Madam Speaker, I am sorry the member for Avalon was just getting started. I was just getting intrigued. I was going to compliment him on his tie and attire, but time will fly right by. The member was much gentler than our colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore earlier today. He was very calm in his approach.
The member is absolutely right. There is a brand new initiative coming in, a $1 million a year program. Details will be coming out within days or weeks, I am not sure exactly when.
The reason this is considered an important initiative at this time is that we have had a lot of comments and correspondence from organizations and groups across the country saying that they really appreciate the fact that the existing program has repaired some thousands of monuments that were damaged or hurt in some way or aged because of the length of time they have been up.
As the member knows, the committee is in place. It is a good committee, chaired by a former parliamentary secretary as a matter of fact, and it has done a lot of good work.
People are saying they would like an opportunity to see brand new memorials to reflect some of the newer issues, newer challenges, newer veterans, et cetera. The minister came forward and said that we really should have a separate initiative to deal with that. The existing restoration group has done a phenomenal job; there is no question about that. These are veterans groups and so on that are represented so I would expect we would see a lot of similarity in approach. I expect the same kind of success should take place on behalf of the people of Canada.
I am not sure where the member would have gone next with his comments or questions as we did not hear them. I know from his questions and comments at committee that he certainly is very interested in the process and in the initiative. I hope we will get a chance to exchange comments in more detail in the coming weeks when the initiative has actually started.
I am not going to go any further because I do not want to go over my time.
It really is an example of good ideas coming in a non-partisan way and working well. I look forward to the start of this initiative.