Canadian Heritage committee  I'm from Waterloo and was actually raised in the Yukon, so this one strikes really close to home in terms of access. Canada has a surprisingly large number of people who live in rural and small-town areas. What I would also suggest we be very careful of is that the Internet is

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, it's interesting. I guess I'm more of a fan of the content side. The distribution system is a very complicated one, and Mr. Hennessy can say more about that. We've had some really good success stories. You've probably heard about Corus Entertainment. Corus Entertainment I

Canadian Heritage committee  My apologies for not being able to speak French effectively. We do have some very real strengths. It's interesting. As a cultural producer, as a content producer, Canada is actually extremely good. We produce way above our weight. We have wonderful filmmakers and novelists and m

Canadian Heritage committee  Obviously I'm a big fan of that. I think we need to take some real national risks. We basically dance around looking for a perfectly guaranteed solution, and we're not going to find one. This is a very fast-moving area. Just to use Taiwan as an example, they decided about 15 ye

Canadian Heritage committee  Mr. Chair and members, thank you very much for the chance to speak to you. As you know, the University of Waterloo is very heavily engaged in digital media production and new technologies. I'd like to present my comments to you in three areas--opportunities, challenges, and next

National Defence committee  Quickly, I think what you'll see is the Government of Canada representing the government and the people of Canada, as they have in the past. It will be with the kinds of consultations and discussions you've had. There will be times when there's lots of time for discussion and tim

National Defence committee  It's an interesting question. Sovereignty is the legal, technical, constitutional issue of who owns what land, and we have a sovereignty issue about where the continental shelf is. You've heard all the UNCLOS debates and that kind of stuff. That's a question of where it is, of wh

National Defence committee  I would just encourage you, as you look at these challenges, to remember that part of the solution lies in getting everybody to participate. The solution is not always governments coming in and giving more money for more things. If this is a national priority, then all Canadians

National Defence committee  You guys ask really great questions—this is wonderful. How do you monitor and reconcile these things? It's a hard challenge. Tourism is one of the fastest ways of bringing resources, money, and jobs into a community, but it's environmentally disruptive if you don't do it properl

National Defence committee  There's no question that the money will help. I was talking to some folks from the Arctic Institute shortly after they received some of the funding, and they were absolutely delighted. They were describing the new research activities that would actually go on as a consequence of

National Defence committee  I would say that Canada lacks a long-term vision for the Arctic. This government has done a fair bit in the last little while, more than we've had in previous decades, to be sure. But I think the country is not quite sure what to do with the Arctic as a whole. I think it's a much

National Defence committee  Is that for me or for...?

National Defence committee  These are very excellent and very challenging questions. There are huge differences, differences in the economic foundation, the oil and gas resources that go from northern Alberta up to the Beaufort Sea. We set very different agendas and very different possibilities than what th

National Defence committee  Yes. Quite frankly, it's a major change in mindset. I'm worried right now. The historian in me says that we're in a period of time where we're having these meetings and talking about Arctic sovereignty, but let's assume we have three years of really cold weather, the Russian expl

National Defence committee  Thank you very much for a whole series of great questions. We should be looking at our existing assets. We have facilities across the region. It's interesting that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has taken a strong interest in exactly this issue. Their concern is that