Finance committee  Very quickly, I will just point out that the Conference Board in 2007 identified the economic footprint of cultural industries in Canada as over $86 billion. It represents 7.4% of the gross national product.

Finance committee  I'm Rodger Touchie, the president of the Association of Canadian Publishers. The association is the national voice of Canada’s independent English language book publishers, who produce the vast majority of books by Canadian authors. We represent 134 Canadian-owned and -operated businesses from across the country.