Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I wanted to echo Mr. BĂ©langer's comments regarding the Young Canada Works program. My daughter applied to the local museum. I'm assuming they received funding, or are anticipating funding through that. In the end, because there was no definitive word as to a start date, she took a different job, not at all involved with museums or heritage. My fear is that not only are students missing out on the financial benefit and subsidizing their education and expanding their knowledge, but we're also losing out on some of our best and brightest students by plugging them in close to two months after their summer break starts.
In terms of my question, following up on what Mr. Angus focused on, support for the smaller museums, local museums across the country, my concern has been that most of the capital funding, certainly most of the operational funding, at the federal level is focused on our national institutions you've listed in your schedule. I sense local museums are hurting; they're struggling. I'm not sure we're doing enough. I'm not suggesting we throw money at them, but I want to focus on one specific aspect of the budget just recently passed, where we provided specific tax relief for donations made to arts, cultural, and heritage institutions, among others. I fear this special benefit is going to benefit, for the most part, the national institutions and not the smaller museums. We're talking about tax credits and tax benefits arising out of the transfer of listed securities. My guess is most local museums aren't going to be able to take advantage of that or aren't attractive enough to someone who's going to give that kind of benefit.
Is your department looking at ways of strengthening local museums across the country, giving them some hope that we're seriously interested in preserving that aspect of our culture in addition to the national cultural aspects?