Canadian Heritage Committee on April 17th, 2018

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I will try.

Just as preparatory comments, I want to say it has been a hard week for Canada. I want to say to the Hockey Hall of Fame folks, thank you for participating in that national healing process. It's very important and your contributions are appreciated.

I'm going to direct most of my comments to Ms. Reitmaier. I represent the riding of Parkdale—High Park, which is literally 100 metres from where you're located. It includes the area of the junction, so having you in the junction triangle is a welcome and terrific addition to the neighbourhood. Welcome.

I want to ask you about three different things.

First of all, there are a lot of creators in my riding. The creators in my riding are very excited about the imminent opening of MOCA. Some of my constituents are already employed by you. I know you have only been there for three months, and maybe you don't know them all yet, but they are working there and I'm sure there are more to come. There are also people who are excited in my riding because they both take in art and they create art.

Can you tell me a little about what it means to have a museum of contemporary art in Toronto for artists who are in the downtown area, in the west end, in terms of giving them a vehicle or opportunity to showcase their visual arts talents?

[Heidi Reitmaier]

One thing that MOCA has done is a model that I think is unique. It was also cited at the Melbourne museum of the moving image, where they have a similar model. At MOCA, on one of our floors we're housing 22 artists in low-rent studio spaces, and those are individuals from the community. We're working in partnership with Akin, whose mandate is to do that, to provide studio spaces.

They will be leading a lot of professional development and professional conversations. MOCA sees itself both as a house for those individuals but also, I think, as a mentor in professional development. It's how we share knowledge of the local, the hyperlocal, but we also think about the international.

One of our roles is really thinking about how to help the engine of contemporary art and how we can bring international global expertise here and work with individuals on the ground in the local. It's creating that kind of network.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Excellent.

I want to segue from that to something you raised a couple of times in your opening comments, which is about diversifying your holdings and what you present, ensuring that it's inclusive and reflects the city and the country you are in. You put your finger on it when you said that thus far the art spaces and creative industries have not done this as well as they could. Specifically you talked about things like racial diversity, and I would add indigenous reconciliation to that mix.

Could you tell me about what you are doing, particularly in a city like Toronto, to ensure that both your holdings and the artists you will be showcasing reflect the wider community, as a means of attracting those new audiences but also as a means of empowering artists from the various communities that have thus far been under-represented?

[Heidi Reitmaier]

One of the responsibilities is nurturing that young talent. Toronto is full of diverse practitioners. We're doing a lot of work in our first opening show, for example, with Nep Sidhu, who's a young, rising artist based in Toronto. He's bringing in artists from New York, the Middle East, and across the world to bring and build networks. I see our job as creating those relationships and providing those platforms. The community is already diverse. The work is already happening. Our job is really to provide platforms and create spaces of experimentation and growth for those people.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

I know MOCA has existed since 1993. You previously were on Queen Street. Obviously, I know you spent some time abroad in those intervening years, but you outgrew that space and now you're moving to the junction triangle. That move was facilitated by a $5.1-million grant from the Canada cultural spaces fund, which is a fund we've actually increased by $300 million over the next 10 years. That kind of investment is leading the G7. We believe in that as a government in terms of the moral imperative of allowing Canadians to tell and showcase their stories, but also as an economic imperative, because there's tremendous economic growth in the cultural sector.

Can you tell us what an investment of that kind means to an institution like MOCA, when you're able to access infrastructure funds from something like Canada cultural spaces?

[Heidi Reitmaier]

It basically creates the institution. You cannot do it without that seed money, that growth money. That is going to happen. You can look at other institutions and other sites. You can look at the meatpacking district in New York. You can look at Shoreditch in the U.K.—in the borough where the Tate is, on the south bank in London—and how those cultural engines and those institutions create a kind of epicentre for each city.

MOCA is a similar model. That initial investment effectively means we can now go out and create an operating model, continue to exist, and think about endowments—which would have been unthinkable a year ago—and sustainability. Those initial funds are imperative to make institutions exist and grow, and to enable them to think about the future.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

If you don't mind, I think that's a good place for us to end.

