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December 2005  

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Liberal Party of Canada

Liberal Party Commitment to the Arts

In the knowledge economy, cultural jobs are growing faster than other jobs, and they are more highly skilled jobs. Cultural participation forms our creativity, enriches our citizenship and nourishes our spirit.

The Liberal Party believes that arts and culture must be integrated into our lives and communities to make sure that as Canadians we can see and access our cultural products. In today's increasingly borderless world, it's more important than ever that we make sure our children have the opportunity to see reflections of their lives, their realities, and their stories, when they open a book, switch on the television, buy a CD, or surf the Internet.

For this reason, the Liberal Government is proud of its commitment to Arts and Heritage. In 2001, it launched the largest investment in Canadian culture: Tomorrow Starts Today. This $560 million initiative focused on ensuring the long-term sustainability of arts and heritage organizations, creating Canadian digital content on the Internet; strengthening our publishing and sound recording programs, increasing our cultural exports and supporting the branding of Canadian culture abroad. The success of Tomorrow Starts Today motivated its extension in 2004-05 and 2005-06, providing an additional $207 million and $192 million, in order to continue encouraging the creation of Canadian content that reflects the diversity of Canadian society.

The Liberal government is committed to providing predictable levels of funding for Canada's growing arts community. For this reason, Budget 2005 further extends $172 million of new funding per year for another four years. This brings total new funding for Tomorrow Starts Today to $860 million over the next five years. This multi-year investment will help cultivate a vibrant and creative cultural life in communities across the country that reflects Canada's multicultural society and promotes a diversity of views and cultural expressions at home and abroad.

In addition to Tomorrow Starts Today, the Liberal government has taken further steps to entrench our commitment to the arts and culture sector.

A Liberal government is committed to:

• Ensuring that the policies of key cultural institutions such as Telefilm, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Television Fund have the funding a support necessary to meet the objective of producing more successful Canadian programming of all genres; and,
• Providing, through the Canada Council, increased support for Canada's major arts organizations in order to more effectively enable the latter to export Canadian cultural excellence