Canadian Heritage committee  I do. I think if you left it solely to the grassroots without giving visionary direction, you might lose the opportunity to seize this incredible time in our history to achieve greater things. The grassroots, as I've said, are critically important. But if we, as a country, have a

Canadian Heritage committee  I'd like to speak in French, but...

Canadian Heritage committee  I think I will go back to the vision of what we were trying to achieve. When you talk about multiculturalism and engagements, celebrating our incredible geographical and cultural diversity, you can achieve so much. I think it's no different from when a company is thinking about h

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll start. I love where you are going. There is nothing like history for children and children of tomorrow. We're probably about the same age—I'm thinking about 1967. A long time ago, I was a high school teacher. Education is our future. Education is power and is such a part o

Canadian Heritage committee  I would say that it goes back to the vision. What are the objectives? It starts there with the federal government figuring out what we are trying to achieve. I can't stress enough the importance of that as your starting point, because that gives you your direction for all else, q

Canadian Heritage committee  Are you talking about corporate sponsorship?

Canadian Heritage committee  The total budget for the games was $1.3 billion.

Canadian Heritage committee  $1.6 billion.

Canadian Heritage committee  Are you talking specifically of the torch relay, or the games in total?

Canadian Heritage committee  Community was very important to us. We knew that we could not achieve what we wanted to achieve by ourselves. It took all kinds and all levels, whether it was government, corporate partners, community, or sports. So we engaged very much at all levels of the communities. How did

Canadian Heritage committee  It's a great question. In today's world, companies have a stronger accountability requirement, if you will, to the board of directors, so they're scrutinizing dollars that they spend, investments that they make. They need to understand the return on investments. Our approach wi

Canadian Heritage committee  It's tremendously important, tremendously important. When we started in the bid, we formed a group called Legacies Now, so if we won or if we lost the right to host the games, there would be a minimum $5 million investment back into the community. We brought that forward into the

Canadian Heritage committee  I think there's a great fit. There are a lot of anniversaries, whether it's CIBC's 150th, our 150th, Quebec's 375th. At the end of the day, what's important is the ability and the strategy going in to create an opportunity for everybody to connect. Whether it's Quebec, B.C., or N

Canadian Heritage committee  Absolutely. Without question, it would be a strong recommendation if I were sitting in your seat. Engagement, as we've talked about, is the key--engagement, inclusivity of provinces across the board. Somebody said to me the other day, and I hadn't appreciated it, that when Jean-

Canadian Heritage committee  That's a great question. We had the requirement for 25,000 volunteers and we probably had double that in applications. There was a very strong sense of volunteerism right across the country. We've got all the numbers. It wasn't concentrated and it was tremendously high. Then the