>>Chrystia Freeland: We're going to start
with a 15-minute discussion between me and
one of my personal heros, Guy LalibertŽ.
He is the founder and inventor of Cirque du
Soleil, which if -- please sit down, Guy.
If you are like me or a Zeitgeist veteran
you would have seen some of the wonderful
Cirque du Soleil performers. So I am going
to have a moment of patriotism. I am Canadian.
And having been here for a few years they
gave me a little bit of a say in what panel
I want to moderate and I said I wanted to
do Guy's panel because I am so proud of everything
he has done. So that's my affection declared.
What I wanted to start by asking you about,
Guy, is you have come up with a whole new
artistic genre, something that had never been
done before and it's also a successful business.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Correct.
>>Chrystia Freeland: How did you get that
idea?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Well, actually, I don't
think we reinvent anything. The business of
circus was existing before us.
I think we just reshape it, treat it in a
contemporary way by bringing directors, lighting
designer. Circus, at the time we start, were
a little dusty, especially in North America.
So fortunately we had a crack, a little window
open for us. We took it and we work creatively
very specifically with people of theater was
doing.
So we brought a little bit all the broad way
treatment, theatrical treatment, dance treatment
in an old business.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Did you always want it
to make a lot of money or were you an artist
wanting to just sort of express yourself?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Actually, it's funny. My
first dream in life was I always want to travel.
And that is what I was looking for.
The fastest way I find to achieve my dream
was to pick up the accordion of my father
and hit the road at the age of 15 and being
a busker, because I have no business --
>>Chrystia Freeland: Have accordion, will
travel?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Actually, it's a small box.
It's very easy. Very light, hit the road.
>>Chrystia Freeland: I will tell that to my
kids when they want to go.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Actually, I decide to go
to school of life instead of going to regular
school.
So my first job was -- My first dream was
to travel. And then by traveling, I learned
the pleasure of entertaining people. And this
is really where I said, wait a minute, there
might be something that could fit together.
And then I start to organize -- start up a
theater troupe on stilts, organize a street
performing festival. And then we had the opportunity
in 1984, there was the celebration of the
450th anniversary of discovering Canada. There
was a lot of money for cultural activities.
We were successful --
>>Chrystia Freeland: Government grants. Crucial
for the arts.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Actually, not grants. It
was a contract. Everybody says it was a grant.
It was a deal. There was money. There was
money. They ask us to present a project. We
win the project. We fought for it because
all the institution -- you have to understand,
clowns and circus skill or street performer
were not recognized in the art industry, art
sector. There were no subsidies available
for us.
Basically the philosophy was about pay them
a sandwich, supply them a corner on a street
and they will entertain you for 30 minutes.
So it was also part of our quest and will
to try to make recognized that art form through
doing Cirque du Soleil.
So we had our first contract. We lived the
first year of Cirque du Soleil in a very strange
way, because we were outside the big city,
so the first month was a mess. We lost our
big-top over a storm. We didn't know how to
put it up. There was a lot of learning, hard
learning process. But the advantage we had,
we were away of the big city. So focus was
more on the other activities.
So when we came -- And it was a mess for the
other thing, too.
So when we arrive in town, we were geared
up. We were all ready, and we became, like,
the success of the season.
And then this is what we -- we worked on and
built on after.
>>Chrystia Freeland: So --
>>Guy LalibertŽ: But the dream was traveling.
For me --
>>Chrystia Freeland: The dream was traveling.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: For me to do the Cirque
du Soleil was a job, something that will permit
me to probably go around the world with if
it was successful.
>>Chrystia Freeland: And now it's take taken
you into outer space.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Correct. Well, it did.
>>Chrystia Freeland: It did. This is actually
true. He has been to outer space. But we will
get to that.
So these are very scrappy beginnings. School
of life. You are on the street with your accordion.
Now you are running this huge business. You
are close to hitting a billion dollars; right?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Actually, if everything
goes well this year, we should. But we had
the earthquake in Japan and some floating
in Cincinnati last week, two weeks ago, so
I think we will be missing it this year. Doesn't
matter.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Almost, almost.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: It's not a goal.
>>Chrystia Freeland: How do you remain innovative
in the company? You are big, making a lot
of money. Surely bureaucracy creeps in.