I want to thank the witnesses for your presentations. That was very helpful, and actually brings to an end our witness hearings for the museum study. Thank you very much for all your presentations.

We will suspend for just two minutes, if everyone can stay close. We're just going to change our panels over. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

If everyone can please come back to the table, we're going to start again, right now. There's a little bit more arranging happening.

We are now starting with our hour studying cultural hubs and cultural districts in Canada. Today we have Mr. Jones from Artscape in Toronto and Ms. Lunde from GamePlay Space.

We also have with us Christine Gosselin and Suzanne Laverdière from the City of Montreal.

Thank you to everyone for being here today.

We'll start with Mr. Jones from Artscape Toronto.

[Tim Jones, Chief Executive Officer, Head Office, Artscape]

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you today.

My name is Tim Jones, and I'm the CEO of Artscape in Toronto.

I'm going to sort of make five recommendations to you today with respect to community cultural hubs, and I want to first start by thanking the government and the Department of Canadian Heritage for the recent changes to the Canada cultural spaces fund changes to the criteria that recognize community hubs. It's a very good and important step.

Today, I'd like to talk to you about the things the Government of Canada can do to strengthen the enabling environment for those of us who are developing community hubs in Canada. It starts with building capacity for those who are hub developers, doing a little bit of research on impact, making changes to the CRA regulations on how charities can invest in properties, and increasing the investment that the government makes in community hubs as well as exploring the re-use of government facilities for these purposes.

I'm going to give you a little bit of background on Artscape. We're a 32-year-old, not-for-profit urban development organization, and our mission is to make space for creativity and to transform communities. In Toronto, we've developed a portfolio of real estate projects that, on the one hand, provide affordable space to the creative community, but have also been a major catalyst for the revitalization of the communities and neighbourhoods that they're a part of.

We've been a pioneer in Canada in the development of this new form of facility called a community cultural hub. Sometimes it involves repurposing former schools, public buildings, or transit facilities, and sometimes building new places, as we've done in Regent Park.

Currently, we have four new projects under construction. Two of them kind of fall into the category of community hubs. One is something called Artscape Daniels Launchpad, part of the larger City of the Arts development opening later this year. It's a centre for art and design entrepreneurship, which we're very excited about, and one that we think will have a big impact on artists and designers across southern Ontario.

We're also in the business of trying to proliferate the development of community cultural hubs outside of the core, in Toronto. This is the first iteration of that exercise in the village of Weston. We hope to build a network of these facilities in the coming years.

In total, we have 11 different projects in operation and four under construction, about 2,800 creative people who are working and, in some cases, also living in our facilities, and about 140 different organizations and 42 public venues in our portfolio—just to give you a sense of the scale and reach of the work that we're doing.

One of the things that's really important to understand about community hubs is the impact they have on the community. We design them and build them from the ground up in the community through a community design process, and that's key to the kind of positive social, cultural, economic, and environmental impacts that they can have in all of those areas. The importance of understanding that work and taking advantage of that in the development of these places is really important.

About a dozen years ago, we coined the phrase “creative placemaking” to describe our work. We define that as leveraging the power of art and culture to be a catalyst for change, growth, and transformation of place. There's a real growing field of international practice in this area, and probably nothing could better illustrate it than the role that we've played in the revitalization of Regent Park and the creation of Daniels Spectrum.

Regent Park, as you may know, is Canada's oldest and largest public housing development. It was built in the 1940s by the federal government. Over a number of decades, many things proved to be wrong with the design and development of Regent Park. The warehousing of poor people in one area, the lack of services and amenities, and the design of the space itself made it a place where all the vestiges of poverty were very present. It's well known by reputation, across the country.

About 12 years ago, a bold decision was made to tear it all down and start over. We're now well along in that process, a process that involves temporarily relocating people and then reintroducing them into a new community. As part of the plan, which is, I think, very important, the social development plan was given equal importance to the master plan for the community, and that has had a huge impact on the way that this community has grown and evolved.

