Jane Buss has one of the sharpest minds and loudest voices of anybody I've ever met.
These are impressive people, and we don't really do very much to thank our writers. Ms. Ablonczy mentioned that she reads. We all read. We appreciate writers when we read, but we really don't do that much legislatively or even individually. We go looking in the bargain basements to buy a five-dollar book instead of buying it at full price. That's how it is.
But the writers have made such an impact. My father was a premier of Nova Scotia and a mayor. If you were to ask him at the end of his life, as we did, what were among his favourite accomplishments, one of the ones he was most proud of was starting the Atlantic book and writing awards and getting to work with writers, understanding the passion they have for what they do, the passion they have for their country and their province, and how they put it into words.
We don't do very much for writers, so I take these very seriously. I think there are some very good points.
Having given that preamble--the chair will tell me it took four minutes--I have three quick questions. First, what is the average income of the writers in your union? Second, do you have a specific level of funding you would recommend for the Canada Council for the Arts?
Following up on Ms. Ablonczy's question, I'm not sure I heard exactly how many writers--not the other workers, though they are important--were affected by bankruptcies in the publishing industry. Did you get those?