I have an entire binder here that I carry with me of investments we've made almost exclusively in festival funding, broken down by province. We're making these kinds of investments because advertising revenue has dropped dramatically. It's down anywhere from 25% to 50% and in some cases 60% for a lot of these festivals. These advertising revenues are key for these events to go forward.
At a time when we have economic uncertainty--at all times, but particularly now--whether you're in the centre, the left, or the right, it doesn't matter what party you're from, the job of every member of Parliament is to make decisions that improve the quality of life of Canadians. That's our job. We can disagree about how we get there and do that--and that's what these forums are for--but our job is to improve the quality of life of Canadians.
I don't think there can be much debate about the fact that local community events improve the quality of life of Canadians. I think about where I'm from. You spoke about some of the experiences you have in your district. I think about the Golden Spike Days festival in Port Moody, which celebrates the final spike driven in the CP railway when Canada expanded west. We have the old station museum there, and every summer on Canada Day and two days after there's an amazing community event. It has grown into a huge community event that is all about kids and supporting Canadian pride. It's right around Canada Day on purpose, with the spike, as you can imagine.
They are having a problem getting sponsorship for their event and getting those moneys coming in. Booths are getting smaller and smaller. About one-third or one-quarter of the booths are from industry groups or community groups. They establish booths to tell people about how they service the community. Rogers might do some face-painting, or Telus might paint the face of a child while they tell their parents about their very important cellphone program. It goes with it, and that's fine, but these kinds of things are being pulled back.
We want these festivals to go ahead, so we've put forward $100 million over two years so these festivals can continue to go forward and be saved. It's really important for Canadians to know that when there is a failure in the economy to support these kinds of events with advertising revenue, our government is stepping into the breach to support them, because they're really important for Canadians.