CHPC Committee Meeting

     We'll get started. Welcome, everybody. Good morning.

     This is the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage's first meeting on our study of Canada's 150th anniversary, and we're all quite interested to embark on this study. I think we have a great panel here today to kickstart us on our study of the 150th.

    We have Andrea Shaw, who is the founder and managing partner of Twentyten Group, but she was the vice-president, sponsorship sales and marketing, for the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, of which we are all so very proud as Canadians. It's nice that you could be here with us, Andrea.

    We also have Dr. Keith Neuman, from Environics Research. They have done a survey of Canadians on the subject of Canada's 150th anniversary, so we're interested in hearing from you, Dr. Neuman.

    As well, we have with us someone who's literally written the book on 1967, Dr. Helen Davies, who's an independent scholar. She has written a book on the subject we'd like to reflect on. We're very glad that you could be here with us today.

    The way the committee works is you'll each be given ten minutes, if necessary, for opening comments, and then we begin questions and answers. In the first round there are seven minutes for the question and the answer, back and forth, before we move on to the next person. In the second round it's five minutes.

    With that, we'll just go to Andrea Shaw.

     Thank you very much, honourable chairman and committee members. It's a pleasure to be here today.

    As the chairman said, in my former role I spent ten years on the Vancouver Organizing Committee, first on the bid as we were bidding, and then with the organizing committee. The ten years were fantastic, and my responsibility as vice-president of sponsorship and sales was to raise all the corporate money to offset the operating budget of the games. I was also responsible for the development and strategy and the execution of the torch relays.

    Today I've been asked to focus on the torch relays and corporate partnerships, which I will do. I'm excited to be here because it takes me back to 2001, when we had this dream of celebrating and winning the right to host the games, and then really looking to engage Canada. And we sat down and thought, how are we going to do this? The starting place, which is where I think the healthiness of forming this committee is, is the critical starting point for us to form a vision, to form a very clear vision.

    I probably would not have joined the organization had it not been for their vision of our games. We wanted them to be Canada's games. I was not going to join the organization simply to host a two-week sporting Olympic event and a one-week Paralympic event. It was going to be more than that. If we won the right to host the games we had the opportunity to engage Canadians, to inspire our youth. And we very clearly, in the early days--and that was 2001, so nine years in advance of the games--formulated the vision.

    In 2003, as you know, we won the right to host the games, and that thrust us into really solidifying that vision. That vision was absolutely to walk the Olympic spirit through the homes of all Canadians. We were very clear about that vision.

    My encouragement to the committee for the celebration of the 150th anniversary is that before you start thinking about program parts, it's essential and critical that you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Your vision will form the foundation and the platform. It will weave the DNA into all the programs that you ultimately do.

    That's what we did when we sat down and started to talk about what Canada's games mean; how we could achieve that goal of engaging the nation, inspiring our youth, and bringing future generations into the fold and bringing about a sense of pride and patriotism. In the bid we did a lot of research and we asked Canadians what success would look like to them in 2010. Canadians told us a couple of things, but a few rose to the top: we would welcome the world like never before, we would be Canada together welcoming the world, and we would host flawless games. The other thing that rose to the top was that our athletes would be supported and they would get to the podium. So we knew what Canadians wanted that would make the pride surge.

    So off we went. We had our vision and then obviously the next step was to put the strategic plan together. As we all know, the strategic plan combines all aspects of program elements. What were we going to do, specifically, to achieve this? That's the stage this committee will be heading into, to create that vision and that strategic plan.

    One aspect I'll focus on was the torch relays, for which I was responsible. We sat down and decided that program was a critical aspect of achieving our greater vision of engaging Canada. Again, this program unto itself was just one aspect, one component of our overall vision. But it was a very big component, as hopefully most of you saw the flame come through your communities.

    We started the planning and the visioning for the torch relay in 2004, six years in advance of the games. Planning takes a lot of time. Obviously when we planned properly and created the vision, we knew what we wanted to achieve.

     So I got a team together that was going to lead the torch relay, and we mapped out where the relay would go. We were quite excited, because as we all know, this fantastic country of ours is large. We were determined to reach 80% of all Canadians. We mapped a route on which 80% of Canadians would be within a one-hour drive. We were pretty proud of that plan. We went in and presented, and the leader—as many as you probably know, John Furlong, said: “What about the other 20%? Andrea, we have to go coast to coast to coast; we have to get to more Canadians than 80%.” The end result of our torch relay was that we reached the point that more than 95% of all Canadians were within a one-hour drive.

    That takes planning and thinking. The planning that went into the torch relays and into the way we engaged the nation was through focus groups across the country. We talked to all stakeholder groups. From tourism to aboriginals to athletes, we polled people across the country as to what this torch relay would look like. We looked at such things as inclusivity; we looked at all aspects. We knew that if this was to be engaging enough to engage Canadians, we had to get right into the roots of Canada: we had to get into municipalities and small communities; we had to have government involved at all levels, municipal, provincial, and federal; we needed to engage the nation at all levels from coast to coast to coast. That's what we went about in our planning. It took six years to plan that torch relay and be able to go out and flawlessly execute the plan.

    As many of you know, the torch relay was the longest torch relay in Olympic history. It lasted 106 days, and every day we had two celebrations, a lunchtime celebration and a nighttime celebration. As you all know, when the torch arrived from Greece and we travelled around and across the country, that torch touched over 95% of Canadians.

    You can imagine that in the smallest community the Olympic day was the day that the torch passed through their community. Every day, twice a day, those celebrations were their Olympics. My team of more than 250 people had to put on their A game every day, because every celebration was an Olympic Games to the community we were in. As I sit here and recount, I am shivering. Every day people thought, we'll come out with a jump start, and then it will calm down. On not one of those 106 days were people not lining the streets. People in wheelchairs were wheeling out of hospitals at 5:00 in the morning. We witnessed in the dark of the night young kids, old senior citizens, people of all ages with flags lining the streets as the flame would go through communities, from one to the next to the next.

    As you can imagine, my team.... Operationally I knew we were sound; I had an unbelievable team. But who motivates the motivators? I was on and off that relay making sure of the emotional side of my team, who were working day in and day out, including Christmas Day—and I was with them on Christmas Day. They worked tirelessly, but I had to make sure, as you will for the team that puts together this production for the 150th birthday, that the team were flawless in their strategy and their execution.

    We know the results of that torch relay. By the time the torch reached Vancouver, this country was galvanized from coast to coast to coast. But It takes time and planning.

     The last area of importance that I want to touch upon is the critical role of corporate partnerships. Corporate partnerships played a vital role.

    We can't say that the people who were in VANOC were the cause of the success of the games. No, it was about all of us. It was about government partners; it was about our corporate partners. Our corporate and government partners played a critical role in the funding. We like to say that we got out of the sponsorship game and into the partnership game.

    Our target when we submitted our bid book to Prague was to raise $453 million in corporate partnerships. Many thought we were crazy: how could we ever raise that kind of money through corporate partnerships in Canada? As you know, as we won and did the budgets over, the budget went to including $765 million that we had to raise in corporate partnerships—and during the recession of 2008—and we did it.

    How? We did it by forming strategic partnerships. We formed partnerships with companies that had like visions and values to ours, and in our whole Canada game strategy, which was our vision, we knew that the Bells and the RBCs of the world wanted to align with something that included their customers from coast to coast to coast, which is essentially how and why we were able to raise that kind of money to support both the games and the torch relay.

     I close my ten minutes just saying that the parallels between our games and the celebration of our 150th anniversary are very close. But in summary, the critical aspects are to ensure that government create a vision that is solid and clear and directional, because what that vision does is put your stakes in the ground, whereby you spend money that is important to achieve your vision and don't spend money on aspects that are not going to help you achieve your vision. And it is critical that your strategic plan be done well in advance.

    I'd suggest that today's date is a very timely point for this committee to get off the ground and start informing the process for an incredible anniversary in 2017. I believe that as we look back to the past.... I remember 1967, with my passport, as a young child, and to this day—I was very young—it resonates with me.

