Mr. Speaker, I thank both the hon. member for North Island-Powell River and the member for Halton-Peel. This has actually been a very good discussion.
In my previous job as mayor of the city of Owen Sound we tried to get a centre for the performing arts. It was very difficult. On the one hand we had to have a balanced business approach and on the other hand we were looking at visionaries, idealists and artists, and artists are not necessarily business people.
Let us try to imagine a world without artists. Somebody had to dream or imagine many of the things we do in life whether it is the CN Tower or the Corvette car we drive. Sometimes dreamers or imaginers do not know anything about money and sometimes they do make mistakes. The government is trying to find a medium through Bill C-31 to encourage the arts in Canada.
We are rather unique in Canada in our proximity to the United States and with the competitiveness from there. All of us are aware of what happens in Universal City. We know the Japanese are taking large chunks of it. It is a very clean industry. It is a great industry. It is a growing industry. It is an industry that Canadians could be proud of, with the quite recent ACTRA awards. As the hon. member for Halton-Peel has said, we have good film makers and a lot of producers coming to Canada. We have an environment in major cities, as mentioned before, for this kind of climate.
Notwithstanding it is not going to be perfect, knowing the groups at work here. The hon. member from the Reform Party talked about the business part of it and the hon. member for Halton-Peel talked about the artistic part of it. Somehow we have to merge those two parts. People have to take risks. Sometimes they bomb. Sometimes it takes years for things to happen, but we need these people and we need to encourage them. I am certainly glad we on this side are trying to promote that kind of climate.
I know there have been boondoggles in the past. There will probably always be, but hopefully we can cut out the loopholes and have a climate to create work for our people, expression for our people and growth for our country as the great country we know it to be.