Hedy certainly hit the nail on the head when she explained a little bit about how I love the arts and culture. I mentioned at the announcement with the Prime Minister, in Toronto, that when I was a child I never wanted to go to university. I had it in mind that I was going to save up my money and become an actress. Of course, instead I went to university and got involved with student politics and took a different route in my life. So when the Prime Minister asked me to take over the job at Canadian Heritage, it was as though all the things that I had worked for in life, all the things that I had loved, all the things that I had cherished, were under one roof and I could actually help move them forward.
Today is really a culmination of a journey.
And not just my journey, but the journey of the Government, the journey of the arts community, the journey of a country that I believe is at the forefront of what it really means to respect cultural diversity. We talk a lot about cultural diversity, about respect for various languages and cultures, but what is important is our ability to tell our stories to our young people. The investment of 600 million dollars in culture announced by the Prime Minister has already had an impact that I am very pleased about. It has launched a national debate about the place of arts and culture in our country and about what role government should play in the arts. On one side of the debate there are those who say that government should have no role, that the market should be the only predictor of who gets to tell their stories.