    We think of what the games did to unleash the pride in Canadians. Imagine what we can do in 2017 while we bring the events of the past and those generations that are still with us from the past and take that product and infuse the younger generations, so that we can absolutely harness what was done in the games, what has been done in our past, and add that equity to a brilliant celebration in 2017 that we can all take forward and thus make Canada an even better place than it is today.

    Thank you.

    Thank you, Andrea.

    You guys did a fabulous job on the torch relay. Many of us were able to be at those relays in our communities. They were really top-notch. I can see how you were able to motivate the motivators, because you seem still quite motivated. That's great to see.

    Dr. Neuman.

     That's a tough act to follow. Well done.

    Thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning.

    As was indicated, I want to talk about a bit of public opinion research that was done in conjunction with an event held here in Ottawa in March of 2010, a conference on 150 Canada organized by MASS LBP and IPAC. The purpose of that conference was to start a dialogue among a lot of key opinion leaders in this country about how the country should proceed to celebrate 2017. The idea came about to do a public opinion poll as part of that, simply to extend the dialogue a bit beyond the boundaries of that particular event and hear from other Canadians.

    In the few minutes that I have, I would just like to speak briefly about that survey. I believe that copies of the presentation deck have been circulated. I will just touch the highlights.

     The premise of doing this research is that Canadians overall like know-how and like to celebrate important occasions, and I certainly think the experience from the Vancouver Olympics as well as Expo suggests that perhaps Canadians do. The notion was to go a little beyond that and understand a little more in 2010.

    A national survey was done by Environics for the conference, a very modest survey as these things go, just 1,000 Canadians across the country by telephone in February. The survey was sponsored by MasterCard, which was willing to front costs.

    Three themes or questions were addressed in this survey. The first, and I know Helen will speak to this, is what do Canadians remember about 1967 and the centennial celebrations? How do Canadians think we should celebrate the 150th? And finally, who do they think is responsible for making that happen? So those were the three broad questions this research went into.

    Again, we'll hear more about this, but in answer to the first question, about the centennial, quite clearly, as Andrea indicated, many Canadians have very fond and very strong memories of 1967 and the centennial celebrations. About one-third of Canadians remember directly what was there, like Andrea and I'm sure Helen, and another quarter remember from hearing about it from other people. Those numbers would be higher if you factored out all the people who had come to Canada since that time who obviously weren't here. I count myself among them.

    We ask people what they remembered most about the centennial celebrations, and the thing that stood out most was Expo 67. Perhaps that's not surprising. There are various memories about it, as you might expect. Perhaps more importantly, we asked people in the survey, if they remembered it, what were the feelings that the centennial or Expo 67 brought to mind? Do you still have those feelings? The feelings were all very positive. It was pride, pride in Canada, joy, happiness. There was very little negative emotion. What's striking is that going back that many years, people who were there even as young children still had vivid emotional memories. It may be that emotional connection is the most important.

    Turning to the second question--perhaps an obvious one, but we wanted to ask it--we asked Canadians how important it is to celebrate the 150th anniversary coming up in 2017. Our guess is that most Canadians either weren't aware of that or weren't thinking about it when we called them, so it wasn't exactly a top-of-mind issue we were asking about. Almost half of Canadians, 49%, said it's very important that we celebrate this in some kind of meaningful way. Very few said it wasn't important. Perhaps those people were having a bad day.

    What's also important is to look at that across important subgroups of the population, for instance by age. Those people who remember Expo are thinking we should do this again. You'd expect them to put a priority on this. But what about the millenials? What about the young generation? Do they really care whether we celebrate an old birthday like this? We found in the survey that those 18 to 29 put almost as much importance on this kind of celebration as those 65 and over.

    Clearly this is not a generational issue. It's not just for the older folks to celebrate. We looked at it by income. Perhaps only those people who are higher up in the socio-economic spectrum can think about this sort of thing. But no, even those people at the lower end, with less education and income also felt this was important. I think this was borne out perhaps in the response to the torch relay that Andrea was talking about, that you have all sectors of society coming out.

     Finally, we also looked at it by first language, and as you might expect, there seems a bit more enthusiasm among anglophones than francophones. There are historic reasons for that, and perhaps that shouldn't be surprising. What is surprising is that new Canadians, those people that we define as allophones—whose first language was not English or French, who for the most part came to this country from somewhere else—were even more enthusiastic than anglophones. Even though this was their adopted country, they were feeling that this was a very important event to celebrate.

    We asked Canadians what they thought about Canada was worth celebrating with this birthday. This was an open-ended question. We didn't want to feed ideas ito them that they would just parrot back to us on the survey. We came out with a number of key themes. The one theme that was front and centre in what ought to be celebrated were Canada's beliefs and values, however those were defined; followed by people in history, notable achievements, role in the world, and finally, natural resources.

    These were the broad types of issues that people came up with out of their own minds when we asked the question. What's important here is that people weren't studying for this before we called them for the survey. This was their spontaneous reaction. As for some of the specific things that were mentioned in response to this question, number one was multiculturalism and welcoming people from other countries.

    It may be surprising, but maybe not. When we asked Canadians how this birthday should be celebrated, that was one of the things that came out. It's consistent with other research that we've done indicating that this is one of the strongest sources of pride in this country today. They cited the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, natural beauty and resources, aboriginal history and culture, and a peaceful country.

    Some of the things that we might have expected to be sources of pride in Canada, and sources of celebration, weren't quite so significant. The heath care system was mentioned by 4%; peacekeeping, 3%; bilingualism, 2%; social programs, 1%; hockey, 1%. It's not that people don't embrace hockey, but it was not very closely tied to celebrating our 150th.

    Also on the survey, we wanted to present a number of concepts to get people's reactions to things that the country might do to celebrate. We had a list of 10 to 12 different items, or different ways, and we basically asked people, “Do you think this is a great way to celebrate, an okay way, or not so good”?

    I won't go through all the details, but the one that garnered the most interest was scholarship programs to help students go to college and university. About 51% thought that was a great way to celebrate the 150th. Community events, local culture, new improved infrastructure, travel programs, national events—most people thought these were all fine ideas, but some generated more excitement than others.

    Finally, who is responsible for making sure that an appropriate celebration takes place? We presented about five different key actors, and asked what role they had to play. All five were seen as playing an important role, but front and centre was the federal government, most widely seen as having the biggest role to play. This is not at all surprising, given that this is something that's of national scope, and something that Canadians have typically looked to governments to play a leadership role in, if not a sole role.

    If I were interpreting these numbers, I would conclude that it's not that Canadians are looking for just the federal government to take this on, but they're looking for the federal government to make sure that all the pieces are in place and the supports are there, and that the other partners are brought on board.

    Are people interested in participating? We're talking about something happening seven years down the road. They have no idea what it's going to be, but 37% said they were very interested in participating in whatever it is, sight unseen. Most of the rest are somewhat interested.

    It's striking that, given how vague and long-term this is, there is some clear interest. Similarly, in regard to interest in volunteering, we know something from VANOC, and probably from Expo, where perhaps there were a lot of people volunteering. Over 50% felt that they would in principle be definitely or likely willing to volunteer in some capacity over time. It suggests that many Canadians are not simply looking to be passive.

    To conclude, there are four points I want to close on that I think we've learned from this rather modest piece of research. The first is that 1967 centennial is still alive for many Canadians in a very meaningful way. It has not disappeared into the distance of history.

    The second point is that Canadians grasp that 2017 is something important. Even though they haven't been thinking about it, spontaneously they're thinking, “Yes, that's a big birthday. We really ought to do something, and we want it to mean something.”

    Third, the Olympics have demonstrated that even in this age of globalization and skepticism and everything else, Canadians know how to celebrate something and do it right.

     Finally, for the most part, for the average Canadian, or even most people, 150 is still kind of a blank slate. People haven't thought about it. They know it's important. When they hear about it, they want something done. But there are very few fixed ideas about what that ought to be.

    There are two implications. One, don't go looking for input or direction from the public now to tell you what to do, but there's a certain openness to seeing how this will unfold. There's an opportunity to create a vision for this that people will buy into, but if you do create that kind of vision, people will buy into it.

    Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Dr. Neuman. Your very timely study and research certainly will give us food for thought as we move ahead.

    Dr. Davies, over to you.

     Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members, for the opportunity to appear before the committee this morning as you embark on your study in preparation for the 150th, also known as the sesquicentennial.

