Indeed, many Montreal and Canadian arts companies travel worldwide. I'm thinking of dance companies and children's theatre companies who are very successful internationally. In order to ensure their survival, they have to generate autonomous income and they also obtain an important part of this by touring internationally. Like other companies that export, they need support to travel and tour in different countries and areas, both in Canada and abroad.
As you know, in the past two years, the cultural community has been subjected to a reduction in certain export support programs. That's why we would like to see this export support restored and even increased since in the past 50 years, through its cultural policies, Canada has greatly stimulated the creation and development of artists of international calibre who open a lot of doors within various territories. Even in terms of cultural diplomacy, we can develop markets. Whether we're talking about our large companies, Édouard Lock, Marie Chouinard, Cirque du Soleil, etc., when all these people tour, business people are very interested in presenting them to their future clients. Therefore, they do participate in the development of other economic sectors. So it's very important to pursue this, especially since our artists are invited to other countries. We must also establish a reciprocity program in order to invite foreign artists to Canada so that international exchanges can continue. Some day, we're going to have trouble touring abroad if we don't maintain well-oiled relationships among these various territories.