Evidence of meeting #9 for International Trade in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Do you mean in terms of dollars to be invested?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
It's going to have to be in the tens of millions of dollars. I'm thinking that at least $20 million to $30 million would need to be invested. We haven't done any work with marketing agencies to see what would work effectively, but with the number of dollars being used right now, at least $20 million to $30 million would be required.
It's almost too late, except that we know that WHTI is going to be with us forever, so we might as well begin today. For June 1 and its full implementation, we're too late already. But we have to deal with this in the fall and in the winter season, and it's going to be important for us to look at a campaign at least a year long.
Bloc
Claude Guimond Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
As concerns the tourism industry, aside from the problems at the border, do you currently have a development strategy aimed at selling Canadian tourism products, in order to encourage Americans even more to travel to Canada and Quebec?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
There are a number of strategies that exist, not only at the national level, through the Canadian Tourism Commission—which has a strategy to place the Canadian brand in foreign markets, the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, and so on—but also in Quebec. Quebec Tourism has a strategy, as do Tourism Montreal, Quebec City Tourism, and so on. So there are a number of different strategies for how Quebec and its parts, its products, and its destinations will be presented. I'm sure that if your office would contact us, we'd be pleased to provide you with the means to acquire all of those strategies.
Bloc
Claude Guimond Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you.
As concerns the borders—we've discussed the industry—what would it take to truly improve the situation in the short term?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
We need, in the short term, to advertise the requirements, the documents. We need to invest quickly in staffing levels for the peak summer time and certainly leading up to the Olympic Games, so there's enough peak-time staffing.
The CBSA is challenged, certainly with training and regarding the arming of guards at the border. Just that fact alone, that we're putting a gun in the holster of our guards, is intimidating for visitors. Why can't we balance that with three words: “Welcome to Canada”? It's a small quid pro quo for putting a gun in a holster.
Those are the kinds of things we need. We need the rollout of the infrastructure dollars for the border quickly. We need a large campaign to get the number of NEXUS cardholders increased. We have 300,000 NEXUS cardholders right now, whereas the goal was one million. So we're behind pace there, and we need to have more NEXUS cardholders. That would take frequent travellers out of the other lanes and put them in the faster lanes and speed up the border.
There's a whole range of things that need to be done immediately. It's moving too slowly.
Conservative
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Williams, I can't resist. You quite rightly mentioned the importance of the World Police and Fire Games, which are being held on the lower mainland this summer. The federal government provided full funding of $1.5 million to the Calgary games and the Quebec City games. We're 150 days out, and so far the government has refused to fund the World Police and Fire Games to be held in the lower mainland of B.C.
Would you not agree that this is an important tourist destination and that the federal government should be providing funding for these games?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Obviously, I think all of the events and festivals that we have in Canada are important. The needs of each are certainly different. I wouldn't know, specifically, where the needs of those world games are compared with other events in Canada, but they are important.
One of the few destinations in Canada this year that did better or outperformed the rest of the destinations in Canada was Quebec City, because of its 400th anniversary. That was a big investment by a number of partners. It helped Quebec City to have a better year than other destinations in the country. It provides evidence that supporting festivals and events—which the government did in its last budget, by announcing $100 million—is important. We need to make sure that it goes to the right events at the right time, for the right things.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you for that.
I would like to come back to the issue of marketing and promotion. We heard pretty stunning testimony on Tuesday that the total federal government allocation for product promotion in the United States market is $3.4 million. That's it, and it's absurd when you think of other countries and how much they invest.
If we take the entire tourism sector—provincial and federal governments, if you're aware of the provincial government figures—how much do we invest in the United States market now for tourism marketing and promotion?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
The total budget of the CTC is $75 million with the extra $40 million. They invest about $20 million of that into the U.S.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
That would be purely tourism marketing and promotion, about $20 million?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
That's correct.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
What you're suggesting is that another $20 million or $30 million needs to be invested in the short term to make people aware of the WHTI.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Correct, but that would be separate from the CTC advertising the Canada brand. I'm speaking specifically there of a communication message on document requirements, which isn't a promotion-of-Canada budget; it's more of a public message.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
I understand. I would suggest--and I think a lot of people would--that $20 million for a market of 260 million to 270 million people is very small.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
When you consider that Las Vegas itself invests $150 million in marketing its destination.... Australia as a country invests $150 million per year, and it's a country two-thirds the size of Canada. We're now investing, thanks to the last budget, $95 million per year--$75 million for base appropriation, plus $10 million for emerging markets and $10 million for domestic markets per year for the next two years. So it's $95 million for the next two years. We're being outpaced by a number of countries in our marketing budget.
