

I have one more question for Ms. Shaw. We've heard from Dr. Neuman that I think 57% of people have an interest in volunteering and becoming part of this actively. Where does that compare to what you were experiencing when you starting the planning for the Olympics?

[Andrea Shaw]

That's a great question. We had the requirement for 25,000 volunteers and we probably had double that in applications. There was a very strong sense of volunteerism right across the country. We've got all the numbers. It wasn't concentrated and it was tremendously high.

Then there was a very small drop-off rate. We learned from past games to have extras in the event that volunteers drop off. There was a tendency in the past, historically, to do so. We had very small drop-off rates during our games.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

At what point did you actually starting recruiting volunteers?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Mr. Armstrong, we'll get around to another one. Your seven and a half minutes are up.

Mr. Benskin.