Industry Committee on Dec. 11th, 2007

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Do you realize that if the same argument was given to us by petroleum people, we would be revolted?

[Susan Dayus]

Is that a question?

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Do you realize how difficult this is to accept? Somebody else told me what the price was, and that was a long time ago, but pay now.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Ms. Dayus, do you want to respond to that?

[Susan Dayus]

Sure. The thing is that the products are bought well in advance by booksellers. Books don't go out of date like milk. They're sitting on a shelf. They're a product. They've been paid for. Some of them have up to six months, a year. They could be in a store because they still continue to sell. Books are not reprinted continually.

So if a bookseller has paid at an exchange rate of maybe 20% and now all of a sudden a consumer is demanding that they want to buy the book in U.S. dollars at the U.S. price--and you can see by the figures I gave you that there's a very small margin in bookstores to begin with--it puts them at a terrible disadvantage.

[André Arthur, Independent, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

But Amazon can change its price instantly.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, that's enough.

Thank you, Mr. Arthur.

[Susan Dayus]

Amazon doesn't employ Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

We'll go to Ms. Nash, please.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

On the issue of income averaging, I'm very proud that many of my constituents work in the arts sector. We have musicians, painters, writers, theatre performers, actors, and income averaging is something that I have long been in support of. While we have some very, very successful architects, artists, broadcasters, filmmakers, we also have so many people who are living in poverty, and they are really subsidizing the artistic work they offer us.

I have a motion, in fact, on income averaging for artists, because I think it's one way to help smooth out the lumpy income that they have over a period of years.

I want to address the issue of Canadian content, because while someone said earlier that the U.S. just has a free market on this, in fact, the U.S. is the largest cultural exporter in the world. They are fiercely competitive in cracking open markets and ensuring that their products are sold to foreign markets. Other countries, whether it's European countries or others, are also very aggressive in supporting their cultural communities. It seems to me that, unlike some other sectors of the economy, where you have a short R and D and then you go into production, in the cultural sector the research and development is the development of the actor's talent. All the huge creative input that goes in upfront, whether it's design or writing or whatever the creation is...it's a huge amount of research and development, and when you actually get to the product, whether it's a video, a CD, a performance, whatever it is, that's actually the smallest part of the actual creation of this product.

It seems to me that unless we support that R and D part, that creation of the Canadian product, and we're fierce in defending that, in fact, it will not be a fair competition with other producers, especially the U.S.

I wonder if any of you would like to comment on that.

[Richard Hardacre]

Certainly, thank you.

There's no question that in our industry, film and television, Hollywood or the United States industry is imperialistic. I was told that across the table, that Americans invented filmmaking, and I had to correct the gentleman and said, “No, I'm sorry, it was invented in France, by the Lumière Brothers”.

It's quite shocking to them that one suggests that Canadians can make a cultural product, because they believe this market is their market. And it has been a pretty good market for them. As the member says, the United States is the biggest exporter of cultural product in the world. They make fortunes, billions of dollars, selling film and TV into this country—mostly film. Only 2% of our screens in English language are Canadian films over the year. Only 2.3% is the average over the last year—2.3% of screens in this country have Canadian films on them in the English language. It's despicable and it's not acceptable; that's what I say.

[Samantha S. Sannella]

I also think the government has to lead by example. For instance, the gentleman at the end of table spoke of Douglas Cardinal, who is one of Canada greatest architects, who's finding more work in China than he finds in Canada. It's true for all architects in Canada: their work is overseas in a lot of cases.

Canada fails to invest in its own greatest assets. They have such a humble, risk-averse attitude. My father used to say that an expert is any idiot from out of town. They come in and build our greatest buildings, and I think it's a shame. We should invest in our own creative workforce to build our country.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Are designers included in the kinds of arts for which a person can get a Canada Council grant?

[Samantha S. Sannella]

No.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

So how do young designers get started? Canada Council grants are the seed money that help emerging and established artists.

[Samantha S. Sannella]

Absolutely. One of our recommendations is that design should be included in Canada Council grants.

How do designers get started?

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

They subsidize it, I guess.

[Samantha S. Sannella]

It's baptism by fire. There are so many graduates of design schools who do not go into careers of design because it's so hard to get started and the salaries are notoriously low. It's an industry where unfortunately you have to pay your dues. It's not unheard of for a young designer to work 16 hours a day and be paid for eight. That's the way the industry works.

It's unfortunate that this has become mainstream, because if we had programs to support young emerging designers--even programs where we help them launch their products, or help them with their marketing initiatives, or help them understand business initiatives--we'd probably see a better success rate.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Nash.

We'll go to Mr. McTeague.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Thank you again, Chair.

Mr. Tabor, you mentioned the 1999 tariff and changes to the Copyright Act. Refresh my memory. What were the reasons for it?

[Chris Tabor]

I was there in 1999. Unlike the Copyright Act that's being discussed today, at that time they did ask for a lot of contributions from Canadians and the industries that were involved.

The problem is that it is very weak. I believe the analysis that surrounded the regulations said this was good for Canadian publishers and therefore good for Canada as a whole. At the time we saw it as a rather weak rationalization for the imposition of a private tariff by public policy.

To answer your question, that's as extensive as it gets. If you were to examine the regulations, you would probably appreciate more than others how weak it is on that policy aspect.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

According to you, the practical implication is that foreign books emanating from foreign publishers have a distinct advantage over books published or produced in Canada because of the imposition of this tariff. Is that correct?

[Chris Tabor]

No. What happens is that publishers can distribute books that have their origins in the U.S. or the U.K. and extract 10% or 15% more. An individual can go around both the bookseller and the publisher and buy without that tariff, but it does not provide an advantage for an American book over a Canadian book; it just explains 10% to 15% of the differential in price.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

All right. Thank you for that.

Ms. Sannella, last evening I was driving south on Bay Street. I happened to glance to my right as I was coming south, and on the site of the old Toronto Stock Exchange was the Design Exchange. I assumed it was simply about clothing. A couple of people walked out and they weren't very well dressed. I mistook them for the chairmen.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!