You have to create an awareness for Canada. The Olympics are going to be an opportunity for us. There were some funds--$25 million--given for specific Olympic awareness marketing, which is going to be great. The opportunity around the Olympic Games for us is really about the “pre- and post-” and creating a legacy, a reminder to people that Canada is a great place to visit. It's not the 17 days of the games themselves; it's really the legacy, the awareness of Canada as a great destination for two, three, or four years afterwards.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you for that. That's a pretty stark comparison. That's how little we're putting into marketing and promotion.
Is it your opinion that the government has done a sufficient amount of work to flag in both the United States and Canada the possible implications of the WHTI?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Tourism Industry Association of Canada
Bluntly, I've already said to this committee that we haven't invested enough on the awareness of document requirements to Canadians. Certainly I'd like all Canadians to stay in Canada, so if we don't alert Canadians to what's required then that's fine; let's not even issue any passports to Canadians, so we keep them all here. But that's not realistic.
What we really need is Americans to be informed of what documents they need to get into Canada. We haven't done a good enough job with that.
The last budget was certainly a welcome relief for our industry. We had a number of things in there that are going to help us. We just need to be able to roll it out. We needed quicker action on getting this budget in place. On the festivals and events money of $100 million, for example, we won't see any of that until this summer.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Thank you very much for that. Sorry to cut you off, but I have some questions for Ms. George as well.
I appreciated your intervention, particularly on the staffing of the border posts. That's something the NDP has been calling for for some time. They basically shut down dozens of border posts across the country at night. That certainly doesn't help to facilitate tourism, and it helps fuel the trade in illegal guns coming across the border from the United States.
I have two questions for you. I was reading your document around the division for the border. You talked about the new administration. The new administration is preaching fair trade, rather than the old Bush-style unregulated free trade. They are talking about higher environmental, labour, and social standards.
Don't you think we should be mirroring the language that we're hearing in the United States around fair trade issues and looking to approach how the Obama administration is treating those issues?
My second question is around the SPP, the security and prosperity partnership. The SPP was supposedly about border issues, and then it blossomed into this monster that tackled lower standards on pesticide residue and lower safety standards. It went into a whole bunch of areas where most Canadians clearly did not want to see us going. We've heard from the Canadian Council of Chief Executives publicly that the SPP is dead. Do you think this is the opportunity now to put to rest a broader ideological approach and just to focus on the border issues? I think all parties around this table would agree we have to deal with this.
Senior Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
On the issue of fair trade and U.S. interest in including other issues in their trade agreements, we shouldn't view this as a challenge for Canada. Canada already puts environmental and labour clauses in our trade agreements. They're not identical, but very close to what the U.S. is putting into their agreements.
So we're already on the same page on that one, and the language the U.S. has used is really about countries other than Canada. So, yes, of course we need to monitor that. We need to watch it carefully. The notion of including those things is something that Canada is already rightfully doing and the U.S. is doing as well.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
Are they talking about tougher standards and pushing away on chapter 11, the investor state provisions?
Senior Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
It isn't clear to me that this is what the U.S. is necessarily talking about. They won't give chapter 11 investor provisions to any new agreement, but my understanding is that the environmental and labour clauses, what they have negotiated in their recent agreements, is very close to what Canada has negotiated in our recent agreements, so we should be pretty well on the same page.
On SPP, it was an interesting experiment when all the dozens and dozens of things we do with the United States were gathered into one package and looked at as a whole. It did prove the extent of the interaction of all government agencies with their United States counterparts, but it really wasn't more than just collecting the package together. I don't expect the SPP to continue. It's not clear what kind of cooperative approach.... There's still a need for dialogue, of course, between Canada and the U.S. There's also need for dialogue on a trilateral basis, and it's not clear to us at this point how that will continue or whether or not it should focus only on their border.
I think we need to remember the United States has a bigger goal, and we need to be part of the bigger picture for the United States. That's why the work we're doing in Afghanistan and the work we're cooperating with them on for other measures, such as the environment, IMF, etc., is so important.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Lee Richardson
Thank you.
We're going to go now to Mr. Keddy. I understand you're going to share your time with Mr. Holder.
Mr. Keddy.