Canadian Heritage Committee on May 23rd, 2024

[Isabelle Mondou]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I want to be clear that the main estimates we're discussing today are the ones for Canadian Heritage and not the ones for the Department of Finance.

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

We still have one minute and 25 seconds left for the Conservatives.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I have one more follow-up question, as I'm curious about this now.

The estimates do cover the financing of the heritage department. Is that right?

[Isabelle Mondou]

They do, but the tax credit is not within our portfolio; it is within the Department of Finance.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

The independent panel that reviews who is a journalist and who is not is a creature of the CRA.

[Isabelle Mondou]

How it's working in taxation is that the Department of Finance established the policy, and then the enforcement or the application is done by the Canada Revenue Agency.

In that case, the finance department adopted the policy, which was the tax credit that you referred to, and then it's applied and implemented by the Canada Revenue Agency, as with any other tax measure.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you.

We'll move to the Liberals for six minutes. Mr. Noormohamed, go ahead.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us.

One of the often overlooked elements of what the Department of Canadian Heritage does is the promotion of the cultural sector.

I wonder if you could share with me, as you look at the planning going forward, how you intend to continue to invest in supporting the cultural sector through the allocations in the estimates. This would be particularly as it relates to international opportunities, to bringing global awareness and investment into Canada, and to growth for Canadian businesses, particularly those that are looking to advance and enhance the cultural sector, such as, for example, AV production, film, television and gaming.

[Joëlle Montminy, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Thank you very much for the question.

Yes, this is a very important aspect of what we do at Canadian Heritage. It is not only looking at growing or supporting the cultural industries from a domestic point of view, but also so that they can be successful abroad and generate revenues by selling their work internationally.

We have the creative export strategy, which was renewed. Now we have a program that's been in place for a number of years. That is a program through which we provide support to companies that do some work abroad.

We also support trade missions and take Canadian companies around the world to different markets that we identify as priority markets or to different categories that we identify as places for potential growth for the Canadian economy.

Canadian Heritage has this particular strategy that augments the impact of our creative sector, but all of our portfolio agencies, such as the Canada Council, Telefilm Canada and others, also have international strategies that then amplify the impact of our efforts abroad.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

A question Canadians always ask is what the return on the investment of their dollars is. You've mentioned a creative export strategy and you've mentioned trade missions. How do you measure the return on that investment? When you talk in real dollar terms, could you give us some examples of why those are good investments and what the return on that investment actually looks like for Canadian companies?

[Joëlle Montminy]

We do have very detailed measurements of the return on investment.

For instance, on these trade missions, we select companies that have demonstrated and have been forecast to be able to sell their work abroad. Then we measure, at the end of each trade mission, the actual return on investment for these events.

Unfortunately, I don't have in front of me today the latest data for the trade missions, whether it was the recent one in South Korea or last fall when we were in Japan. Prior to this, it was New Zealand and Australia.

I would be happy to provide the committee with this information.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

That would be great.

Just for avoidance of doubt, is it a positive return on investment?

[Joëlle Montminy]

Yes.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

I wanted to make sure there was no misapprehension about the fact that there is a positive return on that investment.

[Joëlle Montminy]

Yes, there is.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

To dig a little into the creative export strategy, Canada is not the biggest player by any means, but a lot of the Canadian companies tend to punch above their weight. How has this program had a positive impact in terms of the growth of Canadian business? Can you give some examples?

One of the things that I worry about is that these are things we don't often talk about, and it's easy for people to say that it's a junket, a trip abroad, or that we're investing in companies, but we don't really see a return.

Can you give us some examples of what that actually looks like on the ground? Where in the country are we seeing those returns, and how does that manifest itself?

[Joëlle Montminy]

When we do these trade missions, we select certain types of subsectors of our creative sector. We can focus on gaming or audiovisual and businesses that are oriented toward these sectors, and we match them with others. Sometimes it's the performing arts. It can be the whole range of creative sectors.

What we've seen if it's the performing arts, for instance, is that companies will then come back and will have made arrangements for touring for the companies.

We've seen tremendous successes on the gaming and interactive digital media markets, which are extremely interesting for Canadian companies abroad. Our talent is recognized, and we've seen these companies coming back with tangible deals that they've made around the world with new partners.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

You have 25 seconds.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

It's not enough time for questions. I will return that time back to you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Kevin Waugh]

Thank you.

There are six minutes for the Bloc. Go ahead, Mr. Champoux, please.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You mean I have 6 minutes 25 seconds, since my friend Mr. Noormohamed gave me his remaining 25 seconds.

I thank the witnesses once again for their presence at the committee.

I'm going to continue talking about exporting, because I find it interesting. It was one of the subjects I wanted to discuss with you. I find this topic very interesting because it's one of the concerns that comes up quite regularly from organizations. We don't export our culture well. We're just getting by here, in today's market, so you can imagine the enormous costs involved in exporting. Yet it can become extremely profitable.

I just want to highlight something that comes under the heading of collaboration, a notion I value enormously. This winter, we were contacted by a small export company called h264, which was on the verge of closing its doors. The company was in financial distress. It was just about the only company exporting content, films, shorts and documentaries abroad. There were no others left. It was the only company doing it. The disappearance of this company meant that we would no longer be able to export our content. We met with the company's representatives. I then contacted the department, and the company's situation was resolved. I thought that was fantastic.

I thought back to other organizations, including the Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada and the Toronto International Film Festival, who talk to us about the issue of exporting content, which is extremely important for the vitality of our industry. These are extremely interesting sources of revenue, and we shouldn't deprive ourselves of them.

In addition to the h264 company, for which I'm extremely happy, representatives from the Toronto International Film Festival came to meet with us to present a great project, which is to organize a major trade show to attract foreign buyers, producers and people from the film industry to Toronto to meet our artisans here. It seems to me to be a really economical way of presenting our content to people without having to travel abroad.

Have the folks at the Toronto International Film Festival approached your department about this? Have you shown any openness to supporting them in this? How will this work out?

[Isabelle Mondou]

Indeed, the 2024 budget offers them $23 million to support them in this project. The government has invested in this project exactly for the reason you mention, which is to facilitate exports. We are obviously committed to this project, but I would say that our audiovisual agency, Telefilm Canada, works directly with these people.

In this regard, I also want to mention that Telefilm Canada is in the process of reviewing its export programs, precisely to highlight the difficulties in the industry and ensure that we offer real support to the sector.

So, it's work we need to follow. In any case, this Toronto International Film Festival project is a good example of our creators reaching out, but doing so right here, when the world is invited to come here.

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Earlier, I was talking with the minister about the extremely precarious situation of some festivals. Some festivals are doing well, of course. Some are generating quite substantial revenues. Other festivals, however, are smaller regional festivals, though no less important for the vitality of the economy and tourism in these regions.

Once again, there's the question of funding. Festival representatives raised the point that funding is largely granted on a per-project basis. And it's not just festivals. What's more, there's no predictability. I discussed this earlier with the minister. This concern has been raised not only by festival representatives, but also by the Canada Media Fund, among others. Theatre directors, who are on Parliament Hill this week, have spoken to us about it as well.

Are you thinking about reviewing the funding method and ensuring that we fund more corporate activities, rather than granting project-based funding as is currently the case? This funding method sometimes encourages people to design a product because they want to raise money, but in the end they may not always be making quality products or putting their priorities in the right places.

Have you started thinking about this?