Mr. Speaker, World Theatre Day is celebrated on March 27 around the globe.
World Theatre Day is meant to honour and further UNESCO's goal of celebrating the power of theatre as an indispensable bridge-builder for international understanding and peace.
Theatre promotes and protects cultural diversity and identity throughout the world. Theatre reflects life; it speaks of love, passion, joy, anger, pain, and death. It can elevate us and inform us.
In Vancouver we have 70 vibrant theatre companies, including the Arts Club, Bard on the Beach, Carousel, Pacific Theatre, and Frederic Wood at UBC.
We need theatre. We need theatre that challenges us, opens us to diversity, and takes us to places we would never go.
I am proud our government is restoring and adding funding to the performing arts across Canada. Let us make every day World Theatre Day. Canadians should attend a performance in their communities.