    I am pleased to be here this morning to make remarks about lessons learned from the 1967 centennial celebrations.

    As you've heard from some of the other speakers, Canadians marked the 100th anniversary of Confederation with extraordinary enthusiasm and pride. They participated in great numbers in the official pan-Canadian events.

    For example, it's estimated that two and half million Canadians visited the Canadian train that, I suppose like the torch relay, wove its way across Canada, visiting 63 communities. Hundreds of young Canadians across the country took advantage of travel exchange programs. People attended cultural performances organized through the Festival Canada program, or turned out to watch the ever-popular RCMP musical ride or the armed forces military tattoo.

    However, even more Canadians participated in local grassroots activities. They were encouraged to celebrate the centennial in their own particular fashion and express a sense of national pride. They did express that national pride in astonishing and, I would say, very creative ways.

    They participated in neighbourhood beautification projects. They knitted centennial toques. They planned dances. They sponsored sports tournaments, hosted youth exchanges, organized parades, and participated in such events as the voyageur canoe pageant, where nine provinces and the Yukon territory fielded pageant crews and paddled 3,283 miles over a four-month period, arriving at Expo '67 in September. The Manitoba team won the purse.

    Everyone was invited to the centennial.

    As you appreciate, the 1960s was a decade of considerable social change, as evidenced by a growing youth culture and women's movement. New voices surfaced. There was a shifting national dialogue. During this period of social transition--and political transition--the centennial afforded an opportunity for Canadians to join together collectively and redefine their membership in a larger group.

    Marvelling at the extraordinary level of public involvement, one participant remarked that “...something intangible happened. All sorts of barriers between people--social, religious, and so on--seemed to break down when people started working...on Centennial projects.” As we've heard from Dr. Neuman, the centennial continues to endure in the minds of Canadians.

    Large-scale events like the centennial and the 2010 Olympics can serve as powerful tools of symbol and spectacle as they help focus public attention and generate positive excitement as people join together to celebrate collectively. However, there is not always consensus as to the what, the why, or the how of celebration. Organizers of large events like the centennial sometimes opt to move away from overly prescriptive models, choosing instead to instill a sense of shared values and common bonds, which I think is reflected in some of what you were hearing in your survey.

    For example, centennial organizers worked to promote a vision of a unified, strong nation during a period of social change. They also succeeded in creating a space for dialogue and a consideration of difference.

     However, not wanting to simply promote what one senior official referred to as a “formless jumble of individual events”, they did recognize the value of articulating some themes. They were also cognizant of the view that the year-long celebration should not focus solely on the past or the political act of Confederation. It was about moving into a new future.

    Also, there was a sense that “the official side of the Centennial programme should not dominate to the point where grass-roots participation [was] hampered...”. Success depended on the ability to plan events and create an atmosphere that invited a broad range of interpretations and created opportunity for involvement.

    Rather than impose one vision of the “what” and “how” of celebration and commemoration, organizers supported an array of perspectives. Whether it was designing a UFO landing pad in St. Paul, in northern Alberta, to welcome unexpected guests, or racing bathtubs from Nanaimo to Vancouver, was actually of little consequence; the centennial commission simply asked one thing of Canadians--to get involved and to do something to commemorate the centennial.

     These milestone moments afford important opportunities for reflection, reconnection, and rededication to a greater sense of purpose. However, organizers acknowledge that they couldn't control every aspect of the celebration. They did decentralize the actual execution of many of the projects, leaving local centennial committees, service groups, businesses, and more often than not individual citizens to plan events in their respective communities.

    This was unsettling for some, as there was concern that this approach could serve to intensify regional loyalties and undermine a primary goal of the centennial, which was to use it as a mechanism to reinforce a sense of shared identity and national unity. There were occasions during the centennial when Canadians disagreed, or at least held different perspectives and opinions. However, in retrospect, worries over any perceived risks were not borne out, and it could be argued that the differences of opinion served to enrich the centennial experience, as they generated a national dialogue.

    The federal government played a key leadership role—as we've heard, that's the expectation of Canadians—in developing and managing a pan-Canadian framework that focused attention on disseminating and promoting ideals and values, like national unity and patriotism. In support of the framework, staff organized an ambitious public relations campaign that made full use of the print press, film, documentaries, radio, television, as well as those key anchor events that you've heard referenced—Expo 67--which for some is synonymous with the centennial, but they are distinct events. Then there were the centennial caravans and trains that, like the torch, wove their way across the country.

    The centennial served as a platform for Canadians to better understand that there was not one singular authentic Canadian experience. Rather, there were many stories and experiences to share. As I talk to people and get a sense of those endearing memories, that was a very rich element of the centennial experience: this sharing and connection was a key outcome of the celebration. An inclusive planning process that builds on a national framework and incorporates the creativity of non-governmental actors, combined with a genuine effort to support and balance numerous interests and a willingness to support local grassroots activities, are lessons we can take away from the centennial.

    By not designing an overly prescripted event, the centennial organizers found a path forward that in many instances served to strengthen existing relationships and forge new ones. Canadians took time to celebrate their own personal and collective stories, painting a picture of a vibrant, dynamic country coming of age.

    On hand to officiate at an official Christmas of Light ceremony in Simcoe, Ontario, one official thanked members of the community for all their hard work and said, “It is one thing for governments to organize programs, even for people to respond to programs...”, and he noted that “...the real measure of 1967 goes well beyond that to the thousands of projects undertaken by the people themselves.” In his view, people celebrated “not because they had to but because they wanted to”.

    The centennial continues to evoke proud memories, with participants speaking genuinely and compellingly about what was evidently an important and defining moment for them. Many who were children at the time remember Bobby Gimby's song—I won't sing it—Ca-na-da. It's on the record now; I'm singing. They recall a family visit to Expo 67 or the train and caravan exhibit.

    When a friend found out I was doing my dissertation on the centennial, he proudly dug away in a cupboard and found a centennial medal he was given as a child at school. One woman, who is now middle-aged, spoke fondly about participating in a travel exchange, where she traveled from northern Alberta to Newfoundland. She said it was a transformative experience.

    It's evident that the centennial had a lasting impact. There's value in reflecting on this accomplishment as this committee starts the planning for the sesquicentennial, the 150th.

    Thanks for your time.

    Thank you, Dr. Davies. I don't think our study would have been complete without your input.

    Now we'll start our question and answer period. Our first person up is Mr. Armstrong.

    Thank you.

    I want to thank all three of you for your presentations. I think this is a very important study we're doing, and I appreciate your comments that we're starting at the right time.

    When you said you planned for the Olympics for ten years, we're already a few years behind that, so it kind of scared me. But I think we're going to be all right, and we can learn a lot of lessons from presentations like these as we move along in our study.

    Dr. Davies, as I mentioned to you before, I'm going to read your book. I wanted to read some of it last night but I couldn't do it. But I am going to read your book, and I hope we all engage in it.

    One of the important things I think we need to study is not only what worked in 1967, but did anything not work. Were there any programs or aspects of the planning that didn't go well?

     Thank you.

    I've actually been reflecting upon this question and anticipating that this might come up. My sense is that planners and community organizers did much right during the 100th anniversary. Did anything go wrong? Did they miss anything? I'm sure if you talk to people across Canada, there's always room for improvement. Perhaps there's a greater opportunity for dialogue or more programming, I'm not sure. But generally I would say the 100th anniversary of 1967 was a tremendous success and there was much that was done right.

    One of the things you focused on was kind of a citizen-driven paradigm, from the ground up, that was established. It really takes leadership right from the top to establish that as the theme of any large event. It's either going to be from the top down or it's going to be grassroots led.

    I think what you emphasized in what you presented to us today is that one of the things that worked was the fact that we had engagement all across the country because they had the power to be engaged. They had actual directional control of events in the local communities. Am I correct in saying that's one of your major themes here?

    I think that's a very fair conclusion, absolutely.

    Great, thank you very much.

    I'm going to move on to Dr. Neuman.

    First, thank you for doing this research. I think it's going to be of great help to us.

    One of the things I'm confused about when I look at the numbers you presented was we have across the board in all age groups about 80% engagement in this process--they're looking forward to it or have some engagement or care about this. Then when you look at the numbers regionally, Quebec's a lot lower. Can you balance that for me?

