Mr. Chairman, I too want to congratulate you.
There are a number of items the committee will have to address.
The museum policy you brought up is something the previous government was working on and had pretty well concluded, so if there's a will from the current government to fund it, that could move forward quite rapidly.
There are other issues that have been precipitated by the government's actions that this committee might want to pay some attention to. I'll get to those, but I had hoped that we could deal with one, or ask our clerk to look at obtaining information to deal with one issue, perhaps as early as Thursday, Mr. Chairman. Of course, we're in the hands of the committee here.
On June 11 to 14, the Banff World Television Festival will occur in Alberta. It will be, as it always is, the gathering place for a lot of the people who make television and film happen in this country--the institutions, producers, and you name it. I was hoping that the committee might entertain going to the Banff festival, and I'm putting forward a request to that effect, that all members go. It would be a tremendous way for us to interact with representatives of all facets of that industry.
This is perhaps the item that will be most preoccupying some of us: the government's intention to review the CBC mandate. For instance, how it goes about doing it, when it goes about doing it, is something that interests me and interests our party, for sure, and I would imagine it interests members of the other parties of this committee. I would think that this is something we would want to address on a priority basis, as well. Certainly there's the appointment, or the review of the appointment, of the CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts.There's also a board of the NAC that has lapsed, and I gather that the gentleman who is occupying the seat was not asked to continue. He could have, but he was not asked, so there's a vacancy there, as well. There may also be a series of vacancies on a series of boards of commissions that we may want to have a list of, for instance.
Finally, there's the entire matter that's being speculated upon by the government of a review of the television industry. How the government will go about doing that and who it would ask to do that is of concern, and I would like that to be addressed. Other members of the committee, as well, would want that addressed rather early in the mandate and not have it wait for fall.
These are some of the issues. There is the whole situation of Telefilm Canada. Its MOU is up. There's a report that the minister has been sitting on now for a number of weeks. Where is it? When can we expect that?
There are a few issues, and I'm glad that you asked for a list by Thursday. I would hope that we could deal with the Banff matter on Thursday.