How do you keep Cirque alive?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: First, we are a creative
company. So our core business is to create
things. We had to organize ourselves businesswise
because now we have 5,000 people working around
the world, from different country, in different
countries around the world. And so it needs
a very good organization, which I have. I
have amazing people. And creatively, it's
to really try to -- every time that we start
a new project is to start from the white page.
And then if you give the opportunity to creative
people to express their creativity, their
craziness and you establish also, I would
say, a critical path to do things, then it
usually work well.
In 25 years, we had one, I would say, consider
one creative failure. All the other one were
hit and run -- were home run, and it's amazing
to work with great creative people around
the world.
But you know architects the end, I always
had established four condition before doing
a project. First is the creative challenge
that the project represent. And trust me,
we had put away a lot of other opportunity.
Like we did put away the opportunity of doubling
our showing, multiplying the same show, like
Phantom of the Opera. They will do ten production
around the world at the same time. We always
refuse that. We want to work on one-of-a-kind
show.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Why is that?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Because this is what we
want to do. This is a decision actually which
was probably not a good business decision
in terms of money, but this is what we want
to do. This is what I was looking for, is
doing one show and create another one.
So for me, first in the top of the line before
I decide a project is the creative challenge
to things.
The second thing is the people you work with,
because we do partnership, or we choose people
to work in each of our project.
So I'm a people -- I'm a person -- or people
person. I like to work in the physical environment
with people. And I like to have partners that
I feel good with.
So the qualification of a project one, second
one, is in regard to the people you work with.
Third come the money part where it has to
be in it. So if the budget and everything
goes well, then -- on paper, because you never
know in reality what will happen, but at least
on paper it has to fit.
And the fourth thing is the integration of
social engagement. I think in every company,
it's not after that you have to integrate
or put in place philanthropy. It has to be
integrated in your business model, in your
engagement in a project.
So those are the four conditions before we
give a go to a project.
>>Chrystia Freeland: So let's talk about that
social engagement. Why is it so important
and how do you do it?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Well, why is it important?
Because I think my mother, my father, my parents
taught me some things in that regard when
I was a kid. They show me very early in my
life that we were privileged of having three
meals a day, of having a glass of water around
every day.
They were showing me that reality of this
world were not only my nice little neighbor
-- you know, in my neighborhood, in the house
where I was living in, but there was country
where people were dying of things. So they
always put a very big importance of taking
care and be respectful of what you have in
life. And once in the street, even in the
street, I was a busker and even when I was
there, there were people in the worse condition
that be I was as a busker. There were people
dying of not having access to food. So even
getting my own money as a street performer,
I was giving some to those people.
So for me, it was integrated through all my
education. And then by traveling, obviously,
all around the world, I got in touch with
some reality of this life. And I am just convinced
that, you know, it's not about philanthropy.
It's integration for me in our daily life.
Teams the responsibility that we have as people
who lead or people who run business, government
people, company leaders. But also individual.
I think the solution will be global.
It's not only the responsibility of government,
neither company leader, but also individual
to integrate this philosophy or this important
aspect of a global community to help each
other in their daily life.
>>Chrystia Freeland: And why choose the particular
philanthropy that you have?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Well, this is not the first
one. We have other -- like I said, it's something
that have been integrated in Cirque du Soleil.
Our first philanthropy was the street kids.
We have a foundation in Cirque du Soleil that's
been there almost since the beginning. It's
called Cirque du Monde, and it's all about
the kids in the street, the homeless little
kids, and we do program around the world.
We dedicate 1% of our revenue for this foundation,
and with that 1% we usually multiply that
1% by another four times. So we are able to
generate about four, five times the money
toward the foundation.
>>Chrystia Freeland: And did you start with
that one because of your experience working
on the street yourself and --
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Yeah.
>>Chrystia Freeland: -- other performers?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: For us at that time it was
natural one because we were coming from the
street, and it was normal for us to choose
to give back where we were coming from and
not forgetting where we were coming from.
The second one was One Drop, which is the
water, which I start in 2007.
For me, again, it was a reflection I made.
We were at the edge of celebrating the 25th
anniversary of Cirque du Soleil. I had clearly
two options. One was to celebrate with feast
and bragging that we are what we are. It's
not my type. So we did celebration internally.
But we dedicate our celebration by the commitment
of 25 year toward the One Drop Foundation.
So I personally pledge money.
