Canadian Heritage Committee on May 25th, 2015

[Kathi Sundstrom]

At this point, the only one I know specific details about is the Building Canada fund, which would be for renovations of the facilities and which we would not be eligible for. I have not seen the details. I've heard that the details are going to come, but I haven't seen details of the other programs that may be available to us.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Would you say that it's not a problem because 2017 is a long way from now? Or, do you think you need some leeway or some time to prepare yourself appropriately?

[Kathi Sundstrom]

Oh, 2017 is very close, and time goes very fast. In order to do something properly, we need more advance notice, yes.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

May I ask Madam Grenier to intervene on that? Do you feel that you're involved in the preparations for the 150th anniversary of Confederation?

[Margaret Grenier]

I think at this time there's information that is beginning to surface. Up until this point I don't feel that I have had the opportunity to receive a lot of information leading up to the celebrations or how an arts company such as ourselves could be more involved.

Certainly what I would like to see is something like the coastal first nations dance festival, where we are doing our best to serve as broad a community as we can. That could help to serve as a platform to bring artistic expression to that conversation and a celebration of that scale.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you.

Madam Pada, would you like to intervene on the same topic?

[Lata Pada]

I'd like to echo what Kathi said, that 2017 is around the corner, and we certainly would like advance notice and some clearer direction or indication of what the government is planning for 2017, especially in the arts sector, so the sooner the better.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Thank you.

How much time do I have left now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

You have 30 seconds.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Which one of you three would like to respond? Okay, I will choose because otherwise you will take time on it.

Madam Sundstrom, with regard to the temporary worker program, what would be the right balance between having that program too open, to the point that some abuse may happen, and too cumbersome to the point that you cannot bring in people that you need?

[Kathi Sundstrom]

The paperwork is massive and the rules change continuously. We have a lawyer who does it all for us pro bono. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to do it. There was no example that I know of, of abuse in the cultural sector. From having run auditions across Canada for 10 years, we can clearly prove that we're not getting enough male dancers. We would much rather hire a Canadian if there were one, and we've been able to prove that year on year on year, yet the landscape changed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

All right. Thank you very much.

We'll go to Mr. Hillyer. You have about three minutes.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Okay, thank you.

Ms. Pada, you talked about the international mobility program being a more effective way of bringing international talent in. Is it that with that program you can't bring in as many workers as you would like? Is that the reason why you can't use it more than you already do?

[Lata Pada]

Up to this point, we had to apply for the labour market opinion. I believe it's now called the labour market impact assessment. That particular process took over six months, and there was a great deal of disparity in what the per-application fee was. In some cases it was up to $1,000 per artist that you were bringing in, and in some cases it was $250. There was a great deal of confusion and lack of clarity with that program, and that was about the time that the whole issue of the foreign worker permit was being discussed in Canada. But as Kathi said, there's never been any abuse of it in the cultural sector.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

But did you say you used the international mobility program to bring in foreign workers at one point?

[Lata Pada]

We just used it, yes.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

How was that better? What's better about that?

[Lata Pada]

What's better about it is that we do not have to go through a labour market opinion. We don't have to deal with Service Canada. All that we have to send to the particular visa offices are our contracts with the artists and supporting material about their own calibre and background, and a commitment from the company that they will be hired only for the particular project we're bringing them into Canada for and for the time period that we've asked for them.

I would ask that the international mobility program not be restricted to just a few weeks of engagement for foreign artists. I would request that they would consider a longer period, because sometimes we go on tour with foreign artists. Three weeks is not enough, because we do a home season, which takes three to four weeks, and then we tour across the country for another six or eight weeks. So I would urge you to consider changing the international mobility program to allow artists to come for a longer period. It has been very effective thus far, but there's still a lot of confusion, I know, in the dance community about that program and who's eligible to apply to it.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hillyer, and thank you to our witnesses.

This is the last panel for our study on dance, so if any of you have any further contributions to make, can you please get them into us by tomorrow because I know that our analysts have already started on our report.

I'd like to thank all of you for participating, and thank you for coming to us via video conference.

At this point, we will briefly suspend.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

We're going to call this meeting number 48 of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage back to order.

For this last half hour, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, November 5, 2014, our topic is Bill C-597, An Act to amend the Holidays Act (Remembrance Day).

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If you allow me just a moment to clarify what we're prepared to do, it might expedite the process of voting on the bill.

I would move that that Bill C-597 be amended by deleting lines 12 to 14 of clause 1, which state, “on Remembrance Day, the Canadian flag on the Peace Tower shall be lowered to half-mast.” If that is agreed, we would be prepared to support the rest of the bill, on division.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Harris.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Thanks very much.

We would certainly support that amendment. It honours an agreement to eliminate that clause, which was made before the bill was brought forward for second reading. That's what helped us to get it fast-tracked through second reading.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gord Brown]

Mr. Valeriote.