Let me stress again that I love talking about artists. We know that artists, arts, culture and our country's heritage affect all of us because they are part of our identity. In addition, our economy benefits from those industries. Those three industries inject almost $50 billion into the economy. That's wonderful. In addition, they employ 640,000 people. We will therefore continue to support them.
However, for that to have an impact outside our borders, we need help. The Canada Council has a program to help them in that sense. As you know, we give about $181 million every year to the Canada Council.
Our government is very proud of that. Actually, Canada is the only country of the G7 that did not reduce the direct assistance to artists during the recession. That is a credit to our Prime Minister, who is the only government leader to be able to say that.
In addition, when I travel, I see Canadian books, Canadian films and our artists who have a presence abroad. We are all proud of them.