    It would seem if it was that high across the country, how can Quebec be as low as 60%? Or were there two different questions that led to different answers there?

     I guess we'd have to look at which specific question you're looking at. Again, the interest in the 150th isn't as high in Quebec as it is in other parts of the country. Most of the numbers in the presentation deck are the national numbers, so they do even out a little bit. It's clearly stronger among people outside of Quebec, but it's a matter of degree.

    If you want me to speak to a specific question, I can dig through the numbers here, but let me know.

    It's really that national questions and questions that were specifically asked could derive some different answers? There is some diversity there?

    I guess my conclusion would be for the main conclusions. I think the main conclusions apply in all regions of the country, but there's a matter of degree. So the level of interest, if you look across the country, the one region where there is less interest is in Quebec, compared to the other places. But you wouldn't draw a different conclusion in Quebec from elsewhere; it's just that the level of interest isn't as strong.

    I hope that answers your question.

    It does. Thank you.

    I'm going to use that to talk to Mrs. Shaw. In the Vancouver Olympics, I'm supposing, because it was a winter Olympics and Quebec is so involved in winter sports, you didn't see that at the beginning of your study. It was probably straight engagement all across the country and your polling probably showed that.

    Yes.

    Quebec was absolutely engaged from the get-go. One of the things we did that has not been done in prior games--Calgary and Montreal--is we had every province participate as a distinct partner. So we had MOUs with everybody, and Quebec was the first to sign on. They've got a tremendous number of athletes, as we all know, and they are very representative, but they were absolutely encouraged from the get-go.

    As we move forward as part of this study, one of our recommendations could be that we have to make sure we follow a similar path where we do MOUs with the particular provinces, and probably we would make Quebec a centrepiece of that or a point of emphasis just to make sure. Because if there's any place that isn't quite as engaged at the beginning of this process, it is them.

    Would that be something we could recommend?

    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-Luc Brassard won his gold medal in the 1994 Winter Olympics and he came back home there was a bit of rumbling, which I hadn't appreciated, because he had a Canadian flag on. When you saw the first gold medal come in our games, that was absolutely dissipated.

    So I think as a nation we've evolved on this note you're concentrating on, and we are a nation and Quebec is moving right in there with us.

     Back to Dr. Davies, one of the things I think was striking from the research was the emphasis given on some sort of nationwide scholarship program, promoting academics, promoting post-secondary involvement. I think there are probably literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians across the country who participated in that. Do you see that as something we could engage in again as part of sesquicentennial?

    I think whenever there is an opportunity to implement a program or an initiative that has a legacy feature and has a lasting impact, that helps to ensure that enduring memory of the event.

    Thank you.

    I have one more question for Ms. Shaw. We've heard from Dr. Neuman that I think 57% of people have an interest in volunteering and becoming part of this actively. Where does that compare to what you were experiencing when you starting the planning for the Olympics?

    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 there was a very small drop-off rate. We learned from past games to have extras in the event that volunteers drop off. There was a tendency in the past, historically, to do so. We had very small drop-off rates during our games.

    At what point did you actually starting recruiting volunteers?

    Mr. Armstrong, we'll get around to another one. Your seven and a half minutes are up.

    Mr. Benskin.

    Thank you all for your presentations.

    Ms. Shaw, you were really quite inspiring. You made me want to go out and do something. I don't know what.

    A voice: Today? I'm not sure.

    Mr. Tyrone Benskin: Even today. That's how inspiring you were.

    I guess my first question is for you, or all of you may be able to pipe in, Ms. Davies as well.

    I've said before in front of this committee that I moved here as a young man in 1968, but the energy from Expo 67 was still palpable. It was actually quite instrumental, because it had then started the process of switching from Expo 67 to Man and His World. I don't know when the actual sort of takeover of name was, but I remember that. I remember going every year. It was quite instrumental when I was a young man in forming my opinions of Canada and making me the flag-waver that I am now.

    For this 150th anniversary, for that kind of residual—and you said legacy application—how important do you think the kind of work is that needs to be done to create something that will continue to give for years to come?

    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 games, and Legacies Now lives on to this very day.

    Legacy was a very big part of our strategy and our thinking in our initial vision. And there were lots of legacies, but the legacies go beyond bricks and mortar.

    I would suggest that, as important as it is for our games and especially for the 150th anniversary, the human legacy that's left behind—that intangible legacy that you can't see—is an intangible but it is profoundly powerful. As you've seen from our games, the human spirit of Canadians was palpable, and still is when we go and speak in communities across the country, which I do quite often.

    So when we're thinking about this, I think that the legacy for thinking beyond 2017 is absolutely fundamental to the success that this will be, because if we do it properly the past will inject to the future for a better Canada, and there's nothing more powerful than a human legacy.

    Ms. Davies, would you like to add to that?

     With respect to Expo, I certainly think, given what I've heard people say about it and their memories of it, that it was an extremely critical anchor event. It was something that galvanized the nation. People felt tremendously proud of it. I've said the world visited Canada and Canadians visited the world, all in Montreal. For many people, it was the first time they had been in a francophone cultural environment. I know friends and family from the west coast who visited. It was a tremendously enriching experience.

    I also think that what made Expo unique from perhaps expos that happen now is expos now are more what I would consider a trade show kind of content. I think that Expo 67, and I didn't have the privilege of attending Expo, as my family immigrated to Canada the year after.... But just to show how the messages transpired, I understand my parents were bitterly disappointed that they had missed Expo by a number of months, because we arrived in Montreal and they had really been looking forward to it. But there was a sense of learning and sharing and a sense of connection.

    I think it was this idea of a hub where people came together and met and shared something profound. That's the legacy, and I agree.

    When I started doing my work on my dissertation, I couldn't wait to go to Île Ste. Hélène and see the Buckyball, trying to envision what it had been like.

    Thank you.

    My colleague had mentioned about making Quebec a centrepiece in the celebration, how important that would be to bring up that participation level. As some of you may know, that same year is Montreal's 375th anniversary. Again, as an open question to anybody, how do you feel that could tie in to the 150th anniversary of Canada as far as bringing up the level of participation and excitement in Quebec?

    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 Nova Scotia, that initial vision and strategy provides the ability to connect and engage at the grassroots level and up, with the government leading the way and providing the leadership for that engagement. That's what will be paramount to its success.

    Dr. Neuman, from the survey that you did, there seems to be a strong emphasis on celebrating ourselves. Expo 67 was a celebration of ourselves, but it was really an invitation to the world. I'm deriving from these numbers that people are really interested in saying good job, Canada, that the legacy is pride in Canada. The numbers that you have about multiculturalism, the numbers you have about grants and loans and bursaries and so forth for students.... Would you say that's a fair assessment, that we should focus on celebrating ourselves and doing things in a way that says happy birthday, Canada, to ourselves and invite people to the party?

    I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're drawing. So if you could just clarify....

    For Expo 67, I got the sense it was more of an outreach; it was come and see us, world. I'm deriving, and maybe wrongly, from these numbers that Canadians are saying happy birthday, Canada, and let's do something for ourselves as well.

     Okay, I understand.

    This was not that extensive a survey. I think some of the questions were framed in a way that perhaps it might be understandable if people were thinking it's a birthday, and what we should commemorate. I think the focus theme does come out in terms of our country's having a birthday, and we should commemorate that with something about our country. I think that's probably the first thought people are having.

    Keep in mind that this is not a topic most Canadians have been thinking about actively. It hasn't been discussed very much in the media. There hasn't been much ground developed on this, certainly last year and even this year. I think the focus in terms of the people's responses are mostly about not necessarily patting ourselves on the back, but what do we have to be grateful for? What is it we like about this country, love about this country? What about it has been good? That clearly comes out.

    However, as I said in my presentation, people's views about how this should be done are not fixed. Even though they may remember the Olympics, they may remember Expo 67 in some sense, I certainly don't get the sense that anybody's thinking that this is the model, this is how it has to be. I think people aren't really quite sure. They want something to happen, and if they were presented with the notion of this also being a great way to invite the world in, as with Expo, my guess is that people would probably be very open to that.