A lot of social infrastructure has been developed as part of this revitalization strategy, and our particular role was to look at the importance of culture and, when a community is going through this kind of transformation, how culture helps bring people together. How does it actually build social cohesion and how can it provide a platform for cultural exchange and expression? There are 46 different countries of origin represented in Regent Park, speaking 67 different languages, so there is a big opportunity to leverage culture for change and write a new narrative around this in what had become a very stigmatized community.

Through a community steering committee, we grew this idea of creating a place that was rooted in Regent Park but open to the world. It's been open now going on six years, and I'm happy to say that it's had a very profound impact on the community and neighbourhood around it. The young people like Mustafa the Poet, who you saw a minute ago, have helped to rewrite an important, more positive narrative around the community and not just sugar-coat the kinds of challenges with revitalization, of which there are many.

But I would say that largely this community is succeeding in its revitalization, and the community cultural hub has provided a platform for people to come together to help, as the Toronto Community Housing Corporation was looking to do, to build social cohesion. It gives local artists a platform for exchange and expression. For people who are community activists, it's a place to come and hang out, which I think is really important, but it's also been a key part of building a multi-billion dollar market for residential development in a place where people thought, 10 years ago, that you couldn't sell a single condominium.

That, I think, speaks to the power, on multiple levels, that community cultural hubs can have. I'm really happy this committee is looking at this issue, because I think it has this kind of catalytic impact, and these projects have the potential to do that right across the country.

I want to come back to the five things that I'm encouraging you as a committee to consider. The first is to think about how we can build capacity with hub developers across the country. There is lots of innovation happening in this field around the practice of creative placemaking, around the practice of community design, around governance and community stewardship, and around public-private partnerships. When we're building these projects, we have to think and work differently. It's important that we actually help hub developers build their talent in this area.

I mentioned the kind of multi-dimensional impact, the quadruple bottom line that some of these projects can have. There is a real need for better research that actually illustrates the cultural, the economic, the social, and the environmental impacts and outcomes of these projects.

One of our biggest challenges right now is to figure out how to fund these projects, not just through government but also through charitable donations. One of the things I forgot to mention about our model is that our projects are all self-sustaining once the front-end capital is invested. We look to government, to the private sector, to lenders, and to donors to help make that happen. We can't do it unless we can raise money, and the charitable portion of these projects is really essential.

Currently CRA regulations really restrict a charity's ability to invest in facilities, particularly these facilities that cobble together non-profits and charities and other uses in the same place, so we need a renewal of the regulation with respect to investment by charities in capital projects.

Those first three ideas are fairly easy to do. They don't cost a lot of money. The others, I think, are equally important but do require more investment, and I'm heartened by the new investment through the government's Canada cultural spaces program. That's really important, but projects like Daniels Spectrum would never have happened through Canada cultural spaces alone. We were very fortunate to get $24 million through the infrastructure stimulus funding program when that happened. Projects of this scale, which are going to have a profound impact on the community, need that larger type of investment.

Opening up the building Canada fund, or whatever the new iteration of that is called, is really important to non-profits so that we can actually advance projects like this.

Finally, there is a lot of interesting innovation happening around the disposal of surplus government property. I've seen in Toronto that government can sell an asset and get the market value for it but also, in the process, procure a community cultural hub like this. I think this is an area that really needs to be looked into at the federal level, how we can use old post office buildings and old government buildings to deliver social benefit and financial return at the same time.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Ms. Liv Lunde from GamePlay Space.

[Liv Lunde, Executive Director, GamePlay Space]

Thank you.

Good morning and thank you for the opportunity to speak about the importance and the impact of cultural hubs. I will be speaking specifically in relation to independent video game development and digital creatives. My name is Liv Lunde and I'm the Executive Director of GamePlay Space. Prior to working in video games, I built my career in the Canadian music industry, and I grew up surrounded by immense amounts of cultural opportunities because I had two parents who were arts administrators. My role here today is as personal as it is professional.

