Ms. Bourget, Mr. Jean, Mr. Racine, thank you for being here today.
Obviously I'm very excited about this, but I also have a few concerns. I see a lot of similarities between the preparations for the 150th celebration and the 2010 Olympics. In both cases, there would obviously be a huge amount of patriotic support and funding from various levels of government.
While this is great, of course, we found that in Vancouver this funding was often diverted from other sources, such as health care, education, and especially the arts. In the buildup to the 2010 games, the BC Arts Council saw its budget slashed by 82%. The 150th anniversary offers us an opportunity to celebrate Canadian arts and culture in a way that we haven't seen since the centennial celebrations, and I believe it's very important to capitalize on this opportunity to celebrate and to promote Canadian artists and musicians.
Can you talk about what safeguards are in place to ensure that funding for the anniversary celebration is not diverted from arts programs, as it was during the Olympics?