     I think the field is pretty open in terms of these different dimensions. If that were something that is sort of part of a vision, my guess is that it would be popular, provided that it wasn't just that. I think people do want to celebrate what they like about this country, and what they appreciate, so I think that probably needs to be part of it as well.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Hsu.

    It's a different order in every committee.

    I hope I pronounced your name correctly.

    Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you very much for coming here today.

    My first question is for Dr. Davies. I was wondering if you could tell us a bit about how the federal government's organizational effort was structured in 1967. The name Peter Aykroyd comes to mind. Right?

    Yes. Peter Aykroyd wrote a book about the centennial. He was the director of public relations, so he was a senior official with the centennial commission.

    The way the governance structure worked from a federal perspective was that there was the centennial commission, which by 1966 had a staff complement of about 230 people, with a variety of responsibilities overseeing a range of events, some of which I have referenced here today. There was a commissioner, John Fisher, an associate commissioner, Mr. Gauthier, and a series of officials.

    There was also the centennial administration conference, I believe, that afforded an opportunity for the federal government to work with the provincial and territorial governments planning events. Then there were centennial committees in communities all across Canada at the grassroots level.

    So the centennial commission, working with provincial, territorial, and municipal governments, played a very instrumental role in establishing the framework. As Ms. Shaw has referenced, that involvement of all levels of government is instrumental.

    Commissioner Fisher was a champion of the centennial touring the country. He had been a CBC reporter, and had a long history. I think three times a week he used to have the Fisher three-minute pieces on things to be proud about, and pieces of history about Canada. So he was a very good champion to go to talk about the centennial.

    Having said that, it is interesting that we're talking about planning and timelines. In actual fact, I would suggest that the centennial commission didn't really get up and running until 1964, so they did a lot in very short order.

    I understand that Mr. Aykroyd may come and speak to the committee, and he's a wealth of information.

    Thank you.

    He lives in my riding, and one of the funny things he says is, “I did all this work that I was so proud of for the centennial, and then in the end nobody remembers me for it.” They remember him as the father of Dan Aykroyd.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

    Mr. Ted Hsu: I think it's just a joke that he tells to introduce himself.

    So what funding was made available at the federal level in 1967? Were there criteria that were used to determine how...?

     There was a series of programs. I think one of the successes from a federal perspective is that this was a whole-of-government approach and that all departments, agencies, and commissions were involved in the centennial. Everyone had some sort of centennial presence, whether it was the museums or whoever. It was a whole-of-government approach and you see that to a lesser or greater degree replicated at the provincial and municipal levels. From a government perspective, this a very holistic and inclusive role.

    There were a number of programs and initiatives. There was a centennial grounds program. I believe about $25 million was allocated to this. It was to be matched dollar for dollar by the provinces and municipalities. There were funds to the tune of $30 million earmarked for a national capital construction program. Out of that we got the National Library and Archives, the National Arts Centre, and the Canadian Museum of History. So it was an important foundational infrastructure that has had a lasting legacy.

     There were different kinds of travel exchanges. There were those that were supported through federal funding, a matching approach. Then there were those driven at the local level through service clubs and the like, where Canadian youth would apply for funds.

     There was also an infrastructure program where there were federal contributions to contribute to either the remediation or restoration of architectural buildings of historical significance.

    There was a publishing element of the centennial that I think would certainly take a different form if it were introduced today, what with the current importance of social media.

    There were numerous tentacles that supported the centennial effort throughout the year and had a lasting impact.

    The overall federal budget might have been, you were saying--

    It was over $100 million. For 1967 that was a very substantial fund.

    Dr. Neuman, did the survey ask what people thought beliefs and values were, or was it just generally beliefs and values?

    That's a good question. Let me clarify.

    Beliefs and values is a collection of a number of responses. This was what we call an open-ended question, where we asked the question and did not give them any categories. So it was whatever they came out with. That's important to do, because we don't want to feed ideas that they'll just feed back to us.

    When we hear those responses, we need to collect them and code them into meaningful categories. We were capturing the broad themes. Under beliefs and values, there was multiculturalism, which was the largest significant part of it; followed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; freedom in general, as a broad concept; democracy and democratic institutions; national unity; tolerance of others' human rights; patriotism; bilingualism; best country in the world to live in; our values; and our uniqueness. We put those under the broad theme of beliefs and values. If you want to categorize them in other ways, you can, but I think these are the broad themes. The top two on the list are multiculturalism and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These are distinct from things like history, achievements, and natural resources, which are very different categories.

    Thank you, Mr. Hsu.

    On to you, Mr. Calandra.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Neuman, you said the importance to the allophone community was 90%. What did they say they were most proud of? Can you break this down?

    Yes, I can. If we compare allophones to the national total, “beliefs and values” was 49% nationally, 50% among allophones. Multiculturalism was higher than the national average. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was a little lower. “People in history” was almost the same as the national average. “Achievement”, such as peaceful country, arts and literature, and so forth, was just above the national average, 19% versus 17%. “Resources and institutions” came out basically the same, as did “position in the world”. So on these broad themes, the responses from the allophone segment of the population were pretty much on the national average.

     Dr. Davies, how important was a central celebration in 1967? How important was Expo? Should a central celebration be a focus of 150?

     Certainly when I have spoken to people, or when I have read literature from the period, Expo 67 figures prominently in people's recollection of the period. For some, 1967 is synonymous with centennial.

    Having said that, it's a different time now, and I think it's important to recognize, or at least take into consideration, what Canadians may be prepared to entertain. I don't think we should necessarily read 1967 as a model that needs to be replicated hook, line, and sinker.

    Having said that, it was an anchor event. It was something people could rally around. It was something that got global coverage and national coverage and local coverage. I think there was value, recognizing that we are in different times.

     I think for most of us the torch relay was a spectacular event. For those of us who weren't at Expo 67 or weren't born at that time, Expo 67 is a source of irritation, because I constantly hear about it and I wasn't able to attend. I wasn't even being contemplated at the time. But for very real reasons, the torch relay has become a kind of expo for a lot of us.

    I know in my hometown we had four events on one day. I have four different communities that I represent. I remember waking up that morning at 5:30, and it was minus 25. It was the coldest day, and I was thinking, “Oh, gosh, nobody's going to show up for this.” I put on layers and layers and layers, and I was about two kilometres from the downtown—Stouffville is a town of about 35,000 people—and the lineup had already started. I barely made it to where I was supposed to be to try to fight my way through the crowds.

    Two hours later, in Markham, at the regional celebration, there were over 10,000 people there.

    It was just a frigid, frigid day. We have one of the torches from that day on display at our city hall. The one thing that people always remember is that the entire town showed up for it. They remember everything that led up to it and just how cold it was on the day, and still, 30,000 people showed up in the downtown.

    I wonder if you could tell me something. You've raised an awful lot of money through partnerships. Obviously when you go to a partner, one of the things that's important to them is the exposure they get out of doing something. What were some of the other challenges you faced? What were some of the other things your partners were looking for before they would commit to this type of an investment?

     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 with our partners was always about how can you help us and how can we help you? It wasn't a one-way communication. Historically, if you look back into sponsorships in Canada, it was many times a one-way relationship. It's got to be a two-way relationship.

    Now let me go to the torch relay on the specifics of your question. All our sponsors were engaged, and you had to be a current game sponsor to be a torch-relay sponsor.

    As you know, we had to fund the entire torch relay by sponsorship, which had a budget of about $40 million. That's a lot of incremental money, if you will, for sponsors who had already invested in the games to add. We had the opportunity, as stipulated by the IOC, to have two presenting partners. That was what we were able to do, so the lion's share of the funding had to come from them.

    Our strategy, which I think is relevant to what's going on in terms of where you're headed with the 150th anniversary, was that we brought in a couple of companies that we thought would make the investment in the early days to help us sculpt what this thing would look like. Why? Because if our vision and their vision and values were like-minded we knew that incremental investment would be that much greater. When we did that, they helped sculpt the programs. We understood what their needs were, they understood what our needs were—and I'll be clear that they needed something—but we didn't want to be an over-commercialized torch relay. They understood that was part of the game plan.