GamePlay Space is a not-for-profit organization that operates a 10,000-square foot co-working space in downtown Montreal specifically for independent game development. Three years ago, we opened our doors, thanks to a small investment from public and private enterprise. We're currently home to 100 creators across 20 different studios, and we more broadly support our local gaming community of over 2,000 independent game creators across over 100 studios, the majority of which, I might add, are Quebec-owned small businesses creating Canadian intellectual property.

Today I want to highlight the value of and the need for funding and support for cultural hubs such as ours and the critical role we play to foster innovation, collaboration, and economic development. I need to begin by establishing that video games are a cultural economy. They are art and they are culture. The strength of GamePlay Space as a cultural hub is that we focus our efforts solely on the independent game community in play spaces, not just walls and desks. It's a platform for success.

Independent game creators work in precarious conditions. In contrast to the large foreign-owned studios, their situation is much more unstable due to lack of funding, a competitive market, long development cycles, and a lack of business and marketing skills. A hub like ours allows for resource sharing to a critical mass of developers working side by side. This is true not only for the studios that work in our space every day but also for the community organizations that use our space for meet ups, workshops, showcases, etc. By honing their art in our community space, they inspire and mentor each other every day.

I want to highlight two of our most notable success stories. One is a studio that came out of our space, and another is an organization that uses our space regularly.

Outerminds was one of the original studios at GamePlay Space. They literally helped us build tables and chairs. The team started as four co-founders and, within two years, grew to a staff of 25 people. They've had two number one games on the app store, the second of which was so popular that it crashed all their servers on day one and quickly saw over 25 million downloads.

While their company flourished, the guys kept their eyes on the community that surrounded them on their hardest days. The intangible value of the community within GamePlay Space has kept the team in our space long after they could afford to move out. They didn't stay because they had to; they stayed because they wanted to. Their success has become the success of us all as they continue the cycle of support through mentorship and financial aid to smaller studios, organizations, and community events.

One of those organizations is Pixelles, which is another success story out of our space. They are dedicated to empowering women to make and change games. We've allowed them use of the space as often as they need for the last three years. They operate monthly workshops and have a writing program and a game design cohort for women who have little to no experience in video games. Almost all of their graduates from their narrative program have found jobs in the industry after their training. Many of the women who graduate through Pixelles end up returning to volunteer and mentor the next round of women coming up through the industry. Having a stable and safe physical space for their programs has been a key to their success. We have more examples, but we're limited on time, so I'll leave them out.

If we're seeing all this success, then where's the problem?

Not all of our studios achieve financial and critical success. You can aim to achieve Outerminds' victories but, in what the industry has coined the “indiepocalypse”, most studios will fall short. Most artists are inherently bad business people, and they need support. The Canada cultural spaces grant is all about collaboration between entrepreneurs and creative types. What are video games, if not that?

When producing a ballet, there are composers, musicians, costume and set designers, choreographers, and dancers all working together to produce a final product. When producing video games, there are musicians, visual artists, designers, historians, animators, writers, and choreographers. It's the same thing. These people are artists. They are highly trained and highly skilled at their artistic craft in exactly the same way that dancers and actors are great at theirs. We need to stop ignoring that and taking it for granted. We need to stop seeing the final product as the only part of the equation that matters.

Having a singular focus in our hub is our strength: a critical mass of talent and business that can prop each other up, learn from peers, and attract industry gatekeepers and influencers. Yet it's our weakness when applying for funding. We don't tick all the boxes. It seems like a counterproductive requirement to force already established, singular-focused hubs to change their mandates in order to be eligible for funding.

We respect and value the support that has gone into the arts. However, the definitions need to be broadened as to what constitutes culture in Canada and how this funding will truly be helpful to the communities that it claims to serve. The Canada media fund experimental stream is still the single funding body in Canada that we can apply to for financial support, and by “we” I mean our studios because I am ineligible as a cultural hub.

Currently there's no place to apply for financial help for cultural operating costs. There are no funding options for the cultural intermediaries, the administrative staff that holds up these organizations every day. We are the invisible scaffolding of creative industries and we, too, need support.