We made a deal with Cirque du Soleil for the
next 25 years, and water is now a very, very
important activity within neither -- with
my life and Cirque du Soleil company.
>>Chrystia Freeland: And what significance,
what impact does that have inside the company?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: It does have a lot of impact,
because when you choose philanthropy, you
know, it's not to make feel-good things. And
especially when you pick up a subject like
water. Before going out there on the public
scene and raising awareness and in the field,
you have to first look at your company and
when we did the checklist of thing, we were
far away of being the consequent of what we
were promoting in terms of --
>>Chrystia Freeland: What were you doing that
was really bad?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Just the use of plastic
bottle of water in the company. This is something
that was just not impossible to go out there
--
>>Chrystia Freeland: Glad to see glass on
the table here.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: I like to see glass on the
table. Actually, I probably would have passed
a comment that I didn't want to sit down with
a plastic bottle.
You know, there's more water used through
plastic, and the waste that it creates or
the environmental impacts.
So we change all those habit. We looked all
on our energy, water consumption things.
And there was a checklist of about 200 something.
And we still have not completed the correction
or behavior in that regards.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Do you have another idea
in mind or are you going to stick with this
one?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Well, this one is a big
one. You know, I truly believe that water
is probably the most important environmental
or humanitarian issue to address. It is at
the center of every -- if you look biodiversity,
the situation of women in the world, children,
education, health, you -- you see water at
the center of every of those aspects. So I
think water is a very, very important issue.
If we address water first, we'll probably
be able to set a very strong base for the
evolution of other aspects of philanthropy
or humanitarian things. And plus I probably
think the next crisis of humanitarian crisis
we'll face if we don't take care of is water.
There's global warming coming in. The first
impact is towards water. Look what's going
on in the planet. So for me, it's clear.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Is that 25-year commitment
important? Do you think it's important to
stick to something?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: I think it's important to
have long-term commitment to things. It's
not a question of being fashionable.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Water's pretty fashionable
right now.
>>Guy LalibertŽ: It is, it is. Actually,
I'm very happy to see that water is kind of
raising, because when you look all those summits
of global warming, it's been very, very difficult
to put water on the agenda, actually. There's
many, many other subjects that have been treated,
integrated in the agenda, but water has not
been pointed first as a priority. And I believe
it's a priority.
And why the long-term commitment in terms
of for people to integrate things? Because
it's really with deep work that you arrive
to things. If you just do a gesture of signing
a check for feel-good things, I just think
it's not enough. You need to -- much more
solid commitment, and long-term commitment
is very, very important.
Like I believe that new startup companies
in these days have to integrate in their business
model --
>>Chrystia Freeland: Even before they've started
to make money?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: I think it has to be part
of --
>>Chrystia Freeland: Just because journalists
will say nice things about you or --
>>Guy LalibertŽ: No, no, no. I think this
is something. And I'm a work in progress myself.
Cirque du Soleil is a work in progress by
itself.
You know, we're learning things. I wish that
I could have done it before we started with
Cirque du Soleil. Actually, we almost did
it. But, you know, when you look again what's
going on around, there is change in terms
of what -- how we do business that have to
take place. I don't have all the answer. I
don't pretend I have all the answers. But
I certainly know one thing is the integration
in new startup company in terms of -- in the
mission and the values of a company of philanthropy
is very, very important.
How the details to apply it, I don't have
all the recipe. I'm not Mr. Magic. I'm just
a little -- I believe I'm just trying to take
care of my garden, my small garden. I don't
pretend I'm capable of changing the world.
But I certainly know after 50 years now that
my garden looks nice. And if it could inspire
other people to do a nice garden, perfect.
This is where I am standing now. I'm not raising
any flag, taking any hammer and hitting on
anybody's head. I prefer to try to touch the
heart of people. And I believe that emotion,
and if you touch them to the heart, it stays
longer than if you take a hammer and bang
on the head of somebody. This is how I am.
>>Chrystia Freeland: Okay. Those are some
pretty good metaphors there. And I thought
you would be pushing more on the side of magic
than the nice garden, that we should all admire,
but --
>>Guy LalibertŽ: I'm pretty grounded, too.
I guess this is the topic of where we are.
If you want to talk about fantasy, artistic,
yes. But I don't think this is the --
>>Chrystia Freeland: Fantasy is for the stage,
gardens are for your philanthropy?
>>Guy LalibertŽ: Yeah.
