Thank you.
Congratulations on your ascension to the throne. It's terrific.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to echo what you've just said. Having had the privilege of becoming the parliamentary secretary, I've taken the time now to visit seven of the local institutions relating to archives, libraries, art galleries, and museums. At all seven they have specific challenges. The challenge for the government—no matter which government it is—is that we're talking about literally billions of dollars that are required. When you put that—which is a reality either for capital costs, or they have some serious issues in terms of running costs....
I was at the Museum of Nature this morning and had a tour of the construction site there. The government came up with an additional $48.3 million, which is a substantial amount of money. We have these countless millions of dollars where the case can be made in each one of these institutions, and they want us to come and to see. But we then take a look at the fact that there are 2,500 museums and such organizations in the constituencies outside of the national capital region—that's 2,500. We're not talking about billions; we're not talking about $48 million; we're talking about their getting $9 million—for 2,500 museums.
I think getting an idea of what the needs are firsthand.... Probably of all of the places I've been to, the one that was most impressive for its technology was the archives in Gatineau. It's a gigantic building—you're not going to believe it—a humongous vault inside a building with air circulating. It's really space-age stuff.
These are all things we could learn about in this period of time that would equip us better when we're taking a look at museums per se, but also in light of the fact that we're talking about millions and billions of dollars versus $9 million for the 2,500 museums.
So I agree with you completely. However, the one the minister asked me to gently suggest to the committee—this committee is master of its own destiny, and we deeply respect that—is that there has been a certificate of nomination for a Mr. Robert Sirman as director of the Canada Council for the Arts. The Canada Council has been operating now for a long period of time with only a couple of directors, and this is a very urgent nomination that will expire on June 16.
It is up to the committee to go through the process to ratify this nomination, and it's gently suggested that it might be the first order of business, so that we can help the Canada Council by getting this appointment either accepted or rejected in order to get on with business.