I'm here today asking this committee to reassess how cultural spending is distributed. When our cultural hubs receive proper support, we will surely see our industries flourish. We can't support cultural industries if the cultural intermediaries that provide everything from community to training to literal shelter disappear themselves due to lack of funding.

Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

We will now hear from Mrs. Gosselin and Mrs. Laverdière from the City of Montreal.

[Christine Gosselin, Member of the Executive Committee, Culture, Heritage and Design, City of Montreal]

Good morning.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Vice-Chairs and members of the committee, I am a municipal counsellor in the Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie borough. I'm responsible for Culture, Heritage and Design for the City of Montreal. With me today is Mrs. Laverdière, who is the Director of the City of Montreal's Department of Culture.

First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting us to take part in this study.

My speech will be divided into four parts. The first will address cultural districts, the second will be devoted to our new cultural development policy, the third will focus on the economic benefits of cultural districts and cultural hubs and, finally, I will discuss the role we play in revitalizing cultural heritage.

The question of cultural districts has been part of our vision since 2005, as evidenced by the City of Montreal's first cultural development policy, which was implemented with various partners, including the Canadian government.

Our brand new 2017-2022 cultural development policy is in keeping with the process of creating and developing cultural districts throughout Montreal. In this process, Montreal is moving from the concept of cultural hub to that of cultural districts.

Without overlooking the already consolidated hubs, today Montreal is adopting the vision of cultural districts in order to offer Montrealers a quality local cultural offering. We wish to encourage the participation of citizens in the development and improvement of their living environment.

As a result, culture is becoming an integral part of the daily life of these districts through the presence of artists or cultural institutions, as much on the commercial arteries as in the parks, the public squares and near the modes of public transport.

We are convinced that it is the boroughs that are the prime movers of the consolidation and development of cultural districts. However, the city accompanies them, in particular in developing their own cultural plan and mapping strengths that contribute to development of cultural districts, as well as in the implementation of various pilot projects.

The city's new cultural development policy considers the presence of artists' studios in central districts as a priority for the development of cultural neighbourhoods, in a perspective of sustainable development.

The previous policy recognized the difficulty artists have in finding housing and finding creative spaces at affordable prices in the most sought-after districts.

The City of Montreal has therefore take an initial step by funding the Le Chat des artistes project for the installation of 43 artist's studios in a disused textile factory on Parthenais Street a dozen years ago. We then developed a response framework with a special assistance fund of $13 million. This fund has made it possible to perpetuate artists' access to creative spaces totalling 28,000 square metres.

Let's talk about the Cultural Development Policy entitled “Combining creativity and the citizen cultural experience in the age of digital technology and diversity”. Our field of action is currently guided by this innovative policy. We have brought you copies of this policy.

The vision that inspires our cultural policy is driven by a desire to put culture as a stakeholder in our key interventions in economic development, heritage, social development and smart cities.

We rely in particular on values of inclusion and equity. These values involve an approach of living together that favours the contribution and representativeness of all citizens and all cultural influences so that everyone recognizes themselves and develops their full potential.

The cultural districts will then allow the various local artistic expressions to manifest and interact in a coherent way with the face of the diversity so characteristic of Montreal districts.

In addition, the quality and cultural vitality of living environments require an increased presence and commitment of artists, creators and organizations, especially in cultural districts.

I invite you to consult this map, which presents the locations of our cultural facilities. The cultural districts are defined around these flagship places of local culture.

The development of cultural districts must result in the adoption of an integrated approach to enhancing heritage attractions as well as establishing municipal, governmental and private cultural facilities.

I would now like to discuss the impact of the city's cultural districts and cultural hubs.

Take the example of the Quartier des spectacles. It has the highest concentration and diversity of cultural venues in North America in the same area of just one square kilometre.

There are more than 28,000 seats in thirty or so venues. There are also some forty exhibition venues, cinemas and eight public places, where more than 40 festivals are held throughout the year.

I will backtrack a bit now.