    By bringing partners into the strategy and the sculpting of some of your programming features, this allows you.... When you go to them to say we need $10 million more, there's not a thought; they're there, and they're committed. It was a strategy that worked for us, both in the torch relay as well as the Cultural Olympiad, because that too was funded, again, separately by games partners. So it was very strategic.

    When we talk about timelines and the need to be well ahead in your planning to get corporate sponsors, they don't want to come on at the eleventh hour. The longer they have time to be part of what's going on, the more value and therefore the higher the return on the investment there is.

    Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

    Ms. Boutin-Sweet.

    Thank you very much.

    I'm sorry, Mr. Calandra, but I also went to Expo 67. We came down from Abitibi, and for us it was something special. My parents had passports, and in my naivety I had a pavilion hostess sign mine. My brothers still laugh at me for that, but what can you do!

    Within the NDP—I am an NDP member of Parliament—we seek to create links between communities; our motto being "Together, we can do this."

    A few moments ago, we heard that Quebeckers were less interested in festivities than were people from other regions of the country. In what you heard from the people you spoke with, were there any specific ideas as to how to bring people together across Canada? I'm referring to ideas for Quebec, of course, but also for other groups such as Francophones inside and outside of Quebec, the founding nations or First Nations, in contrast to other groups.

    Perhaps Ms. Davies or Mr. Neuman can answer my question.

    Thank you for the question.

    With respect to how a range of groups were involved in the centennial, there was certainly an interest on the part of the centennial commission to involve francophone communities outside of Quebec. In fact, one of the pieces that I study in my dissertation is an NFB documentary that was done on a francophone community in northern Alberta, St. Paul, Alberta. It was really in the spirit of wanting to demonstrate that francophone culture was across the country and wanting to share that experience with Canadians. Similarly, there was a real interest in involving Canada's aboriginal people in the centennial event. So looking at ways to involve at the local level, there was not just an interest, there was action to involve a whole range of communities. Certainly that's something that can be built on as we move to the 150th.

    The film you're referring to was produced in 1967, wasn't it?

     Yes, it was, by the National Film Board of Canada.

    I'll ask Mr. Neuman then.

    From what you've recently heard, do people have any ideas as to how to promote what I was speaking about in my initial question?

    In the context of the survey I reported on, there really wasn't much scope for us to try to poll ideas in that context, because when we were doing the survey we hadn't given people much preparation to think about this. The survey really was trying to capture some initial reaction and response to the event, what had happened, and what they might like to see. I think this is really where further research would need to be done, for which you could give people some background and then probe ideas.

    My only comment or perhaps recommendation to this committee with regard to planning and speaking to the question just a bit is that I think it would probably be important to focus the celebration and the vision on what Canada is today and on looking forward in terms of the legacy rather than focusing so much on history and looking back 150 years and saying we're celebrating the history of Canada and everything that has come up to this point. Obviously there are different viewpoints and different experiences and divisions in this country if you look at it historically. I suppose there might be some danger that people would look at this and interpret it as though we were celebrating the history of what's happened. That may reflect to some extent why people in Quebec might be less enthusiastic about the prospect of this sesquicentennial than others would be.

    The talk about legacy is about the future. And according to this survey and other surveys that we have done, the things people are proud about in Canada are not historical and old but really reflect Canada's reality today--multiculturalism, tolerance of others--things like that really reflect the current Canada. I suspect that if the focus is on the current reality and the future, then the inclusion of other groups across the country might be easier to accomplish.

    Nevertheless, the Canada of today was built on the Canada of yesterday. I think it might be a mistake to completely leave out Canada's past. I'm not sure if you see it the same way I do. I don't think that that is the case.

    I don't mean to suggest that history should be avoided, but I think there perhaps might be a danger if this celebration were overly focused simply on the past. I think that has to be one of several elements.

    In your statistics, there was the question of community activities and programs to celebrate local culture. I'd like to get back to my question about specific ideas. In that respect, were any specific ideas brought up? Yes or no?

    Again, we presented some of these concepts in the survey to get people's initial reaction to them. People did respond. In some there was more enthusiasm than in others, and that shows in the numbers. We did not attempt in this survey to get their own ideas, because given the lack of background people had before the survey, it would have been a very difficult question to ask on the survey. My guess is that if we had tried to do that, most people would have drawn a blank, because they wouldn't have had time to think about it. Because people had not thought about it before and because probably many of the people we spoke to didn't even realize it was the 150th coming up, I'm not sure it would have been very meaningful in the context of this survey to ask that question. Certainly there is future research that could do a very good job of that.

    Thank you.

    We go now to Mr. Gill.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I'd like to start off with a question for Dr. Davies. How would you say Canada of today is different from Canada of 50 years ago, roughly?

     My mind turns almost immediately to technology. While the organizers of the 1967 centennial and Expo were certainly adept at using the technology at hand then, and there were some fairly sophisticated exhibits that travelled across the country, today I think of Twitter, social media, and Facebook. How we engage the Canadian community is probably quite different from the coffee klatsches around a kitchen table. Mind you, there is benefit to that as well. So as far as technology, communications, and the kinds of tools we use today to engage people, it is quite different.

    There may also be differences in tolerance around expenditure of public dollars. I think that's something we are cognizant of as a country.

    So there's a range of differences. I also believe there's an overarching sense of pride, and that's demonstrated in the Environics survey. It shows that Canadians are proud, and welcome the opportunity to celebrate accomplishments and join together in moving forward into the future.

    On the demographics change, we've had a huge number of new Canadians come into the country since then. What sort of impact could that have?

    I think Dr. Neuman's survey points to that, in the sense that I note from the survey findings that there is a tremendous appetite to celebrate the 150th. So I'm not sure that's a barrier to a celebration, and I think it presents a tremendous opportunity.

    Do you have any practical suggestions on how the Canadian government can generate interest in the 150th celebrations, based on efforts around the centennial?

    It was interesting to listen to Ms. Shaw and her remarks on the focus groups and engaging early and speaking to Canadians about what they envision for this centennial year. I think that's key, from the spirit of inclusivity, getting a sense, and not being prescriptive.

     I believe Minister Moore spoke to this committee last week. I heard some remarks about not walking into a community and saying “We're the federal government and this is how we envision the celebration”. In order to engender that sense of collaboration and engagement, we have to talk to Canadians. So something like focus group surveys are oral tools or mechanisms to get a sense or a read.

    Perfect.

    If I may ask a question of Ms. Shaw, in what way did the Olympic planning committee seek out and incorporate local or grassroots suggestions for the events and activities? Can you expand on that?

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

    I mean the games in total.

    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 we do that? It was through our relationships with every province in Canada, and how they could take back assets from the Olympics and bring them into the grassroots of their communities. It was very intentional, because we knew that without doing that--whether it was the torch relay, the Cultural Olympiad, or whatever--the engagement would never get off the ground and galvanize the country the way it did. So we were very proactive in our planning, to ensure that engagement happened very much at the grassroots level with our partners assisting us in doing so.

    Thank you, Mr. Gill.

    Mr. Cash.

    Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thanks to the three of you for coming today.

    What was the level of corporate sponsorship in the centennial?

    I'm not sure that at the time there was even the idea of corporate sponsorship. The business community was actively involved. The Royal Bank of Canada had a number of initiatives, and I think it supported some publications. Similarly, I believe E. B. Eddy used to have a presence on the river here; I think they were matchstick makers. They also had a presence and contributed. The contribution was by way of some of their own initiatives to promote and celebrate the centennial.

    So I can't speak confidently to the theme of corporate sponsorship or partnering. It was more that they were in alignment and supportive of the federal framework, and looking for ways to promote and lever the centennial.

     You don't have a sense of what kind of financial commitment it is?

    No, not off the top of my head. I'd have to go back and look.

    Dr. Neuman, did you ask a question like, how would you feel about corporate Canada helping to sculpt the celebrations of our 150th anniversary?

    We didn't get into that. We did ask about the importance of involvement from different sectors. In the question on leadership, Canadian companies were on the list. We asked how important each of these sectors might be in playing some sort of leadership role in supporting the 150th celebration. All of them are seen as having some importance. The federal government's at the top, followed by provincial and territorial governments, then Canadian companies, 46%.

