Canadian Heritage committee  I want to say that the board believes that as well. It's certainly not just a management perspective. We've spent hours and hours going over the plan. We understand the choices that have been made and we're very supportive of them.

Canadian Heritage committee  Just to add to that, the reason we're having this conversation with this committee is that it is a cultural industry. I think it's absolutely crucial that everybody understand that the rules that are set here today and applied by the minister are rules that are part of an enormously complicated fabric of structures that support Canadian cultural industries, and when you pick apart one little part and say “foreign ownership is not such a bad thing for cultural industries and let's just not pay attention to it”, you unwind that fabric.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think if Canada were the country of ownership that was controlling the rights at Miramax, that was controlling the rights at MGM, whatever company they were, that would be an enormous benefit to Canada, because clearly those are very powerful rights in the international marketplace, and if a Canadian company goes out with those products to sell as well as its own, the packaging of those two assets together makes the Canadian company much stronger.

Canadian Heritage committee  Hard to tell.

Canadian Heritage committee  May I add to that? I really think you're right in saying that the net benefit test is what the Investment Canada Act and Heritage Canada have to deal with, and I think that there is an obvious comparison to be made here. Sometimes people talk about things such as supporting film festivals or internships or those kinds of things; they're all very nice to do, but I think it's important to remember that Lionsgate has produced $800 million worth of film and television in this country.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'd just like to add that as the board of directors, we obviously had to consider the plan that management brought to us, and the board of directors is completely supportive of the plan. So we as a board--and it's primarily Canadians on that board--believe it's a strong plan for the future of Lionsgate.