At the Rendez-vous de Montréal, a cultural metropolis in 2007, the various levels of government pledged to financially support the Quartier des spectacles.

An important urban redevelopment operation was proposed as part of the special planning program for the Place des Arts sector. This operation, which involved the creation of a network of public squares around this key sector, aimed to ensure the continuity of major festivals and cultural events. It aimed to make Place des Arts a truly urban, friendly, year-round destination, lively and enjoyable for both Montrealers and visitors alike.

The federal government contributed $40 million to the project, one-third of eligible costs under the Building Canada Fund. Several studies have been conducted to evaluate the impact of the Quartier des spectacles, including one very recently. Here is some evidence: since 2007, $1.5 billion has been invested in 60 identified real estate projects; real estate investments have raised GST and QST revenues of approximately $228 million since 2007; the total economic impact associated with the completion of these projects is $2.2 billion; lastly, the annual land and school tax revenues have more than tripled over the last 10 years.

To illustrate other concrete economic benefits in a cultural district, I will give just one example, that of Cinéma Beaubien, which is located in the area I represent.

A recently published study has shown that, since its reopening in 2001, this sole neighbourhood cinema has truly revitalized the neighbourhood. Not only did the Cinéma Beaubien contribute to the transformation of Beaubien Street, its commercial artery, but it also fostered the renewal of the built environment and the commercial offering.

The City of Montreal is very committed to the development and creation of new cultural facilities and equipment. Several large-scale projects are under way or under consideration, and financial support from the various levels of government is fundamental to making them a reality.

Montreal has already been able to count on the federal government's support for certain cultural infrastructure projects such as the Pointe-à-Callière museum and, more recently, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, but it is important not to stop there. Other structuring cultural projects for the city are in progress.

Expansion of the Pointe-à-Callière museum is ongoing, and we invite the federal government to contribute to the completion of phase 3 by investing in the project relating to the Parliament of United Canada. This project aims to highlight the vestiges of Canada's first permanent parliament, dating back to 1844.

We also hope that the federal government will invest again in the Old Port of Montreal to make it a real meeting place accessible to citizens and visitors.

To this end, there is a unique opportunity to participate in the project of a cultural and tourism centre for the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador in the Old Port, the DestiNATIONS project.

This centre will become a hub of dissemination, production and cultural creation of international calibre dedicated to the discovery of indigenous cultures. This project is in keeping with the vision of the Canada Lands Company regarding the development of the Old Port.

In closing, I want to emphasize the importance of this committee's work. It will help to better understand the key issues related to the creation of cultural districts and cultural hubs across Canada. In addition, it will highlight the crucial importance of federal support in the development and consolidation of cultural districts, notably by supporting facilities, cultural spaces, and major festivals and events.

Thank you so much for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

We will now begin the period for questions and answers.

Mr. Hébert, you have the floor for seven minutes.

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First of all, I want to emphasize the quality of the witnesses' presentations.

Ms. Lunde, I was very surprised to learn that so many artists were contributing to the creation of a video game. Sometimes, we're not aware of this kind of thing.

Mr. Jones, during your presentation, you showed us how the extraordinary transformation of a place by culture influences the quality of life of the people who live there. Bravo! What you have presented to us is extraordinary.

I have three questions, and they are for Mrs. Gosselin and Mrs. Laverdière from the City of Montreal.

The City of Montreal aims to become a cultural metropolis and funds many projects throughout the city.

In what way, if any, does support for cultural hubs and cultural districts contribute to this objective?

What funds are specifically earmarked for the development of cultural hubs and cultural districts?

To date, what benefits have existing cultural hubs and cultural districts brought to Montreal?

[Christine Gosselin]

I will turn things over to Mrs. Laverdière, but I will some add details if necessary.

Could you please repeat the third question?

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

To date, what benefits have the existing cultural hubs and cultural districts brought to Montreal?

