Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think it's a question of credibility. It's not credible for a Prime Minister and for this member opposite, Mr. Del Mastro, to suggest over and over that their legislation was successfully passed through the parliamentary session that ended in June and then, three months later, when Parliament is not sitting, to say that Parliament is dysfunctional and we have to ditch a piece of legislation that was implemented by this government.
So I think it's about credibility. But let me get back to the question of the arts. That's also a matter of credibility. You will recall that over the years the party opposite and its predecessor, the Reform Party, frequently made a point of calling for withdrawal of the federal government from the arts sector. You will recall that it was in the party platform of some of the members opposite that the CBC should be privatized, that it should be sold. When they saw that this didn't fly with the Canadian public, they compromised and said that only CBC Television should be sold and we would keep CBC Radio. Then, when they saw that didn't fly, they said they would lay off the CBC for a while but they wouldn't pay much heed to the report that this committee worked so hard on and released in June or May.
So it's a question of credibility. I'm glad my colleague Andy Scott took the time to travel from Fredericton to be here today and share his corporate memory with us. I'm pleased he reminded us that when the Liberal government had to deal with the massive deficit—$42 billion—left by a previous Conservative government, the party opposite thought we were moving too slow on arts cuts. I didn't know that, and I thank the member for bringing it up.
Mr. Del Mastro said that life is about change, that the world is always changing. I thank him for that platitude. I've heard it said that the government loves heritage—it's living art that it's afraid of, because that can be subversive. We've seen the government's reaction with Bill C-10.
Juxtaposed with all of these previous statements is a kind of Orwellian dialogue. They strike a “stand up for Canada” pose, while devolving as much as possible. There used to be a time when an MP like me could promote a municipal infrastructure project at the federal level. The federal government had some say as a third party in these expenditure plans. But the federal government is washing its hands of that and not taking its responsibility.
So we stand up for Canada while we devolve responsibility. We say, in that typical Orwellian fashion, that dismantling a program is not a cut. We're just redistributing. If we're redistributing, let's see what we're redistributing towards. Yes, festivals are important. Absolutely, they're important. We remember that the opposition was pushing the government hard to fund festivals in Quebec and elsewhere. They're important, but so is sending artists abroad who represent the cutting edge in art. That's important too.
But I remember that when we were in government, every time a contingent of artists went abroad the Conservative opposition was quite upset. It was a wasteful expenditure. How dare we send artists abroad, maybe put them up in a hotel, and let them visit a Canadian embassy somewhere. That was a scandal at the time. I sat on the government operations committee and watched the Conservative Party attack attempts to send artists abroad to showcase Canada. It wasn't a good idea then. Today they say, “Well, we're not so against touring programs”, yet they cut them.
I remember, Mr. Chair--and I believe you were an elected member then--when we dealt with the second phase of copyright reform. I wasn't a member myself; I was an assistant to the chair of the committee at the time, you will recall. The Conservative Party wasn't in favour of neighbouring rights, if I recall correctly. The big push at the time was to bring in neighbouring rights so the royalties would flow not only to creators or writers of music, but performers. I remember that the Conservative opposition was against that.
Speaking of copyright, as we all know, the Conservative government is committed to seeing that bill dealt with in the industry committee, not in the committee that is most concerned about arts and culture in this Parliament.