Mr. Speaker, from local festivals to our country's biggest tourist attractions, the arts play a vital role in enriching the lives of all Canadians.
University—Rosedale houses pillars of the arts like the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gardiner Museum. Our writers and artists are hard at work: Mother Maggie Helwig won the prestigious Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for her incredible book Encampment; the King of Spain personally presented Margaret Atwood the Joan Margarit prize for her poetry at Victoria University; Clementine Dempsey-Hall has been shortlisted for a youth short story award; Tafelmusik honoured the work of women baroque composers; and the Heliconian Club, a local women's art association, is celebrating the 150th anniversary of its hall.
I am so grateful for the role they and all artists play in our communities.