I can give you two answers. If you're at the international markets—in MIPCOM and such, as I was in October—there are a lot of Canadian producers. Most people would say that Canada punches above its weight, from a global perspective.
On the other hand, there wasn't anyone there from Bell Media. There was no one there from Rogers Media. I think there were a couple of people from Corus. The problem with the vertical integration of our system was that the companies that control it are mostly Internet and mobile companies—or at least they were with Shaw and Corus. Their focus is primarily within Canada. That's really been the problem. We created a production model that inverted production. You produced in order to maintain your monopoly status. The actual value of the show wasn't based on what was happening in the marketplace.
We introduced a novel concept: we actually make shows and then sell them and try and make money on the programming. I'm being a bit facetious there, but that is ultimately where the business needs to go. We work with Emily's company, and they have great international reach. They've got a lot of power and ability. We have Canadian companies that can do this, but we need more.
The CRTC are now calling broadcasters “service providers”. To be honest, I really like it because it says more about what we should be doing. We should be going out and negotiating deals across the world.
I met with the new head of Telefilm yesterday. She asked me how we get into these countries. I told her that she can do it. We can do it, but we can't put 10 producers on a plane and send them to some place to try and get a deal. We need companies that can do those deals for the producers and then bring them in and do that.
I think we've been at cross-purposes for too long. We've been trying to maintain the fiction that we're still a market that exists without the outside world. That's now over. The first thing we have to do is throw out that idea and say that's never going to work. Le's start now and say, okay, now that we know the world is global, how do we play? Canada is in an extraordinary position to take advantage of that, but the mindset shift needs to happen, and happen now.