[Suzanne Laverdière, Director, Department of Culture, City of Montreal]

In our opinion, cultural centres have two meanings. First, there are the cultural houses, that is, spaces programmed by the various boroughs, in collaboration with the Service de la culture, with a view to offering local culture. We believe that the hubs also carry the sense of neighbourhood, in other words, everything that develops around it.

In terms of cultural houses, as you've seen on the map, we've identified a number of things, starting with all the existing venues that are funded by the city. There are 24 cultural houses already in existence, and another 50 are in development. We also included libraries. There are currently 45 libraries, and another 10 are being renovated or are under construction. In addition, we have listed all private broadcast locations, theatres, movie theatres, and so on.

The money we invest in these projects is for infrastructure. It involves funds that we dedicate to constructing cultural houses and libraries, in partnership with the boroughs. Every year, we invest tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure that belongs to the city. At the same time, we are still investing tens of thousands of dollars in activities that take place in cultural hubs, in other words all their programming, as well as in all the activities offered by libraries. That was the part about the funds.

Mrs. Gosselin, do you want to touch on other issues?

[Christine Gosselin]

I will talk about the benefits of cultural districts in Montreal.

We all know that Montreal has gone through a very difficult time. It has become a post-industrial city and has suffered the consequences of political changes. Then it reinvented itself as a cultural city. It really bet on culture very early on to build a new signature and a new sense of pride. It has organized all sectors of its economy by relying on culture and cultural events, elements that have become key figures and truly structuring elements. Today, there are economic as well as social benefits. Like all major cities, Montreal faces a challenge related to integrating new populations. Once again, culture is used to ensure social cohesion and to offer activities where everyone can come together.

The map I presented illustrates the extent of the cultural infrastructure. We now want to go beyond what is done in the city centre and the initial infrastructure to develop neighbourhoods. It even has an effect on tourism, since cultural tourism occurs in places that are outside the city centre. Indeed, cultural tourism happens in neighbourhoods where there is an authenticity and fabulous restaurants that only local residents know about. This is a new trend in tourism, and Montreal is well positioned to take advantage of it.

Of course, the first places visited by tourists returning to Montreal are located near metro stations, which provide easy access. We are already seeing it on the metro's orange line. We want to begin a new phase of development that will truly integrate the principle of discovering Montreal and all its beautiful, old heritage neighbourhoods with a focus on cultural attractions. Many of these attractions are freely accessible in the public square. Visitors, just like Montrealers, can blend in by walking around these places over the days.

We are really convinced that this is one of the main advantages for Montreal. Investments in culture have already been made, and we hope this will continue.

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

That's perfect.

At one point, the Saint-Roch neighbourhood in Quebec City was somewhat rundown and then revitalized. Now, the cost of housing is rising, so long-term residents can no longer live there. Aren't you afraid that the same thing is happening in Montreal?

[Christine Gosselin]

Absolutely. We are well aware of this problem, and we are really trying to incorporate new ways of taxing and limiting certain consequences of this economic vitality. It's an exciting problem, but it's still a problem. Now that we have brought about an economic vitality, how can we manage it so that Montreal can remain authentic and accessible?

A whole series of compensatory and complementary measures can be considered, but that remains a constant concern, of course. A variety of means will need to be used to stabilize the development so that the original occupants of these neighbourhoods aren't pushed out.

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

Now we'll go to Mr. Eglinski.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'd like to thank the four witnesses for coming today.

I'm very interested in the cultural hub philosophy. I come from a rural part of Canada, and many of our rural parts have cultural centres within their smaller communities. I'm talking about communities of maybe 3,000 to 5,000, or 10,000, 15,000. You folks are working on much larger demographics, larger populations, and it's much more evident what you're doing within your community. You see a bigger picture, and I believe you have the opportunities to raise a lot of funding through different grants, such as the Canada cultural spaces fund and stuff like that.

The gentleman from Artscape talked about working outside of your community within the province to help other organizations, other cultural centres from, I'm going to say, the rural communities. I am wondering if you could each elaborate a little on what you do outside of your cities to help cultural centres within the rural parts of your provinces.

Thank you.

I would start with Mr. Jones.