Industry committee  May I address your first point about how we can strengthen the creative structure?

Industry committee  We are the creators. Screenwriters and directors are the creators. With all due respect, this represents a long-standing difference of opinion between the CMPA and us, but producers are not the creators. A creator is the person who starts with the blank page at home, in their off

Industry committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the committee. My name is Maureen Parker, and I am the Executive Director of the Writers Guild of Canada. With me today is my colleague Neal McDougall, the WGC's Director of Policy. We would like to thank the committee for

Canadian Heritage committee  Sometimes, but it's infrequently; sorry, I'd love it if it were true. We would be talking more often other than just here, so maybe we'll endeavour to talk more.

Canadian Heritage committee  citizen's arrest 3 [Inaudible—Editor]...you did, and you used an L.A. writer in that one.

Canadian Heritage committee  I do have to respond in terms of what we do. I understand what you do is different, but you were saying you want to be considered a cultural industry and have—

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay, I'm sorry.

Canadian Heritage committee  I thought I heard that. I heard CMF access, I heard these things. I guess the point of this is we also employ hundreds of thousands of people. They don't just work for eight months. They work for eight months, and then they start a new job. Again, we're not here just to talk abo

Canadian Heritage committee  I would add that we need a quid pro quo. Whatever we give, we have to receive back.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's 20 years. It seems to me there's a lot of time to get some training done. In some ways, the film and television industry is constantly retraining as well. We now work with green screens, etc. The tech is moving so quickly in our industry that there is always retraining, but

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. I'm only using television as an example because that's what I know, but we do things called co-productions, minority and majority. You work out deals based on who put in more money and you split the financing. We're not saying there can't be any level—I was listening when

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you for the question. We're not envisioning the same system as film and television. I agree with my esteemed colleague, Peter Miller, that we're not talking about a point system and we're not looking at content, as Kelly Lynne was saying, beavers and so forth. What we're

Canadian Heritage committee  To start, I believe that was funded under the old CMF, not the new CMF.

Canadian Heritage committee  Right now, yes, there is at CMF a certain allotment of money for experimental interactive, which is generally where the video games fall, and the rest of the money is allotted to television and what they call convergent content. That's digital content that accompanies television

Canadian Heritage committee  We absolutely understand the need for training in universities and schools. We have many programs in film and television as well. But we do get to a point, as a company, where we can approach, for example, our senior writers. They don't need training. They don't need universities