    What this tells me is that the corporate sector is not seen as the lead, but that Canadians are comfortable with a significant corporate presence. My sense is that Canadians were fairly appreciative of the corporate partnerships entered into during the Vancouver Olympics, and they didn't seem to see that it created any particular problems.

    We couldn't get more specific on this survey about this sort of topic, and I suspect that it would be difficult to get a more meaningful response without a better understanding of what the celebrations are going to be, what the events are, and what the activities will be.

    What was the budget proposed originally for the Olympics in Vancouver?

    Are you talking about corporate sponsorship?

    No, the total budget.

    The total budget for the games was $1.3 billion.

    Right, and what was the final budget?

    $1.6 billion.

    When you talk about Olympic legacy, one of the enduring legacies for me was to see Roberto Luongo win that game. I somehow care deeply about the health and welfare of Roberto. I'm not as worried about Sid as I am about Roberto.

    There was a reference to the sensitivity about public finances and infrastructure. Part of the legacy of the Vancouver Olympics, and it is replicated in almost every Olympics, is cost overruns the public is on the hook for. The optics of cuts in city services alongside Olympic costs overruns are, to put it mildly, not good. This was mentioned in a Sports Illustrated story at the time.

    One of the things that concerns me about this discussion is that we are talking about two different things, conflating them, and then turning them into the same thing. That thing is that this becomes a vehicle for corporate sponsorship. We are celebrating the 150th anniversary of our country. If we want it to have the kind of resonance that the centennial had, I have to say that our interest in how the global corporate world helped to sculpt the Vancouver Olympics is troubling to me.

    What we need to do is drill down and find out why many of us who weren't even born at the time of the centennial still remember it. The fact that the corporate community didn't play a huge part is not necessarily significant. What is significant is that we're still talking about the centennial 50 years later. I think that if you look at the history of the Olympics, you will find that not a lot of people talk about the Olympics in a particular city 20, 30 years later--although I will remember Roberto Luongo.

     Mr. Cash, we're going to have to get back to your thoughts on this, because you're a minute and a half over.

    We'll go on to Mr. Hillyer.

    I remember Calgary's Olympics. I was just a kid.

    I have three quick questions. First of all, Mr. Neuman, before I ask my question, I just want you to know that you probably don't realize that you were making a quotable quote. I wrote it down, and I'm going to quote you for a long time. You said that national pride isn't necessarily patting ourselves on the back so much as it is an expression of gratitude. I like that. It's beautiful. Sometimes Canadians are really worried, because they want to celebrate, but they also want to be nice and humble. By putting it that way, we can be both, passionately. That was well put.

    Now here's my question. Without abdicating our responsibility as a committee, we talked about the importance of getting the corporations involved, without selling out. As good as your survey was, we must confess that 1,001 is not the hugest sample in the world. Have you considered doing a similar survey with a much larger sample?

    That's a good question. Let me respond in two parts. In terms of the sample of 1,000, it's not the largest sample. Speaking as somebody who has been trained in this business, it's large enough to get a representative sample of Canadians nationally with some look at the regional numbers. We certainly wouldn't go beyond that. A thousand is accurate enough. It's not as precise as a larger survey, but I think in terms of the kinds of questions we asked and the similarity across the population, I would be comfortable saying that this provides an accurate picture in a broad sense, and it's consistent with other research.

    In terms of doing a larger sample or a larger survey, I would certainly recommend that the committee keep in mind that probably further research is needed. This survey was an interesting snapshot taken a year ago that gives you a sense of where Canadians were. But by no means is it static, nor does it answer all the questions you probably have or need to have as planning goes forward. I would expect that at some level, some organizations involved in this will do further research. And I think you would probably need to target certain parts of the population regionally or demographically or whatever to understand some of these issues much better for specific parts of the population, particularly as the planning moves forward and you get into some more specifics.

    This is just a starting point, and I think it's useful that this research came about. This survey was also the result of corporate sponsorship from MasterCard. Without them, it wouldn't have happened. They took a hands-off approach in the sense that they had no involvement in the design of the questions or the interpretation. They simply provided the money to make it happen.

    Thank you.

    Andrea Shaw, can you give us your opinion on how Canada 150 could and should be promoted internationally? Does it make sense to invest money in advertising at things like the London Olympics? Do you have any other ideas about that?

    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, quite frankly.

    One of the things the games did for Canada was that we got onto the global stage as we've never been on it before. When you look at that as a platform for economic development, tourism, and all these initiatives that help us as a country, it makes a good deal of sense.

    To answer your question directly, we need to figure out our vision. What are we trying to achieve through this? Once that's done, that informs your strategy for what you want to do.

    I said this earlier. It takes time and proper planning, but if you get it right, you're sailing to success. If you negate that step and try to backfill to objectives and strategy, you spend a lot more money than you need to, and success is much harder to achieve.

     Thank you, Mr. Hillyer.

    On to you, Mr. Nantel.

    Thank you.

    I have three questions to ask.

    I'll speak in French.

    Mr. Neuman, firstly, were Canadians ever asked how much money they themselves, through their taxes, would consider appropriate to invest in such celebrations?

    It's an interesting question. It was not something addressed in this survey, and I'm not aware of any other research. It would be a difficult question to get a meaningful answer to at this point, because most Canadians aren't really aware of 2017, haven't thought about it, don't have any concept of what it might involve. I think if you pose the question today, they would have a difficult time answering it. I don't think there is enough understanding or awareness. There is not enough substance at this point, I think, to get a meaningful answer. Down the line, I'm sure there will be.

    Thank you.

    I find it quite remarkable that on the last page of your report, you write that we have a 'blank slate' before us and we must let our imagination and inspiration guide us. That's certainly something that Ms. Shaw spoke a great deal about. It goes back to the enthusiasm and inspiration aroused by the Olympic Torch Relay. I wanted to ask, do you not think that it's necessary to try to find something that would rally the entire country, without bringing out the doubt or bitterness felt in Quebec? We can indeed see that support on this matter is certainly weaker in that province.

    What is your opinion on, for example, the idea of a theme as wide-reaching as that of the waves of immigration entering Canada—which are an undeniable fact—instead of returning to dates of conflicts or battles?

    I'd like to speak in French, but...

    You can speak English; it's no big deal.

    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 how to speak to their consumers, whether it's in French, English, Chinese, or whatever, they segment the engagement, if you will. It's no different from this committee or the group that will lead this charge needing to understand through research, through focus groups, what will resonate and what will be relevant to all these stakeholder groups. Whether it is Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, or aboriginal peoples, regardless, that kind of research is your gold nugget for success, because that will inform your programming element to achieve the vision you are after.

    Thank you, Ms. Shaw.

    I think that in Quebec there is still that off-putting sentiment of being part of a multicultural mix, whereas historical periods enable a better understanding of multiculturalism. They enable us to recognize that the many Chinese citizens that came to British Columbia 20 or 40 years ago are as Canadian as the French who arrived 400 years ago.

    That being said, I'll refer my question to Ms. Davies.

    You said that we should not impose a vision. I wonder if you think it would be necessary to consult with the various provinces that would like to have a say in the matter, to understand how they would like their past and future in Canada to be represented during the 150th anniversary?

    What I can tell you from the experience of 1967 is that the federal government made a concerted effort to engage the provincial representatives and have a dialogue with respect to what the centennial could look like in the territories and the provinces. There is always benefit in having that conversation, for sure.

     Mr. Brown.

    Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    Thank you to our witnesses today. I know all of us are keenly interested in Canada 150.

    I was a grade two student in Don Mills in 1967. From what I can remember, one of the legacies was that it was an opportunity to learn more about our country. At that time, I believe we learned a lot more about the history. I have long been an advocate of making sure young Canadians learn about our history. I used to be the chair of the St. Lawrence Parks Commission, which operates Upper Canada Village and Fort Henry in Mr. Hsu's riding.

    I know only three out of ten provinces in Canada actually require a student to have a history course to graduate from high school. How can we use Canada 150 as an opportunity to replicate what I can remember as an opportunity to learn about our country?

    That question is to all of you.

    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 of who we all should be. The history of our country only brings more equity into a future in that human legacy we've been talking about. If we set that as an objective over the vision, then what you start to do is map out how we can take this in our hands and use this opportunity to program initiatives that will do just as you're saying, Gordon, to educate and bring program elements through.

