Mr. Speaker, what the hon. member for Peterborough has just said is a clear demonstration of his lack of understanding of the arts and artists. Helping festivals is not the way to provide direct help to artists. Inaugurating the Canada Prizes , about which he is bursting with such pride, will not give our artists here anything.
A study last week reported that our artists were indeed very poor. They barely manage to earn $22,000 a year on average. The minister tells us he has injected $25 million into a fund for artists who will come from countries the world over. What we were asking of the minister was not money for artists from abroad, but money for our artists to allow them to go abroad. Clearly, the minister understood nothing at all.