Evidence of meeting #42 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was films.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Nuria Bronfman  Executive Director, Movie Theatre Association of Canada
Neil Campbell  President and Chief Executive Officer, Director, Movie Theatre Association of Canada, Landmark Cinemas of Canada
Anne Fitzgerald  Director, Movie Theatre Association of Canada, and Chief Legal Officer, Cineplex Entertainment LP
Vincenzo Guzzo  Vice-president, President, Association des propriétaires de cinémas du Québec, Cinémas Guzzo
Raffaele Papalia  Chair, Ciné Entreprise, Chief Executive Officer, Movie Theatre Association of Canada
John Lewis  International Vice-President and Director of Canadian Affairs, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees
Jack Blum  Executive Director, Reel Canada
John Helliker  Director, Screen Industries Research and Training Centre, Sheridan College

5:25 p.m.

Executive Director, Reel Canada

Jack Blum

Let me change it around a bit for you here. What we find when we deal with young people and with new Canadians, which is something I didn't get to talk about very much, is that there's no preconception. There's no sense that these are sub-standard. There's no conception at all. They don't know that Canadians make movies.

As long as we introduce them to the idea in a way that's positive and exciting, and we're careful that we give them stuff they're interested in—and that's why we have all the participants choose the movies they want to see—we find that the response is fantastic. I would dare to say that over time and with support, and if we can build this program and others are also undertaking similar efforts, we can do away with the longstanding stigma that I find is a relic of the past. The quality of the movies has gone up so much that the challenge now is simply penetrating the general public's consciousness with them. The stigma is really about lack of awareness. It's not about a prejudice against the films in the first place.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

The second question to you is what are some of the roadblocks that prevent Canadian films from reaching the audience and what role should the federal government play in that?

5:25 p.m.

Executive Director, Reel Canada

Jack Blum

Again, you've heard from exhibitors. You've certainly heard from distributors. The competition in the theatrical marketplace is absolutely brutal. An American movie has a production budget of $80 million, say, on average, and we're saying there should be a minimum promotional budget in a Canadian film of a half a million dollars. Well, let's say, you do institute a minimal promotional budget of a half a million dollars; it's still a drop in the bucket.

The commercial marketplace is extremely difficult to penetrate. That's why I say we really have to take advantage—I would call it our home field advantage. People are invested and hungry for Canadian material, and we should take advantage of that to reach them in alternative ways to get them engaged. We invest in these productions. We make them.

I think it was a very good development when Telefilm moved away from a strict box office assessment of the success of a film, because theatrical box offices are an increasingly small percentage of the measure of a film's success. We have to count all of these things—international recognition, awards, everything we can possibly count—to pile up in favour of the argument to watch a Canadian film.

I think that special events, bringing talent in, and anything that takes advantage of the home field attachment to these stories would help.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gord Brown

We're just about finished. You have 10 seconds if you want to get a quick question in.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB

Well, thank you for coming.

April 27th, 2015 / 5:25 p.m.

International Vice-President and Director of Canadian Affairs, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees

John Lewis

On that last point, could I just have two seconds? I'd love to see the statistics from the previous group. Mommy and The Avengers show up as one each, but one has a thousand streams for two months and one might have five streams for three days, and so it's not just the number of what is exhibited.

There's also an interaction with our broadcasts, both conventional and cable, in terms of how much they're showing Canadian feature films. The CRTC has regulations in place to push them to do that, but the number of Canadian feature films has dropped dramatically in what's been shown on traditional broadcasts, and also on VOD and everything else. That would be an area to look at to help promote and push Canadian content in that forum as well.

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Gord Brown

All right. Thank you very much for coming. If there's any more contribution you would like to make to our study, please get it in as soon as you can.

We're going to briefly suspend and go in camera for committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]