Madam Speaker, I am going to cut right to the chase on my question now.
My point was that this new program will now be at the purview of the minister. He alone will make the decisions. That is what he said in committee and confirmed here in the House.
Rather than have the minister make this program political, I would encourage the government to let the existing independent committee allocate the funding.
Why will the parliamentary secretary and the minister not commit to let the committee handle the requests for new war memorials? It is set up and ready to go. The criteria would probably be very similar. I am glad to hear we are moving forward with this.
Will the government allow the committee to select the requests for funding with respect to the $1 million over the next two years? If not, why not? It would make the process totally non-partisan so that war memorials would not be political decisions of a minister, and we know that would happen.