Evidence of meeting #11 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was designers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
But specifically about the Amazon situation, if the government were to remove all the GST on books, are you saying that there's nothing that...?
You're not recommending that anything be done with respect to purchasing books online by an American company--or it's not an issue that you think there's a solution to?
10:10 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Booksellers Association
I think it's already happened. You can't pull something as big as that back. We do need to ensure that, for example, the books they are purchasing are being purchased through the Canadian distributors, not purchased through the American distributors, and that they're playing by exactly the same rules as govern the rest of the booksellers--campus, trade, specialty--in Canada.
10:10 a.m.
NDP
Peggy Nash NDP Parkdale—High Park, ON
Thank you for that.
Mr. Hardacre, on the issue of Canadian production, you've said that about half the work that Canadian actors do is Canadian production and the other half is the service agreements, and that it's the service agreements that have been particularly hard hit by the rise in the Canadian dollar. Would it make sense to then, especially in this current context, strengthen our Canadian production base as a way of dealing with the rise of the Canadian dollar? Is that something you would recommend?
10:10 a.m.
National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
Well, you have a new fan in me, because that's exactly what we're trying to do. First of all, we're Canadian performers, we're Canadian artists, and we care about Canadian culture and Canadian stories and Canadian identity. We like to work on that material. So absolutely, yes.
ACTRA, I know, and the other unions will always encourage foreign production. Production that shoots here brings in a huge amount of economic activity across the country. We will never discourage it. But we realize there's a jeopardy in counting on it only. When Hollywood production decides to shoot only in Romania and Mexico, which they say they will do if we don't.... In fact, in ACTRA's negotiations last year, the Disney executive vice-president said to us across the bargaining table that if we wouldn't reduce our rates by 25% and give them Internet use for free, they would just take all of their work to Romania and Mexico and starve us. Those are the kinds of words that are exchanged across the bargaining table when you're dealing with Hollywood lawyers, unfortunately. But we didn't listen to it, and we prevailed.
Thank you, Ms. Nash, for the question. It is absolutely essential that we build the Canadian industry. We need to do it in every way we can, because we cannot be reliant on the vagaries of a currency exchange and the speculation that goes on, which pushes the Canadian dollar up or down. And Hollywood retreats as it goes up.
We absolutely must build it, and that's what our leading members are working to do.
10:10 a.m.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our witnesses.
Mr. Hardacre, I'd like to begin with a couple of quick questions to you.
I have the privilege of having in my riding the oldest uninterrupted theatre group in Canada, Le Cercle Molière in St. Boniface. I think they're celebrating 90 years, somewhere around there. I just can't imagine the riding without these people. I know all the actors there, and they're all part-time. They can't sustain themselves full-time with acting careers.
I like the idea of the income averaging. I wonder if you could maybe talk to us a little bit more about that. How do you do that when you can't basically make a living acting and you have to do something else on the side? Maybe you could talk to us about that.
Secondly, we all realize that Quebec has a very vibrant film and television industry. They're getting international recognition, and they're winning awards, almost on a yearly basis. Is there anything specifically that the Province of Quebec is doing to encourage that, that maybe we should be looking at on a federal level?
10:10 a.m.
National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
Excellent. Thank you. I'm happy to answer both these, in reverse order if I could.
What Quebec is doing is absolutely what we need to do, to be proud of our unique identity. English Canada has one, and we need to work at building it. The Quebec industry has a committed television audience, a committed film audience, and a committed theatre audience, as has St. Boniface. That has not happened accidentally. It has happened because federally our government and provincially the Quebec government have for decades encouraged production locally, and encouraged viewership, and primarily encouraged what we call our Canadian stories. They don't have to be stories about a house in Cabbagetown in Toronto or a place on Granville Street in Vancouver; they just have to be stories that we care about. They would be written by Canadians and directed and performed by Canadians.
If Canada could take, which we believe we are now beginning to do, the example of the Quebec cultural industries and be proud of our identity and have regulations in place that encourage, and not just encourage but demand, minimum amounts of content and minimum amounts of expenditure on Canadian programming on our big private broadcasters--CTV, CanWest Global--which have doubled their profits annually over the last three years, and which are committing less than 3% of their revenue to Canadian production, then we would do something Quebec has already done.
10:15 a.m.
National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
Yes, income averaging.
I'm a performer, I'm proud to say, and I've had many part-time jobs not being a performer. Most performers, when they have to work, do other self-employed jobs. Income averaging is also something that's familiar in Quebec; it would be as a self-employed person.
If the actor is not working this week as an actor, she or he is a server or a bartender next week, and over the years the income could be averaged—over perhaps a six-year period or something like that. There have been years as a performer, I'm proud to say, when I earned close to $100,000, and another year I earned $4,000 but yet was taxed on the second year as if I were earning $100,000. My tax deductions were such....
