Of course, that is true. I come from Nova Scotia, and my family is Acadian.
It's only been quite recently that the expulsion of the Acadians has been actually recognized. These are our stories--the stories of the Acadians, the stories of the franco-Ontarians, and the stories of Whitehorse in the Yukon. This is who we are. This is how we identify ourselves.
We also are a multicultural country, with people coming in with wonderful stories from where their roots lie, and that is also part of who we are.
Unfortunately, we are a large geographic country. We cover an extremely broad expanse of land, yet we are bordered by an extremely large population density that also speaks English. It puts Canada in a unique situation in the world, in that we have a large producer of English language content, which is the primary language in Canada, that we are constantly in combat with, yet if you were to go to the States and talk to people at various festivals, you would find that Canadian books, whether from a francophone like Antonine Maillet or Gabrielle Roy or from Margaret Atwood, are in great demand. We are recognized for our uniqueness in our culture, yet we do have an extremely difficult challenge with this broad-based country to the south of us.
In addition to that, we have won extreme awards internationally. We have three writers right now in for the Man Booker award. We are recognized abroad, and we need to continue to invest into our acknowledgments abroad, which will generate new revenue into Canada as well as allow us to share in our own culture.