Evidence of meeting #13 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was companies.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Public Policy and Communications, ACTRA - National
They are speaking very specifically, if I may, as you mentioned earlier, about the development side, design. We are talking very specifically about performance.
We know that in our world of performers, we have a lot of performers who have—
Conservative
Director, Public Policy and Communications, ACTRA - National
I think we do, and to Simon's point—
Director, Public Policy and Communications, ACTRA - National
—to do the performance, which is very different.
We have a large pool of talent, and they're becoming more trained and more familiar with work in this area with this particular expertise. But we do need more emphasis, more funding for training programs that will train them to do this kind of work specifically. It's quite different from what my friends here have been describing.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Yes, please, but before you do....
Mr. Peacock, you mentioned that Mike Myers and Jim Carrey went down to the States. We've always known of Canadian performers who have done that.
Then there is the great Victor Garber and the great Sandra Oh, people like that who have made a very good living doing that here in Canada. We can mention dozens who have made that success.
I'm not sure I want to go back to the Sandra Bullock reference to $20 million versus $2 million for the whole industry, at least in that one aspect of the industry, but it strikes me that we have some great Canadian talent that does a very good job here.
Ms. Ayre, you wanted to respond to that earlier question.
Member, Other Ocean Group Canada, Canadian Interactive Alliance
Yes, I just want to make it clear.
Our company, for example, has made in the last five or six years probably 50 games. We have never needed to hire an actor, ever—
Member, Other Ocean Group Canada, Canadian Interactive Alliance
-—because we operate in different spaces. These are AAA titles. This is one aspect of the video game industry. There are dozens and dozens and hundreds of companies that would never use this particular type of talent. Although it is very important for companies like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts, it's just not something we would need.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative David Sweet
Thank you, Ms. Ayre.
Thank you, Mr. Holder.
Now on to Ms. Sgro, for eight minutes.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Welcome, and thank you for helping us to understand how important this industry is and what opportunities lie there.
Mr. Landry, in your presentation you talked about there being an independent, non-exclusive Canadian publishing agency. Would you elaborate a bit more on why you think that is the avenue that needs to be pursued at the moment?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Interactive Alliance
It's a potential avenue. It's a suggestion that could be embraced, because the problem we see right now is that the companies have to put as much money into the marketing and distribution of the products as they do into the development of the product itself.
Even though the barrier to entry has been lowered with the new mobile platforms, there is a lot of competition in the market to get that product known and seen by the wealthy users who pay for the content. That's where the real war is. It is a content war, but it's also about getting the product in more hands.
Right now, as I said, the Canadian developers have to rely on European, U.S., or Asian publishers to get their product out in the market and get revenues from those products. If we had a structured Canadian agency fostering those start-ups, those small companies, to help them push the product in the worldwide market, that could be very beneficial in the long run.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Have you had an opportunity to make that pitch to the government with that suggestion as part of the answer to a future industry that has the capacity to grow?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Interactive Alliance
Not yet. I'm doing it today.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
Good, I wish you lots of success.
Tell me why it is that the other countries, whether we're talking about countries in Asia or Europe, seem to be so much further ahead than we are in this industry.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Interactive Alliance
I think it's based on the origin of the industry where AAAs were funded elsewhere. Our industry is still young. It's been since 1997 that we have really been embracing this industry.
There was a culture of development here, but not publishing, that was in place for a long time. I think that's what we need to do. We need to change that culture. Especially with the new platforms, we can publish Canadian titles from Canadian companies.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
You also talked about Sheridan College and about college programs offering more opportunity to our young people when it comes to maximizing opportunities for their future.
Have you approached other colleges on this specifically? You happened to mention Sheridan in particular, but are others offering programs more specifically getting into the area that you're referring to?
Member, ACTRA - National
At the moment, speaking of my experience in Montreal, there are no colleges that are doing so. At ACTRA at the local union branch we've started an outreach program. We've approached such schools as the National Theatre School and Dawson College's theatre program.
We're trying to get ourselves more involved in that part of the community and start changing some of the syllabus from the outside, basically, so that when those kids graduate, they come into a workforce where they have the necessary skills. At the moment, they come out of theatre school to an industry that is largely dormant for them.
Member, Other Ocean Group Canada, Canadian Interactive Alliance
Perhaps I could speak to the other disciplines.
With regard to art design and programming, in Prince Edward Island, both Holland College and the University of Prince Edward Island have developed a curriculum for video game development. Many of the modules are taught by industry people, whether they be from our company or from other companies that are operating in Charlottetown.
In Newfoundland, the College of the North Atlantic has also hired an industry specialist who is heading up their video game design curriculum there. Certainly our company regularly will participate in co-op programs with Memorial, hiring engineering and computer science students.
A lot of these things are going on. I think it's a matter of needing....
In your particular area, it sounds like you need more of that. For us in the Atlantic region, the colleges and universities have been really great at working with us.
There needs to be more of it. It's very demanding on a small company like ours to have to do these things pretty much on our own. There needs to be support to help us work directly with the educational institutions.
It's also important to remember that juniors can't provide the quality of product we need to remain competitive. At the end of the day, we can still only hire so many juniors. Within our company we still need to have senior people, who right now still need to come from outside our regions, often from outside the country.
Liberal
Judy Sgro Liberal York West, ON
I continue to be surprised that we don't have more of those top-level people. Whether they leave Canada, go abroad and come back, or go back and forth, I would think there'd be a fair number of Canadians with those kinds of skill sets as well.
Member, Other Ocean Group Canada, Canadian Interactive Alliance
We have a very difficult time recruiting from west of our region. Obviously, under the policies, we have to do that before we can hire from outside, and we do that. It's our preference to hire Canadians. As was said, it's obviously less expensive, and it's the right thing to do, but we just don't get the interest. There's a negative bias towards Atlantic Canada from the rest of the country, in my mind, and from what I've experienced, we have much better success when we go abroad.