Just on a personal note, I shouldn't put my income into the record; I'd rather not. But I pay taxes on everything. I'm proud to pay taxes.
10:15 a.m.
National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
No.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Raymond Simard Liberal Saint Boniface, MB
Thank you very much.
Ms. Dayus, just quickly, you talked about a lot of small bookstores going out of business. I'm wondering if that's not more as a result of the big boxes coming in, the Chapters and the Indigos, than of the dollar and any other such effects. There has been a restructuring in the industry; I think that's quite obvious. I'm wondering why you would pay, for instance....
You're talking about profits of 1% to 2%. I bought a Ken Follett book for $40 at Chapters, and my sister-in-law told me she saw it at Costco for $23 the same week. Is this a loss leader? How can there be that much of a discrepancy in the price of a book?
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Booksellers Association
You're absolutely right. In many cases, the discounters like to use books as loss leaders, to make a penny or two, or a very small amount, because it's such a visible comparison that they can put front and centre, as if to say, if we sell our books at this price, then everything must be that close to margin.
10:15 a.m.
Liberal
10:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Booksellers Association
No, I don't believe so at all. The small independent bookstores—
I'll backtrack for just a minute. We also have, as part of our membership, Indigo and Chapters, people who sell books for a living as opposed to people who sell books as a commodity, which is why we feel that books need to be treated separately from nuts and bolts. They're important to Canada. They're important to local communities, to local economies. They bring people together. They're part of literacy and understanding your country. So no, I don't believe they're going away, but they are very vulnerable, very fragile.
That huge loss of bookstores was over a period of time, and a lot of it had to do with big box stores coming in and changing the retail landscape. But we're looking at possibly a fresh number of bookstores.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Simard.
We'll go to Mr. Van Kesteren.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for coming.
Richard, I'm going to challenge you, and I have a question at the end. I suggest, sir, that there's a disconnect between what you think we should watch and what the public wants to watch. Take a movie like Wild Hogs. Culturally it might not be too enriching, but do you know what? The average guy who is working every day wants to go home and be entertained.
I guess I'm asking this question. Do you think we should watch what you want us to watch, or do you want what the public...?
I'm going to give you an example. We've currently produced a film called Young People... and the blank, I'll tell you, starts with “f” and ends with “g”. We funded that.
Do you think you should have full licence to keep funding films that, in some cases, are I think reprehensible and in other cases might be just plain boring? Or, if the government is going to get involved in building up the film industry, should the government have a say in what we're going to produce?
I want you to comment—but not too long, because I'm going to split my time with my friend Monsieur Arthur.
10:20 a.m.
National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
It's a good challenge. I won't ramble on. Your points are very good.
First of all, I'm not in favour of censorship and telling the public what they should or shouldn't watch. I believe the public should watch what they want to watch to be entertained. I believe entertainment is escapist, and it should be fun. They should be able to see whatever they choose. It's freedom of choice.
What we are urging is that there be a minimum amount of Canadian content available. Currently there is no requirement on television. If you look at the last week....
This chart is a month outdated, but for instance, here is Global's schedule for the last week of October, from Saturday through Friday. Its prime time hours are from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. American programming is shown in blue; the red is Canadian. There is a half-hour of red in prime time, and there are twenty-six and a half hours of blue American programming in prime time. CTV shows a similar thing: blue is American, and red is Canadian.
In my home, the television is tuned quite often to entertainment that is non-Canadian-sourced. That's fine, but there needs to be a choice also available that is Canadian. Canadian jobs are dependent on that, and the Canadian economy. It's not just a cultural, airy argument—“Gee, isn't Canadian culture good”—it actually is about bottom line. It's about work.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Dave Van Kesteren Conservative Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON
But will anyone watch it, if we produce this stuff?
I point out that the Americans have no funding, and that's the blue. They're savvy enough to realize that this is what people want to watch. It's crass, but I guess I'm asking the question whether we should interfere and say no, you should be watching this, when the public is saying, I have satellite and I'm going to watch what I want.
10:20 a.m.
National President, Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA)
Certainly a program that fails to get an audience shouldn't be on air. There's no requirement to air or to show a film that an audience isn't coming to. But if money is consistently available from advertising revenue both for TV and for feature movie.... ACTRA says 7% of advertising revenue can do it; 7% of advertising revenue from the big broadcasters can create just two hours of prime time work in the 28 hours. If that money is there, then new projects are always in development, Mr. Van Kesteren.
If something fails, we have the successful ones. We have Corner Gas; we have Trailer Park Boys. I'm not talking about a feature film that has profanity in its title. We're talking about series that actually have over a million viewers in the country watching them every week, in the English language. These shows are available.
But there's only one example: Corner Gas is one half hour in Global's schedules during the week.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Rajotte
You have less than a minute. The next spot is a five-minute spot, if you want five minutes.
10:20 a.m.
Independent
André Arthur Independent Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC
Could I take those little seconds and add them to my rightful time a few minutes later?