Thank you all for being here today.
Quite frankly, I find it a national shame that we don't have a national rail museum in Canada, especially given the fundamental importance of the railway in creating Canada in the first place.
Mr. Johnson, I thought your quiz was very apropos. I didn't know that nine provinces had a railway clause—all provinces except Manitoba.
I think it's also a national shame that part of our heritage is rotting away—how we shall I say—under the elements.
First, regarding this point about the museum assistance program, Mr. Heard, it seems to me that railway museums in Canada should be outside of the scope of MAP in a way, because the National Art Gallery is outside of the scope of MAP, as far as I understand, and so is the Canadian Aviation Museum.
In some ways, you're being too modest in your demands. You shouldn't be saying, oh, please, give us a few hundreds of thousands of dollars here and there every now and then through MAP. I think we should have some dedicated funding for a national railway museum infrastructure in Canada.
But going back to MAP, Mr. Heard, you mentioned that you think funding should be administered by an arm's-length body like the Canada Council, which is a point Mr. Abbott more or less raised in debate in the House earlier this week, although he said his idea was more about items and gifts donated by Canadians to museums. Why do you think we need an arm's-length body like the Canada Council?
I understand why the Canada Council has to be at arm's length; it's the same reason the CBC has to be at arm's length. These fields of art are often dealing with cutting-edge ideas that can be controversial and challenge political orthodoxies, and we don't want the government meddling and influencing their decisions one way or another. But when we talk about rail museums, we're not talking about the most radical form of cultural expression. We're talking about managing—and I don't mean this in an inelegant way—a park of heritage assets. So why do you think we need an independent body to make those decisions?