Mr. Speaker, television is our most powerful communications tool. Canadians watch it at least 24 hours a week but what they watch is what is in abundance, American programming.
Canadians deserve Canadian programming. The renewal of the Canada television and cable production fund will go a long way to achieve this end.
The fund represents a uniquely successful partnership of public and private funding. It couples government and cable industry contributed moneys to increase the presence of high quality Canadian programming.
Last year the fund supported 376 projects and employed over 19,000 Canadians, with direct and indirect economic benefits estimated at $525 million.
A fine example of this was the Avro Arrow mini-series which was produced by two of my constituents. It was written by Keith Leckie and co-produced by Marie Young-Leckie. This show has now been sold throughout the world.
The renewal of the fund represents not only the government's commitment to Canadian television, but also recognizes the positive economic impact of Canada's arts industry.