Thank you.
Of course when I speak about copyrights and protecting the products of artists against theft really, obviously that's support for the arts. That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about how we support arts, promote arts, and ultimately this government's support for arts and culture. I understood that's what we were here to talk about today. Certainly copyright protection is critically important to our arts and culture sectors in Canada. That's why our government feels very passionately that we need to protect and balance that.
As I indicated, Mr. Chair, we have a great story to tell on this. The last thing I would want to do is attempt to run and hide from that story. I'd be happy to hear from witnesses. I've got a lot of witnesses I'd like to call, because a lot of people have been the beneficiaries of this government's investments into the arts. Frankly, as I said, we've got a great story to tell on this.
Ms. Nash indicated she'd like to hear some witnesses; I'd like to hear them as well. I'd be very happy to hear from the minister, because again I think we have a great story to tell. We've made an awful lot of key investments. We continue to move this file forward, and we are reaching broader audiences than Canadian artists have ever reached before. Canadian artists are expanding their footprint globally. We see more and more Canadian artists making a very substantial impact on the world stage. Furthermore, I believe we also have a reawakening of Canadian pride in this country, and that's because key investments are allowing artists to reach Canadians in a very profound way. I'm very proud of that.
As I said, I look forward to having people in to talk about these key investments made by this government, the 8% increase we've made into arts and culture. I'd invite people to come in so we can talk about how this is benefiting them.
And obviously the support we've had from the Bloc Québécois in getting our first two budgets passed so we could deal with the fiscal imbalance and flow more money to artists to support Quebec and the support we had from the Liberals on the last budget has enabled us to be able to make these key investments.
Thank you.