    What that is, I don't know, but that's exactly how we worked with all of our objectives and what we were trying to do. It's way beyond just a two-week sporting event, as I said earlier. We wanted to do much more for Canadians. If that is an element that the group decides to pursue—that is, education of our young, which is really important—now is the opportunity to seize it and work it into one of the program elements of our 150th anniversary.

    I have a couple of points.

     To speak to some of Andrea's comments, it has to be part of the vision. To put it into the educational system, you need a lot of people in the educational system at the provincial and local level to buy in. You can't really mandate that at the federal or national level. If it's part of the vision, and you can get not only the public but the organizations enthusiastic about that, then they may embrace that and find ways to bring that in. It would be difficult to program.

    The other comment goes back to something I said earlier. The potential downside is that there are aspects of Canadian history that might divide people rather than bring them together. People may see problems or issues looking historically. What it is that's taught has some minefields. It has to be approached fairly cautiously, and perhaps the vision has to be framed in terms of, yes, understanding the history but maybe in a present context somehow. That is just part of what has to be considered.

    In 1967 a lot of the focus was on Expo. It got a lot of people moving around Canada on their way to Montreal. We're not going to have something like Expo 67 in 2017. How might we take advantage of this for tourism and get people moving around? Off the top of my head, maybe focusing on the history of Canada is an opportunity to do that. We're going to be doing a great deal of that with the celebration and commemoration of the War of 1812 over the next couple years, because that war went into 1815. We have a few years to learn about that. Maybe we could hear a little about that.

     Perhaps I could just speak to your earlier questions with respect to weaving history into the event. You are speaking to the converted, seeing as my own doctorate is in Canadian history. So of course it flabbergasts me that anyone should be disinterested in our stories.

    I think it's a matter of not being didactic. I think sometimes we miss opportunities when we don't reveal the richness of our stories and allow people to experience. And I'll use by way of example the Confederation train and caravan that wove its way across the country, which went, like a torch, to very remote communities. I was speaking to someone just the other day, a gentleman now in his fifties, who spoke about entering the caravan, a convoy of large semi-trailers that travelled across the country, one of which was a re-creation of a Second World War trench. He said, being a young boy and entering this place, where the sights and sounds and smells of a Second World War trench were up front and centre, and being engaged in that had a really lasting impact on him. It wasn't that someone was reading him something; it was an opportunity for him to experience.

    So I think that idea of experiencing our stories is really important.

    I have to refresh my memory with respect to the second question.

    Mr. Brown, we're a little over, so we'll go to Mr. Hsu.

    I have just a little bit of a follow-up question for Dr. Davies. It gets back to the idea of how the centennial celebrations were structured in 1967, and I wanted to maybe get a statement from you.

    Do you think the 2017 celebration would be more authentic and memorable if we followed the same idea of letting the initiative come from the grassroots instead of imposing particular themes or a particular structure on a national celebration?

    My sense is, in the spirit of wanting to be as inclusive as possible, that if we're able to generate enthusiasm and interest in engagement at the grassroots level, we're likely to be more successful.

    Do any of you have a feeling about that?

    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 vision of what we're trying to achieve through this thing and can give direction to the vision we're trying to achieve with 10, 20, or however many objectives while letting the grassroots execute things, then in my opinion we'll have the best model.

    Dr. Davies wanted to say something.

     I would echo that. In my view, it's not an either/or proposition. It's complementary. It's both. There needs to be a very strong leadership role with respect to a framework and a vision, and then grassroots involvement allowing people to, I suppose, implement that vision in a way that resonates for them.

    Okay. That's all I had.

    Mr. Brown and Mr. Hillyer want to share a question.

    You have five minutes. Divide it as you wish.

    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    We'll go back to Dr. Davies and maybe take the opportunity to finish up the question.

    We talked about tourism and how we can get people moving around the country, since we're not going to have a focus such as Expo 67 did. I think you started on about the train in 1967. I'll throw that back to you, and you can finish it off.

    Thank you very much.

    Well, I think of how much Canada has to offer Canadians with respect to our extraordinary system of national parks and national historic sites, and I think of the work under way right now to have Fundy declared one of the seven wonders of the world. There's much to celebrate within this country, and we should encourage people to travel within Canada to celebrate and appreciate what we do have.

    Okay.

    I'll throw it over to Mr. Hillyer.

    Thank you.

    Dr. Davies, I didn't get to ask you a question, and I want to.

    You've talked a lot about the importance of guarding against being prescriptive in planning Canada 150, and I appreciate that. I wonder if you can just comment on the same idea. Going beyond the planning, how can we guard against being too prescriptive in promoting Canadian values, so that we actually reflect them, rather than telling people what their values should be?

     Thank you for the question.

    My mind turns to open-ended questions. I know that when the survey was conducted you said the survey asked a series of open-ended questions that allowed respondents to fill in the blanks, if you will, something like “I'm proud to be Canadian because...”. You're affording people an opportunity to share that vision with you of what their values are. I hope that's helpful.

    Thank you.

    Mr. Cash.

    How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

    This will be the last question. You have five minutes.

     I thought we're at the ground floor in this committee of discussing this celebration, and yet twice now Mr. Brown has said that we are not going to have a focus like the one at Expo. I'm not sure if there have already been consultations that have allowed the government to arrive at that position. That's a comment I wanted to make.

    I wanted to ask a couple of quick follow-up questions about Expo 67. You've all talked about how it would be a little dicey to be adding a historical element to our celebrations of Canada 150, or that it would be tricky. That's not to say we shouldn't do it, but it would be tricky.

    I am wondering what happened in 1967. What were the themes? Was there some backward-looking? Was there some historical dimension? Because my sense of it.... I was a child, and I want to say to Mr. Calandra that I didn't go either, buddy. My parents went and my older siblings went, but I was too young.

    Was there a historical element, or was it looking forward? I know that we were at a different point in our history.

    I would suggest that we consider Expo and the centennial somewhat distinctly and that Expo was very much a future-forward experience.

    With respect to the centennial, certainly history and the stories of the nation were woven into many of the programs and much of what was presented, whether it was arts and culture and featuring great Canadian painters and artists or even the performers, the publication program. There was a series on the Fathers of Confederation. I think the history and the stories of the country were woven in throughout the exercise. It was an element. It was a lens through which we looked at a hundred years. It wasn't, as I say, this didactic lesson of these are the four things you have to remember about our past.

    Thank you.

    Thank you, Mr. Cash.

    Madame Boutin-Sweet.

    My question is for Mr. Neuman.

    In your statistics regarding the importance of celebrating the 150th anniversary, you have data concerning anglophones, francophones, and allophones. I was wondering if you have something more specific regarding first nations, or whether they were included in the other groups.

    On first nations, no questions were specifically focused on aboriginal peoples. We did ask the question, and I'm pulling up the numbers now, about what about Canada most deserves to be celebrated. This was one of the open-ended questions.

    I'm looking at the numbers here.

    I'm not sure if you understood what I meant. I was referring to questions asked to first nations peoples, and not about first nations peoples.

I'm asking about questions asked of the first nations, not about them.

    From first nations respondents?

    Yes.

    There were aboriginal peoples in our survey. But as a national survey of a thousand, a fairly small number of individuals would self-identify as first nations, Métis, or Inuit. There would be too few to be able to analyze that research separately here, so we were unable to do that.

    On many of our surveys where it's possible we do make a very strong effort to include them and look at that, and this speaks to the question about doing larger surveys and other samples and making sure we hear from particular segments of the population.

    We know there were some aboriginal respondents to this particular survey, but too few to be able to look at those results.

    Merci.

     Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we might leave 15 minutes at the end of the next committee meeting for committee business. Out of respect, I know that the opposition had mentioned that once in a while they'd like to double-check that there's nothing of extreme importance that has come out before us. Could we perhaps at the next meeting just leave 15 minutes?

    At the next committee meeting we'll have 15 minutes for committee business.

    I want to thank our panel: Ms. Shaw, Dr. Neuman, and Dr. Davies. I can't think of a better panel to start our study on our 150th anniversary. Your comments and your research have been very informative to our work. Thank you for your time.

    The meeting is adjourned.